• Vanth@reddthat.comEnglish
      43·
      13 days ago

      ☝️ recently got a covid test that based on all my research beforehand, it should have been covered except for $10 I would pay.

      Jokes on me, it actually cost me $200 they charged to my credit card two weeks later. I didn’t even get to know the price at the time I needed medical care.

      Sometimes other countries make fun of America for things they don’t understand. Not on this one, America deserves every bit of mocking it gets for it’s medical coverage atrocity.

    • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
      3·
      12 days ago

      I’m in the middle of trying to get a fairly expensive surgery.

      If I had insurance, I would need to pay about $15,000 (between premiums, copays, annual deductible, coinsurance, and out of pocket maximums) with the only insurance available to me through my workplace before anything would be covered. So it’s not really worthwhile, right? Well, the surgery I need–around here–gets quotes of as much as $89,000. The most recent quote that I have is around $18,000. Keep in mind that the surgery takes about an hour, is a surgeon, one OR nurse assisting, and an anesthesiologist. The fee for the surgeon and nurse is about $5000, and the facility takes about $10,000. In the case of surgery in a hospital–rather than an ambulatory surgical center (ACS0—it’s even worse. With the same surgeon and OR nurse at an ACS, I had a quote of $16,300; at a hospital the quote was $49,000. The surgeon and nurse get the same fee regardless, which means that the hospital charged >$30,000.

      …And good fucking luck getting a lot of places to give you prices at all, even though DHHS has mandated pricing transparency. Even if you know exactly what CPT billing codes are going to be used, it can be days of back and forth before you can get a price. If you need shit fixed NOW, you’re just going to be stuck with whatever they charge.

    • BertramDitore@lemm.eeEnglish
      32·
      13 days ago

      Donziger’s story is heartbreaking and infuriating, and I’m continually disappointed that so few people are familiar with his story and what the courts did to him. It’s one of the clearest examples of judicial corruption and the power and benefits that are afforded to corporations and almost never extended to the people fighting for what’s right and just.

    • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz
      15·
      12 days ago

      In June 2022, a federal appeals court affirmed Donziger’s criminal contempt conviction. In March 2023, the Supreme Court declined to hear further appeals.

      I’m shocked.

    • Crotaro@beehaw.org
      3·
      12 days ago

      Yep, learned about this just yesterday from the YouTube channel BoyBoy who covered the situation quite well and had a lovely interview with Steven (as lovely as such a depressing topic can be)

  • whaleross@lemmy.world
    70·
    13 days ago

    Here in Sweden we currently have the problem that hospitals are understaffed and keeping wages of nurses so low that a lot of nurses quit and leave the others with an even crazier workload so the hospitals buy nurses semi permanently from temp agencies that cost multiple times more and the rental nurses have better pay and agreements of overtime and such. We had a well functioning health care but then the privatisation of everything and selling out communally owned services to private profit making schemes since the 90s. Because our government has been dominated by right wing market liberals and “sossehöger” - social democrats that jump on right wing populism to stay in power when they can rather than being consistent in left wing ideals.

    Fucking end the market liberal experiment already. “The market solves all problems” - yeah, of it’s own interest which is how to squeeze out more profits regardless the how and how low it stoops.

      • whaleross@lemmy.world
        30·
        13 days ago

        It’s been the strategy of the right wing here since forever - get in power sell out as much they can (and for some unfathomable reason for discount prices), fuck things up in general, leave it to a left wing government to salvage what can be saved while blaming them for public service being garbage so they can motivate selling out more when they have power again. It’s a mix of blind idealists and profiteering scum that are in liaison with the right wing nationalist party with former nazi connections and obviously the Christian democrat leader that models the party according to the republicans is the most buddy-buddy with the fringe right.

        And the populist right wing of course romanticises about the good days when everyone had housing and was safe and provided and so on - that was built solely by the left and the right wing fought them every step of the way and that they have since then torn down. Blatant lies and disinformation all the way.

        But it is what people vote for. We get the societal break down we deserve.

