These articles are always presented as if this is uplifting, and many articles alike in that old place /r/UpliftingNews, but this is horrifying every time. Don't just be happy you could go to the...
These articles are always presented as if this is uplifting, and many articles alike in that old place /r/UpliftingNews, but this is horrifying every time.
Don't just be happy you could go to the doctor for free that one time, be angry you can't do that all the time.
On the one hand: Welcome to the civilised word, USA. On the other: How is there so often surprise about this? Do Americans not know anything about the rest of the world? Why are these things...
On the one hand: Welcome to the civilised word, USA.
On the other: How is there so often surprise about this? Do Americans not know anything about the rest of the world? Why are these things accepted, even though most of Europe proves it’s quite possible?
I think most Americans index this idea against other "government-provided services" (e.g. the DMV) and conclude that their taxes would go up and their health care quality would go down as a...
I think most Americans index this idea against other "government-provided services" (e.g. the DMV) and conclude that their taxes would go up and their health care quality would go down as a result. Not saying it's right or wrong for people to think that: just pointing out that they do.
It's not just a conclusion people come to on their own, either, although I guess it's possible some do come to it independently. It's a specific propaganda line that gets disseminated by those who...
It's not just a conclusion people come to on their own, either, although I guess it's possible some do come to it independently. It's a specific propaganda line that gets disseminated by those who stand to profit from keeping healthcare for profit.
Someone once said "If you are a progressive and care about things like this (e.g. universal healthcare) the most effective thing you can advocate for is improving the experience with the DMV and...
Someone once said "If you are a progressive and care about things like this (e.g. universal healthcare) the most effective thing you can advocate for is improving the experience with the DMV and IRS".
Because that models what 90 percent of people think of when they imagine what the government can or will do. I've been reading some books lately like "Recoding America" that make this point in not so many words.
Canadian here. I'm not going to do the song and dance of pretending our healthcare system is rainbows and roses right now, but on the topic of government services: Every time I've had to interact...
Canadian here. I'm not going to do the song and dance of pretending our healthcare system is rainbows and roses right now, but on the topic of government services:
Every time I've had to interact with the CRA (canada's version of the IRS), they've been very helpful and friendly. The CRA website goes to great lengths to explain taxes to regular people, and provides a lot of useful examples. My impression has long been that the CRA just wants people to pay their taxes, seems quite willing to help them get there. Truthfully, I've messed up my taxes/filed late, and I've never been penalized (beyond needing to pay any tax balance owning).
I recently had the displeasure of having to read up on some American taxes... what a miserable, stressful experience. A lot of what I read on IRS website felt like it was geared toward professionals who could interpret complex tax laws, and not regular people trying to keep on the right side of things. I don't consider myself an unintelligent person, but what a headache.
The tone of IRS materials also put me constantly on edge, and left me feeling that if someone messed something up on taxes, be prepared to pay fine after fine. My personal experience with the CRA has always been - just pay up any difference (potentially with a little interest depending on how late you are); it's a valid strategy to simply overpay taxes before the due date, and then file with the CRA when convenient.
I acknowledge my comparison isn't entirely fair: I've had a lifetime of familiarity with the CRA vs. none with the IRS. But the tones of the respective online materials alone can go a long way in providing people an impression of being there to help people meet a civic duty vs. demanding compliance or else.
I’ve heard that if you actually call the IRS on the phone for tax help, they can be quite helpful. Haven’t tried it, though. The complexity of US tax law is not the fault of the IRS; they don’t...
I’ve heard that if you actually call the IRS on the phone for tax help, they can be quite helpful. Haven’t tried it, though.
The complexity of US tax law is not the fault of the IRS; they don’t make the rules.
I've had to call the IRS a couple times and each time they've been ludicrously helpful and accommodating. That said, there is an obvious need for more agents. My wait time was measured in hours....
I've had to call the IRS a couple times and each time they've been ludicrously helpful and accommodating. That said, there is an obvious need for more agents. My wait time was measured in hours.
