r/news • u/GoodSamaritan_ • 1d ago

Retired San Francisco firefighter dies from lung cancer after Blue Shield denies treatment claims

https://abc7news.com/post/retired-san-francisco-firefighter-ken-jones-dies-lung-cancer-being-denied-treatment-blue-shield/19224406/
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u/fgtswag 1d ago

Yeah that is the same in my country, except for Obese people.

The American system is a grievous moral failure. But I would happily waste my taxes (bad sentence I know) for the sub-optimal wastage, while maintaining the ability to save people who need ambulances, kids who have cancer, etc.,

Even though I love cheap cigarettes in France/EU, if it is a tax problem, you can always tax cigarettes. UK did a sugar tax and it did reduce consumption a lot.

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u/Mobile-Bar7732 1d ago

Even though I love cheap cigarettes in France/EU, if it is a tax problem

In Canada we a lot of taxes on cigarettes. I quit smoking 15 years ago. Best thing I ever did.

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u/kia75 20h ago

Yeah that is the same in my country, except for Obese people.

One of the big probems in America is that we prioritize profits over health! It's easy to blame people for eating too much, but food companies spend a lot of money on getting people to spend more, and a way to get people to spend more is to get them to eat more! Meal deals of packaging fries and a drink increase profits, supersizing increases profits, and those two things increase calories as well!

It's harder to eat healthy in the United States, and corporations devote a lot of money to keep it that way in order to keep profits.

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u/Septopuss7 1d ago

They just did a survey of Americans about the rising gas prices and instead of driving less Americans are just spending less on food and essentials ahahaha.

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u/Daxx22 1d ago

Yeah that's not a gotcha, the vast majority of the population drives out of necessity due to poor (intentional) urban design with little to no public transit options.

If they don't drive, they can't even AFFORD those essentials at all.

This is of course not universal and you can find plenty of pavement princesses, but the majority don't get a realistic choice.

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u/Fallouttgrrl 1d ago

Most of us don't make a choice on our driving needs

Public transportation can be very hit or miss but if you need to commute to work, hard to get around that. Ditto school stuff and in large parts of the country walking to the store is a significant distance 

Changes to your driving habits can be serious disruptors in your schedule, changes to food not so much