        • Gbagginsthe3rd@aussie.zone
          5·
          12 days ago

          Whoa, I thought that just Australia was following American economics. The descent into privatisation on everything. I guess there are greedy and ignorant people everywhere. For some reason knowing Sweden is also going down the neoliberal toilet it makes me feel better and I dont know why. I guess its a feeling of inevitability.

          Reminds me of John Stewart stating that to combat vested interest takes energy and effort every single day.

          There are so many groups taking advantage of our overworked lives combined with the over abundance of useless information that distracts us from the real issues that impacts us. Its very difficult to know how and where to direct our energy. Of course thats my view as a social/environmental person. However, if you love the conservative/neoliberal view of the world. Then congratulations, things must seem pretty great right now.

        • im sorry i broke the code@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          11 days ago

          Same happens in Italy. It’s probable the govt will collapse before 2027 and they won’t campaign as much for the new elections, so the new govt will be blamed for all the problems these fuckers caused

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      12 days ago

      EVERY instance of ‘public-private’ healthcare goes that route, touted as the wave of the future and a seamless melding of public interest and delicious capitalist pork, and then every single one of them gets drunk on the cash and goes toxic like this.

      It’s happening to Canada too. And France. And London.

  • LalSalaamComrade@lemmy.mlEnglish
    47·
    13 days ago

    Microloans, also called microfinances. Very popular in developing countries in South Asia, and also the same thing that is responsible for the suicide epidemic of farmers in India. With high interest rates and fixed time-period constraints, they’re the most cruel and fucked up things to ever exist, they’re worse than indentured serfdom.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
      39·
      13 days ago

      Sounds like ‘pay day loans’ in the US.

      Back in the day, a loan shark was a criminal who charged an outrageous 20% interest for money. Working class folks were at the mercy of these “six-for-fivers.”

      Ronald Reagan became President and now established banks could charge 35% or more.

        • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
          14·
          13 days ago

          Yeah, a factory worker would get $5 and pay back $6 the next week. That was a terrible crime. Then Reagan deregulated the banks and it became business as usual.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
      17·
      13 days ago

      To be fair, usury is much older plague than capitalism, but it’s been one of capitalism roots, and capitalism cranked it up incredibly.

    • Phineaz@feddit.org
      15·
      13 days ago

      I’d like to add that there are good versions of “microloans”! I learned that there used to be (or still are, didn’t check) non-profit " banks" in some parts of India (and South africa I think) that would give out small loans of a few dollars to a few hundred dollars (which can be quite a lot of money in India). There was no collateral and low interest, but a group of people had to apply for a loan together. Until the first loan was paid back, the rest of the group couldn’t apply again. It was meant to provide financial backing and capital to microbusinesses (e.g. fishers, farmers, peddlers) that would otherwise be excluded from the financial market due to a lack of collateral and otherwise be forced to take high-interest loans.

      • LalSalaamComrade@lemmy.ml
        61·
        13 days ago

        SHGs (which is what you’re talking about, also called SBLP in some places) are not a majority, their lenders/borrowers are often people within the same marginalized group, and it is very slow, so people tend to avoid them. MFIs dominate the microloan industry, and they’re very exploitative.

        • Phineaz@feddit.org
          4·
          13 days ago

          Thanks for the info! I didn’t think they were widespread, but figured they might be a bit wholesome and would light up this thread :)

  • fart_pickle@lemmy.world
    36·
    13 days ago

    I cannot find the exact quote but it was something like “If you don’t grow, you’re dying”. This is the source of all enshittification. Companies are being forced by VCs to increase revenue every year to meet unreasonable revenue goals just to satisfy a handful of investors.

  • piyuv@lemmy.world
    397·
    13 days ago

    “Vote with your wallet” means more money gets you more votes.

    Some users leaving Reddit/instagram/twitter is not a problem, especially considering network effects, but some advertisers leaving is a crisis.

    • fart_pickle@lemmy.world
      204·
      13 days ago

      I think you misinterpreted the phrase. “Vote with your wallet” means that if you’re unhappy with a product/service, you stop using/paying for it.

