just got off the phone with my university friend. His daughter was diagnosed with leukemia in March. He has insurance. Good insurance. The kind you feel safe having. 5 months later: Savings wiped out. 401k: cashed early. Penalties and all. House: refinanced to cover the gaps insurance decided weren't their problem. He told me he's not the same person anymore. Said watching your child fight for her life while simultaneously fighting an insurance company over coverage codes does something to you that doesn't go away. They did everything right. Two incomes. No debt. Responsible their whole lives. One diagnosis all of it in 7 months. And somewhere a health insurance CEO is getting $35 million bonus this quarter. I don't know how people defend this system with a straight face. i really don't.

Sep 7, 2026 · 1:51 PM UTC

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Replying to @skumWgmi
Anyone middle class is one disastrous event from financial ruin and it’s delusional to pretend otherwise. Without a strong social safety net we’re all just rolling the dice every day for 60 or 70 years and hoping we don’t crap out.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
It's why Republicans have quit trying to kill "Obamacare." When they couldn't do that, they instead subverted it into the same system of predatory capitalist exploitation as before.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Predatory insurance system destroying families. Prayers to the family.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
I live in the UK. Got leukemia 8yrs ago. I spent 6 months in hospital. Previous to that I had Transverse Mylitus & after hospital a rehab centre for 6 weeks to learn to walk. Not only was it all free my gov give me a car & extra money to help with my disability. US need to change
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Replying to @skumWgmi
The US is the only wealthy nation on earth without universal healthcare. 66% of American voters want universal healthcare. 0% of Republican lawmakers want universal healthcare. Vote out to every Republican Nov. 3 and your health insurance premium falls to $0.00/mo.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Sorry, but either he or you are lying. Full stop. Every single health plan has an annual out of pocket maximum. If your friend had a good, “safe” insurance, that insurance likely had an out of pocket maximum of under $4,000 for the entire year. I’ll say he has crappy insurance and has a $10,000 out of pocket max just for arguments sake. So unless your friend has less than $10k in his 401(k) in savings, you are lying. That’s not even pointing out that the health insurance companies actually operate on razor thin margins.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
If that’s true, name the company and provider.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
That is truly heartbreaking. It highlights how broken the system is for even the most prepared.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
my daughter has cancer - had hysterectomy, getting chemo to be followed by radiation - cost: zero - universal with no premiums paid for everyone out of taxes - why Americans aren't doing general strike, marching in the streets, I don't understand
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Childhood leukemia trends up with increased vaccinations. When they inject your child, they are planting a cash crop to be harvested later. 💉🤑
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Replying to @skumWgmi
I used to work in a drug rehab center, and I’d have to call for insurance authorization. I’d have a client who had OD’d three times in a month be approved for only three days of treatment by Insurance. 10 years of heroin addiction cured in 3 days? Highly unlikely. It made me realize insurance companies do not care about human lives at all. I quit because it was too depressing.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
That’s heartbreaking. No parent should have to fight an insurance company while their child is fighting for her life.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Since this doesn’t happen to most families our politicians can continue the scam the US healthcare system has become. This should be the most important political debate
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Replying to @skumWgmi
People need to stop participating in it It doesn’t want you to be well anyway! The next increase, and I’m cancelling mine.
