Tears of incredulous, delirious laughter

[dolorosa_12]

Honestly, the depths to which we have sunken.


I have to say that I spend most of my days in a kind of fog of terror at the impending doom of US-style healthcare and workplace rights (i.e. nothing of the kind), waiting for the axe to fall on 12th December. There really isn't much to laugh about right now.

And yet...

When asked to participate in a televised leaders' debate about climate change, Boris Johnson refused, and instead sent his dad (yes, really), and Michael Gove. And he was promptly replaced on TV, therefore, with a melting ice sculpture.

You have to laugh, or else you'd do nothing but cry.


In happier news, in_a_peartree is open for requests. Check it out!





in_a_peartree

Comments

[author_by_night]

It's nuts that anyone thinks having our healthcare system is a good idea. Yes, the NHS seems to have its problems from what I've heard, but won't abandoning most government funding just make things worse for workers and patients?

[dolorosa_12]

I don't think any ordinary British people think the US healthcare system is good — it's more our right-wing politicians, who have been yearning to privatise the NHS for decades. They know it will make things worse for patients.

I've lived in three countries (Australia, the UK, and Germany) all with slightly different ways of paying for healthcare, but none bore any resemblance to the US one. There is absolutely nothing about the US system to recommend it. The unbelievable expense is obviously awful (and I work with, though not for, the NHS, so I actually know what most medical treatments actually cost — most things are in the hundreds of dollars, not five or six figures), but there are so many other nasty effects of a fully privatised, capitalistic healthcare system.

The dependence on private health insurance forces people to stay on in abusive or unpleasant workplaces because they're dependent on employer-funded health insurance. Or it forces people to remain in abusive family situations if they're relying on health insurance through their parents or spouse. And there seems to be an insane amount of logistics involved for patients. When I go to the doctor, dentist, or other healthcare specialist appointment in the UK, I simply make a booking (or, if it's a specialist, am referred on), show up, pay nothing (or, for the dentist, £18.50), and, if there's a prescription, I take it to any pharmacist, pay a miniscule amount of money (I think it's less than £10), and everything's sorted. If you have a chronic illness your prescriptions are entirely free and you can go to any pharmacist to collect them. My understanding in the US is that there's an immense amount of wrangling at every stage — checking if the specific doctor accepts your insurance, likewise pharmacists for prescriptions, and arguing with insurance providers over the phone about the bill. That would be bad enough for a one-off appointment — but if you have a chronic illness, disability, or life-threatening disease, it is obscene to force people to go through all that on top of dealing with their illness!

I am genuinely terrified of such a system taking root here, and it is beyond belief that more voters aren't terrified about this too.

[suncani]

The ice statues were a nice touch, the throwing of toys out of the pram and threatening to re-evaluate Channel 4's broadcasting licence less so. Between that the nonsense the BBC is daring to call news and the i being bought by the owner of the daily mail it's really not looking good for british media now and that's making me incredibly twitchy - among other things. I agree about the hysterical laughter, what else can you do?

[dolorosa_12]

Yeah, I agree with you. There's also been an insidious attack on the independence of the courts, which, coupled with the threats to the independence of the media, is incredibly frightening.

[suncani]

Agreed! Sometimes I do wonder whether I’m getting paranoid and actually it’s not that bad but evidence is all around us that it really is that bad. Balancing between healthy skepticism and where sources come from with a feeling of overwhelming dread is definitely getting harder

[wheatear]

I watched the climate change debate, it was quite interesting and I imagine a lot more cordial than if Johnson had been there. I can't imagine it's going to change anyone's vote though.

[dolorosa_12]

No, I don't actually think TV debates, interviews with Andrew Neil, or any of the other things journalists get worked up about change the minds of the average voters.

I didn't watch the climate change debate, but I can well imagine that it had a more constructive and cordial atmosphere without Johnson. That's actually how I want politics to be: collaborative, diplomatic, and encouraging compromise and people working together constructively. I think the emphasis on competition and confrontation that is such a feature of most political systems in the Anglophone world is extraordinarily damaging, and is in no small part responsible for the terrible mess we're in now.

[wheatear]

Agreed.

If it's any comfort, I don't think we'll be diving straight into a US-style healthcare system/reduction of workers' rights even if the Tories do win. I don't know. The future feels really difficult to predict right now.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh, I don't think it will happen overnight — it would be political suicide, even for the Tories, to make that kind of switch immediately. It will happen so slowly that people don't realise that it's happening, and by the time it's happened completely, people will be convinced that every incremental change, each individual privatisation and the effects it has on patients/workers is entirely reasonable and justifiable. That's what's so horrifying.

[wheatear]

It is a chilling thought. My hope is that the Tories would be ousted before they get very far with any of that, and we'll swing back to the left on the political pendulum. At some time we need to get some balance.

[trepkos]

Right there with you.

[dolorosa_12]

You keep thinking we've hit rock bottom, and then somehow we sink deeper.