      • piyuv@lemmy.world
        123·
        13 days ago

        So long as the capital markets were willing to continue funding loss-making future monopolists, your neighbors were going to make the choice to shop “the wrong way.” As small, local businesses lost those customers, the costs they had to charge to make up the difference would go up, making it harder and harder for you to afford to shop “the right way.”

        https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/12/give-me-convenience/

        Food for your thought.

        • fart_pickle@lemmy.world
          93·
          13 days ago

          Again, I think you are misinterpreting the phrase. The quote you provided proves it. If you’re not happy about the “right way” of buying things you can buy elsewhere, aka “vote with a wallet”. The phrase means that you pay for a product/service you are comfortable with. For example, if Amazon offers a great deal on something you’d like like to buy and the price is, let’s say, 30% lower than a regular retail price, voting with a wallet would mean that you ignore the Amazon’s deal and buy directly from a merchant.

          • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
            3·
            13 days ago

            Are you purposefully missing the point? If the greater market is uninformed and buying inferior offering; soon that is all that will be available.

            • fart_pickle@lemmy.world
              54·
              13 days ago

              I have, but the moment I got to the Napster Wars part I realised that the article is nothing more than the “eat the rich” rant. I despise the music labels and all the crap that happened in late 90s but it’s not an excuse to go “over the law” just because you think the law is bad. I know, there were many implications of piracy that shaped the current landscape of music industry but still, just because you don’t agree with the existing law, it doesn’t mean you should “work” around it.

              Again, if you’re unhappy with record label, vote with your wallet and buy from the independent ones. The more people to vote with the wallet (in the way you misunderstood) the less power major companies will have.

              • Porcupine@lemmy.mlEnglish
                3·
                13 days ago

                it’s not an excuse to go “over the law” just because you think the law is bad… but still, just because you don’t agree with the existing law, it doesn’t mean you should “work” around it.

                Then what’s a good reason to go around the law? It’d be pointless to go around a law you do agree with.

      • Porcupine@lemmy.mlEnglish
        81·
        13 days ago

        “Vote with your wallet” means more money gets you more votes.

        This is the basic idea of capitalism. The more capital you have, the more say you have in directing the meas of production.

        Some people have so much capital, they can singlehandedly decide that thousands of people are going to work on some space launch company, for example.

    • im sorry i broke the code@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      11 days ago

      The users down here trying to teach you what it means while you know it better than them lmao.

      “Vote with your wallet” doesn’t mean “if you don’t like it don’t buy it” but if that you don’t like the new iteration of the product reason you shouldn’t buy it, thus letting the company know it wasn’t good enough and they should do better. This premise is flawed because it sounds like some democratic shit, but the only ones who can vote with their wallet are the whales that actually have % on that sweet company revenue: for the average user there is no vote because to matter it would have to scale with other consumers. Something so far unachievable because for a tiny, “loud” minority there is the clueless majority.

  • superkret@feddit.org
    312·
    12 days ago

    Today I heard Meta has laid off workers because they brought their own food for lunch instead of buying it from the company cafeteria.

    • beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      10·
      12 days ago

      Well yes, but also no. Meta fired those folks because they were using their lunch stipend provided by meta for things other than lunch. Petty, given how much they were paying the employees, but almost certainly a breach of contract on the employee’s part.

      Meta is probably trying to do layoffs without paying layoff costs or taking the stock hit layoffs can cause. Which is still capitalist AF by any measure, lol. For fans of watching what kind of shit the oligarchy is trying now, Meta is definitely one to keep an eye on. Mark Zuckerberg has been moving very conservative very quickly lately.

      • Crotaro@beehaw.org
        2·
        12 days ago

        You see, I at least buy food from my lunch stipend, although it’s usually my grocery trip and not necessarily my lunch of the day. And I only get about 7€ lunch stipend per day, not >40€.

  • fckreddit@lemmy.ml
    28·
    13 days ago

    My boss once said to a group of new joinees including me," Eventually you will be able to afford subscription to all the streaming services."