If you have to call the IRS, the one piece of advice I can offer is this: realize the agent isn't at fault for any of this and treat them like a normal person. If you're the one person not yelling at them that day, they will move heaven and earth to help you with your issue.
Same in Canada in terms of wait time / getting through to an agent. Reading the replies to my original comment, I'm feeling like perhaps there's more weight to my caveat at the end (being familiar...
Same in Canada in terms of wait time / getting through to an agent.
Reading the replies to my original comment, I'm feeling like perhaps there's more weight to my caveat at the end (being familiar with CRA and unfamiliar with the IRS) than I had originally assumed :)
That's actually how most people do taxes in the US, although it's such a default thing that they often don't even realize that's what they're doing. The form is just set up so most people end up...
it's a valid strategy to simply overpay taxes before the due date, and then file with the CRA when convenient.
That's actually how most people do taxes in the US, although it's such a default thing that they often don't even realize that's what they're doing. The form is just set up so most people end up overpaying and getting the excess back after they file their taxes. A good chunk of excess, too. People tend to use it as an excuse to buy some appliance they've been holding off on getting.
That said, they changed it a while back so the default withholding was closer to what you owe for a larger chunk of the population (read: lower middle class people are more likely to end up having a bill instead of a refund now, when it used to be more of an upper middle class and rich people thing), and every year someone I know ends up shocked that they either owe money or are getting a pretty pathetic return. I had to pay something silly like $2 one year because it was that close to exact, when it used to be more normal to get hundreds to low thousands back from the government.
The government does this for us in Norway. We have "holiday pay" and "no income tax" in June, and "half income tax" in December. What actually happens is we are paying slightly more throughout the...
overpaying and getting the excess back after they file their taxes. A good chunk of excess, too. People tend to use it as an excuse to buy some appliance they've been holding off on getting.
The government does this for us in Norway.
We have "holiday pay" and "no income tax" in June, and "half income tax" in December.
What actually happens is we are paying slightly more throughout the year to cover for this so that we can have an extra chunk of money without budgeting for it in time for summertime, and to make it easier to make ends meet and celebrate during Christmas time.
I haven't heard many people complain about this. Not even people that are well equipped to manage their own finances and make more money on putting that towards stocks or other high yield investments.
You're right, I see a pretty heavy stream of articles coming out speaking about the collapse of healthcare in Canada and the UK especially. Complaints about excessive wait time, etc. all ignoring...
You're right, I see a pretty heavy stream of articles coming out speaking about the collapse of healthcare in Canada and the UK especially. Complaints about excessive wait time, etc. all ignoring that the U.S. also has all of the same issues at multiples of the cost.
Also a lot of horror stories about wait times. Not sure how valid they are (plus I'd rather wait a bit longer for free healthcare than not be able to afford it at all...) but that's one of the big...
Also a lot of horror stories about wait times. Not sure how valid they are (plus I'd rather wait a bit longer for free healthcare than not be able to afford it at all...) but that's one of the big things I hear opponents talk about.
Wait times are also awful in the U.S. I waited 6 months for an endoscopy to confirm Celiac disease which required me to keep eating gluten the entire time. The wait-list was about a year but I got...
Wait times are also awful in the U.S. I waited 6 months for an endoscopy to confirm Celiac disease which required me to keep eating gluten the entire time. The wait-list was about a year but I got lucky and someone cancelled.
I waited 8 months for a sleep apnea diagnosis and titration. Don't get me started on the reluctance of PCPs to order diagnostic tests and refer to specialists, I suspected Celiac 3 years before I actually started waiting for the endoscopy, but my PCP ordered only 1 of 3 tests they should have ordered, told me I didn't have it, and sent me on my way.
U.S. healthcare already sucks, too. Universal healthcare likely won't make any great change to that, it'll just make it universally covered.
In my experience, DMV wait times are very bad first thing in the morning. People start lining up in the parking lot well before the DMV opens, and it takes a long time for employees to process...