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Replying to @skumWgmi @JeannieGiering
I went through this with my sister who was the office manager at a large clinic, familiar with all the of medical coding and would still be on the phone in tears. She lost her home, vehicle and savings even though she had “Cadillac insurance” She moved in with myself and my husband before passing away 10-years ago.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Didn't do everything right. Wiped out accounts that wouldn't have been taken in a Bankruptcy. Not going to lose the retirement and the primary residence. Fuck the hospitals and insurers. Cancer should just be a bankruptcy and they can eat it. We need to collapse the system not support it.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Happened to me, lost job health insur, 401k to a bout with cancer. 20 yrs later cancer free living on SS and Medicare struggling to buy food, gas and and paying rent. Sometimes feel like I’d have been better off if it had killed me! More dignity in that.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
IMO the health care system in the US is designed to maximize profit for the health care companies and staff and the insurance companies.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Time to get rid of them all together. It makes no sense to have a for profit middle man (whose sole responsibility is to increase share value) in healthcare. Single payer (or some form) like every other rich country
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Replying to @skumWgmi
I’m in Australia. My partner has mesothelioma. He’s getting specialist consults, immunotherapy and support. We pay $5 a visit for parking. The government now pays more rebates for other medical services for us. Be like Australia
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Replying to @skumWgmi
i honestly think the only way we can change the system today is to simply stop getting insurance and feeding this corrupt system until it completely implodes on itself and we can rebuild it again from the ground up. i know it sounds crazy, but imagine if throughout your lifetime, you put the same amount we pay for monthly insurance (which today can easily be $500/mo for a shitty high-deductible plan) into your own HYSA for a future emergency. you won't have to deal with this giant fraud machine, and you can also negotiate a cash deal with hospitals where both parties win.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Something else people forget about is that the price of hospitalization, docs, meds, etc are not the total picture. For the family there’s lost wages, paying for sitters, paying for meals when you can’t cook, transportation, etc. These are all things we can help with as friends and neighbors but too often it slips my mind.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
I hope this is a legit post and not a waste of time. Any decent hospital billing department should have people to help manage costs and sign you up for charity or cancer foundation help. There are all kinds of helpful organizations put there. I know because I'm going through treatments right now for leukemia (CLL). Its several infusions at $56k a pop, then pills (2k a month ) for a year. They worked a deal between my insurance and the manufacturer of the medicine and I didnt pay a dime over my deductible, which they also helped with. I really can recommend Cleveland Clinic. Awesome staff.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Federal government needs to re-establish the law that Pres. Nixon had ended prohibiting insurance companies from making a profit off people's suffering. And you can only do that once you remove the politicians from House & Senate who gets rich while 'serving' the people.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Keep calling us Europeans socialists while we enjoy our high standards of living. We do not mind. It’s you who suffer.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Welcome to Obamacare.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
All insurances has a maximum out of pocket, between 5k to 20k. After the patient pays that, everything is 100% covered by insurance. Hospitals, meds, surgeries, all. Something is not right with your story. He either didn’t have insurance but a health share program- that can drop you when it becomes very expensive or 10k bankrupted them- which is unlikely.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Thank Obamacare and the result we warned you about. Obamacare caused by design huge consolidations in the health insurance industry, wiping out many smaller insurance companies and private medical practices in favor of the big conglomerates...less choice.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Definitely a broken system for sure. Our insurance , @aboutkp essentially chalked me up to a walking corpse and refused to pay a dime toward any outside treatment / testing (of which they cannot and do not offer themselves) because they say they can treat me till the day I die, in 6-12 months with "standard of care" that they themselves admit will do nothing to save my life but might give me a few more months and for that, outside help isn't deemed necessary for them to pay for. It's evil.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
That's the for-profit health industry. Almost everywhere else-- certainly the rest of the "industrialized" world-- that can't happen b/c there's no profit motive b/c healthcare is a not-for-profit social service.
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Replying to @skumWgmi
So sorry for the young woman & her family. Private health insurance/healthcare is a con. Everyone needs free, universal, comprehensive, publicly provided healthcare no matter where they are. That's the sign of a good civilised society & a govt which puts its people first
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Replying to @skumWgmi
I hate this. You can be pro capitalism, and anti this and people immediately assume you’re socialists. The lives were in these days
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Replying to @skumWgmi
There has to be at least 2-3 brass balled Luigis a year for this corrupt system to heal I lost faith in this country in 2008 when the banksters were elevated and not charged every American is a capitalist until the pain hits their family and they become communist right away
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Replying to @skumWgmi
Every single story is “some guy I know” all over the country. And every single one is some son stor. Are you really not seeing it yet??
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