  • kibiz0r@midwest.socialEnglish
    291·
    12 days ago

    A more recent example comes from the med-tech giant Abbott Labs, which used DMCA 1201 to suppress a tool that allowed people with diabetes to link their glucose monitors to their insulin pumps, in order to automatically calculate and administer doses of insulin in an “artificial pancreas.” -eff.org

    We joke about someday having to jailbreak our own organs, but we’re basically already there.

    An exoskeleton let a paralyzed man walk. Then its maker refused repairs.

    Doctors Remove Woman’s Brain Implant Against Her Will

  • Kwakigra@beehaw.org
    28·
    12 days ago

    Capitalists will say that it’s fine for an economy to have a few capitalists own all capital and all physical and intellectual property while common people are only allowed to rent it from the capitalists at whatever rate the capitalist pleases. However, capitalists will also say that the evil of socialism is that you won’t be allowed to own property. That’s the most capitalist thing I’m aware of.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
      7·
      12 days ago

      Yep, that’s why Marx is correct. Capitalism consolidates itself into large monopolist syndicates, removing the usefulness of Capitalists and eliminating competition, whereby Central Planning of public property becomes greatly more efficient.

      The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

      -Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party

      For more reading, Why Public Property? is a good article elaborating in modern lingo.

  • PumpkinDrama@reddthat.comOP
    303·
    13 days ago

    I once read that there are some states in the U.S. where firefighters don’t put out fires in houses that don’t pay a monthly subscription.

    • LrdThndr@lemmy.world
      35·
      13 days ago

      I live in an area with a subscription fire service.

      It’s not expensive - around $200/year. And if you don’t have a subscription they still come and put out your fire or cut you out of the car or whatever needs to be done. You just get a bill for $3000/hr/apparatus that responds.

      But I still find it abhorrent. Just put it in my fucking taxes and be done with it. Jesus.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
        18·
        13 days ago

        I live in an area with a subscription fire service.

        I thought the earlier guy was doing a joke. I knew that those were a thing in the 1800’s or something, but even today?

        You just get a bill for $3000/hr/apparatus that responds.

        That’s pretty insane. So basically the firemen and ambulances are too expensive for the average citizen to use, and if you happen to be black, you probably don’t want to call the cops either.

        Great services.

        Ameeerica, fuck yeah!

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
        13·
        13 days ago

        No no. Not “since”, but “in”.

        It genuinely shocked me those still exist in the states. That’s fucking insane.

        We have a somewhat different mentality about public safety here in Finland.

    • Crotaro@beehaw.org
      1·
      12 days ago

      Not sure about the modern equivalents to this, but in Rome (please correct if wrong) it used to be like that. Firefighters would only put out fires of houses that paid them and otherwise just stood there, watching.

      At least that’s what I read in one of those “did you know this about the ancient cultures?” articles and those aren’t always reliable either.

  • Crozekiel@lemmy.zipEnglish
    26·
    12 days ago

    Motorcycle airbag vests that will not work if you aren’t up-to-date on the subscription payments when you have a crash…

    • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
      4·
      12 days ago

      I mean, it kind of makes some sense. Part of what they’re doing is checking your location, speed, bearing, etc., and–IIRC–using cell signals for some of that. That’s bandwidth, and someone has to pay for it, even if it’s not very much. OTOH, Helite makes a vest that uses a tether, and that’s going to work well enough in most cases.

      I think that there might be some that have options to pay for it all up-front instead of having a subscription, but I’m not positive; I just rely on leather and Knox inserts.

      • Crozekiel@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        11 days ago

        I don’t have any direct info on how it works, but I would have assumed it could be done completely offline with some sort of accelerometers. But I am a Lay Person so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

        • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
          2·
          11 days ago

          Accelerometers don’t work that great with motorcycles; when you go into a hard turn, the accelerometer still thinks that you’re straight up, due to centripedal force. You’d actually need gyroscopes. (…Which is why adaptive headlights for motorcycles end up being so expensive, and why only BMW specs them, and only on one or two touring models.)

  • Meron35@lemmy.world
    23·
    12 days ago

    Hong Kong’s subway system offers fare discounts if you use the entrances/exits that require you to walk through a mall, as part of their monetisation of spaces required to access public services