In my experience, DMV wait times are very bad first thing in the morning. People start lining up in the parking lot well before the DMV opens, and it takes a long time for employees to process everyone in line. But once the employees get through the morning rush, it's basically crickets for the rest of the day. If you show up just an hour or two after the DMV opens — or at any other point thereafter — you'll be processed right away. (At least this is the case for the DMVs I have been to; maybe it's different in some places.)
I think a big part of it is a runaway psychological effect. When people have to wait in these long lines, they assume it's because they showed up too late (hardly anyone considers the possibility that they showed up too early), so everyone tries to correct for that and they just keep showing up earlier and earlier. An entire days' worth of people are lining up an hour or more before the DMV opens — which means an extra hour or more is getting tacked onto the average wait time for basically no reason.
It's like daily Black Friday, except stupider — because it's not like there is a product that is going to run out. Everyone will get processed. Indeed, an entire days' workload usually gets processed within a couple hours of opening; total resources are far in excess of total need. (Again, I am just speaking for the DMVs that I have frequented. DMVs are under the purview of local jurisdictions, not the federal government, so it may vary from place to place.)
They're not accepted, they're handed down by decree. Health insurance is one of the biggest weapons in a company's arsenal against employees. If Americans had a choice (and moving out of country...
They're not accepted, they're handed down by decree. Health insurance is one of the biggest weapons in a company's arsenal against employees. If Americans had a choice (and moving out of country is, for most, not an option) the majority would want universal healthcare.
It’s quite easy to imagine that the US would screw it up even though other countries do it well, so comparisons to other countries’ experiences aren’t as persuasive as you might think.
It’s quite easy to imagine that the US would screw it up even though other countries do it well, so comparisons to other countries’ experiences aren’t as persuasive as you might think.
I think a country that can coordinate 2 simultaneous overseas wars and 800+ military bases abroad is probably the most well equipped for this kind of challenge. I look forward to the day our NHS...
I think a country that can coordinate 2 simultaneous overseas wars and 800+ military bases abroad is probably the most well equipped for this kind of challenge.
I look forward to the day our NHS can compete with and learn lessons from a similar system over there. Everyone but special interests wins.
I haven't seen the "it's great but we'd fuck it up" line of argument before. I usually see "it's awful there I want to keep my doctor" often indirectly followed by "doctors suck, here's how I got...
I haven't seen the "it's great but we'd fuck it up" line of argument before. I usually see "it's awful there I want to keep my doctor" often indirectly followed by "doctors suck, here's how I got screwed by something universal healthcare would cover."
Sometimes it's "Medicare sucks so why would I want that" too.
On a totally unrelated note, the si.com website is absolute trash. I read the story and once I scrolled to the bottom, it changed the URL in the address bar to the one for the next story even...
On a totally unrelated note, the si.com website is absolute trash. I read the story and once I scrolled to the bottom, it changed the URL in the address bar to the one for the next story even though I didn't even see it. So I copied the URL from my address bar to share with a friend and shared the wrong story. To make matters worse, when you scroll back up it doesn't change the URL back.
Garbage.
Edit: Also come on US. Get with the fucking times and fix our shitacular healthcare system. Compared to the rest of the so-called civilized world healthcare in America is basically like a never ending version of "Mad Max: Thunderdome"
This is part of the reason why I browse with NoScript. It either fixes "features" like these or breaks the site which leads me to think whether the content is worthy enough for disabling NoScript.
This is part of the reason why I browse with NoScript. It either fixes "features" like these or breaks the site which leads me to think whether the content is worthy enough for disabling NoScript.
These articles are always presented as if this is uplifting, and many articles alike in that old place /r/UpliftingNews, but this is horrifying every time.
Don't just be happy you could go to the doctor for free that one time, be angry you can't do that all the time.
On the one hand: Welcome to the civilised word, USA.
On the other: How is there so often surprise about this? Do Americans not know anything about the rest of the world? Why are these things accepted, even though most of Europe proves it’s quite possible?
I think most Americans index this idea against other "government-provided services" (e.g. the DMV) and conclude that their taxes would go up and their health care quality would go down as a result. Not saying it's right or wrong for people to think that: just pointing out that they do.
It's not just a conclusion people come to on their own, either, although I guess it's possible some do come to it independently. It's a specific propaganda line that gets disseminated by those who stand to profit from keeping healthcare for profit.
Someone once said "If you are a progressive and care about things like this (e.g. universal healthcare) the most effective thing you can advocate for is improving the experience with the DMV and IRS".
Because that models what 90 percent of people think of when they imagine what the government can or will do. I've been reading some books lately like "Recoding America" that make this point in not so many words.
Canadian here. I'm not going to do the song and dance of pretending our healthcare system is rainbows and roses right now, but on the topic of government services:
Every time I've had to interact with the CRA (canada's version of the IRS), they've been very helpful and friendly. The CRA website goes to great lengths to explain taxes to regular people, and provides a lot of useful examples. My impression has long been that the CRA just wants people to pay their taxes, seems quite willing to help them get there. Truthfully, I've messed up my taxes/filed late, and I've never been penalized (beyond needing to pay any tax balance owning).
I recently had the displeasure of having to read up on some American taxes... what a miserable, stressful experience. A lot of what I read on IRS website felt like it was geared toward professionals who could interpret complex tax laws, and not regular people trying to keep on the right side of things. I don't consider myself an unintelligent person, but what a headache.
The tone of IRS materials also put me constantly on edge, and left me feeling that if someone messed something up on taxes, be prepared to pay fine after fine. My personal experience with the CRA has always been - just pay up any difference (potentially with a little interest depending on how late you are); it's a valid strategy to simply overpay taxes before the due date, and then file with the CRA when convenient.
I acknowledge my comparison isn't entirely fair: I've had a lifetime of familiarity with the CRA vs. none with the IRS. But the tones of the respective online materials alone can go a long way in providing people an impression of being there to help people meet a civic duty vs. demanding compliance or else.
I’ve heard that if you actually call the IRS on the phone for tax help, they can be quite helpful. Haven’t tried it, though.
The complexity of US tax law is not the fault of the IRS; they don’t make the rules.
I've had to call the IRS a couple times and each time they've been ludicrously helpful and accommodating. That said, there is an obvious need for more agents. My wait time was measured in hours.
If you have to call the IRS, the one piece of advice I can offer is this: realize the agent isn't at fault for any of this and treat them like a normal person. If you're the one person not yelling at them that day, they will move heaven and earth to help you with your issue.
Same in Canada in terms of wait time / getting through to an agent.
Reading the replies to my original comment, I'm feeling like perhaps there's more weight to my caveat at the end (being familiar with CRA and unfamiliar with the IRS) than I had originally assumed :)
I don't know if you called this year, but this one of the main focuses of the current IRS chief.
That's actually how most people do taxes in the US, although it's such a default thing that they often don't even realize that's what they're doing. The form is just set up so most people end up overpaying and getting the excess back after they file their taxes. A good chunk of excess, too. People tend to use it as an excuse to buy some appliance they've been holding off on getting.
That said, they changed it a while back so the default withholding was closer to what you owe for a larger chunk of the population (read: lower middle class people are more likely to end up having a bill instead of a refund now, when it used to be more of an upper middle class and rich people thing), and every year someone I know ends up shocked that they either owe money or are getting a pretty pathetic return. I had to pay something silly like $2 one year because it was that close to exact, when it used to be more normal to get hundreds to low thousands back from the government.
The government does this for us in Norway.
We have "holiday pay" and "no income tax" in June, and "half income tax" in December.
What actually happens is we are paying slightly more throughout the year to cover for this so that we can have an extra chunk of money without budgeting for it in time for summertime, and to make it easier to make ends meet and celebrate during Christmas time.
I haven't heard many people complain about this. Not even people that are well equipped to manage their own finances and make more money on putting that towards stocks or other high yield investments.
You're right, I see a pretty heavy stream of articles coming out speaking about the collapse of healthcare in Canada and the UK especially. Complaints about excessive wait time, etc. all ignoring that the U.S. also has all of the same issues at multiples of the cost.
Also a lot of horror stories about wait times. Not sure how valid they are (plus I'd rather wait a bit longer for free healthcare than not be able to afford it at all...) but that's one of the big things I hear opponents talk about.
Wait times are also awful in the U.S. I waited 6 months for an endoscopy to confirm Celiac disease which required me to keep eating gluten the entire time. The wait-list was about a year but I got lucky and someone cancelled.
I waited 8 months for a sleep apnea diagnosis and titration. Don't get me started on the reluctance of PCPs to order diagnostic tests and refer to specialists, I suspected Celiac 3 years before I actually started waiting for the endoscopy, but my PCP ordered only 1 of 3 tests they should have ordered, told me I didn't have it, and sent me on my way.
U.S. healthcare already sucks, too. Universal healthcare likely won't make any great change to that, it'll just make it universally covered.
In my experience, DMV wait times are very bad first thing in the morning. People start lining up in the parking lot well before the DMV opens, and it takes a long time for employees to process everyone in line. But once the employees get through the morning rush, it's basically crickets for the rest of the day. If you show up just an hour or two after the DMV opens — or at any other point thereafter — you'll be processed right away. (At least this is the case for the DMVs I have been to; maybe it's different in some places.)
I think a big part of it is a runaway psychological effect. When people have to wait in these long lines, they assume it's because they showed up too late (hardly anyone considers the possibility that they showed up too early), so everyone tries to correct for that and they just keep showing up earlier and earlier. An entire days' worth of people are lining up an hour or more before the DMV opens — which means an extra hour or more is getting tacked onto the average wait time for basically no reason.
It's like daily Black Friday, except stupider — because it's not like there is a product that is going to run out. Everyone will get processed. Indeed, an entire days' workload usually gets processed within a couple hours of opening; total resources are far in excess of total need. (Again, I am just speaking for the DMVs that I have frequented. DMVs are under the purview of local jurisdictions, not the federal government, so it may vary from place to place.)
They're not accepted, they're handed down by decree. Health insurance is one of the biggest weapons in a company's arsenal against employees. If Americans had a choice (and moving out of country is, for most, not an option) the majority would want universal healthcare.
It’s quite easy to imagine that the US would screw it up even though other countries do it well, so comparisons to other countries’ experiences aren’t as persuasive as you might think.
I think a country that can coordinate 2 simultaneous overseas wars and 800+ military bases abroad is probably the most well equipped for this kind of challenge.
I look forward to the day our NHS can compete with and learn lessons from a similar system over there. Everyone but special interests wins.
I haven't seen the "it's great but we'd fuck it up" line of argument before. I usually see "it's awful there I want to keep my doctor" often indirectly followed by "doctors suck, here's how I got screwed by something universal healthcare would cover."
Sometimes it's "Medicare sucks so why would I want that" too.
On a totally unrelated note, the si.com website is absolute trash. I read the story and once I scrolled to the bottom, it changed the URL in the address bar to the one for the next story even though I didn't even see it. So I copied the URL from my address bar to share with a friend and shared the wrong story. To make matters worse, when you scroll back up it doesn't change the URL back.
Garbage.
Edit: Also come on US. Get with the fucking times and fix our shitacular healthcare system. Compared to the rest of the so-called civilized world healthcare in America is basically like a never ending version of "Mad Max: Thunderdome"
Sports Illustrated was caught using AI-written articles earlier this year. It's a trash outlet that's a shadow of what it used to be.
This is part of the reason why I browse with NoScript. It either fixes "features" like these or breaks the site which leads me to think whether the content is worthy enough for disabling NoScript.