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Comment by rob74 | Hacker News Reader

So, a 50 year old former "business manager in a government role" is now working as a delivery worker in Colombia, and the fact that the company gave him a loan for an e-bike (they didn't even provide it to him!) is listed as a "reason to be cheerful"?! I swear this is the most depressing thing I read this week so far, and that's something if you consider how depressing the news has been recently...

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This sounds like one of those stories in the US about a community crowdsourcing a ton of money for a little girl to get some life saving surgery that would be covered by socialized health care in almost any other country in the planet.

These stories are cheerful for capital.

To be fair, stories like this occur in countries with socialized healthcare. People often do come to the US for niche specialized healthcare that is cutting edge.

US healthcare is great for the wealthy and those who can afford it. It isn't great for everyone and in general ranks average or poor in some cases.

When someone criticizes US healthcare, they are almost always using "healthcare" to mean "the care that everyone receives on average" and not "the healthcare received by those with good insurance." Private jets fly from around the world to The Cleveland Clinic and The Mayo Clinic every day, but that's not what's at issue for most people.

They also aren't criticising the fact that the US funds most healthcare advancements that are then bought in bulk by socialised programmes once the hard work of discovery and validation is done, and raises the average for everyone.

Until Trump cancels the funding, at which point they suddenly remember it, but only in the context of Trump criticism.

And the routine care at sites like the Cleveland Clinic is often not particularly good even with good insurance. But they do have a lot of fancy specialists.

In Brazil the top private hospitals were full of people speaking in Spanish and English. Private care is only better if you pay out of pocket though, most people with private insurance in Brazil don't get to go to those hospitals.

This assuming you already have some idea what's going on.

I was turned away from any attempt at diagnosis, because neither facility seemed to know (or care) which department to send me to...

I was ready to sign a blank check - but they seemingly refuse to hurt their stats with potentially unsolvable cases...

Form a reply if you disagree...downvoting doesn't change the fact that even these top facilities end up embarrassing us as a nation...

I've known Canadians facing severe health issues who stay in the US because it's more affordable when you consider the higher wages.

That's not true for everyone, but I'm not talking about the super-rich either. Just plain middle class.

I have been through the healthcare systems of Brazil (private) and Sweden (public). I can say that private healthcare is only strictly better if you pay out of pocket, not through insurance.

Public healthcare is FAR more efficient though, I am always amazed how _fast_ doing exams in Sweden are. Like my doctor asked me to take an MRI, put it in the system, scheduled an appointment within a week for me automatically and I was in and out of an MRI clinic in 20 minutes (and I was attended to exactly on time of my appointment) all of that just using my ID card. Bloodwork is usually drop-in so I can just go directly from the doctor without an appointment.

In Brazil with private healthcare I would have to find the MRI clinic myself and see which one was covered by my insurance and try to get an appointment within a reasonable time (by calling multiple clinics). And when getting there I would probably have to wait at least an hour to actually get the MRI done. That is if insurance didn't contest the need for it in the first place. And god forbid I forget to bring the insurance paperwork with me.

Oh yeah, in Brazil I also need to personally go pickup the MRI and personally bring it to the doctor and do another visitation, while in Sweden it is all digital and the doctor just called me on the phone to tell me the results.

My father took ~4 months to schedule a life-saving cancer surgery, insurance kept contesting the surgery. My partners mother in Sweden had cancer surgery approved and done in less than 10 days.

Yes the care in Sweden is usually worse than in Brazil private. I wouldn't say it is so much about doctor quality, more about doctors feeling a bit rushed to see patients. But it is so much faster and easier. Usually you need fast care, not personalized care. And of course a lot of things are just not covered in the Swedish public system (for example some skincare problems) that could be covered in some private in Brazil.

The only thing better about the Brazilian clinics was that some of them had marble floor on the lobby while the Sweden ones usually had concrete floors or tiles.

Overall I prefer the Swedish system much better than the private Brazilian system.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OrphanCrushingMachine via https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/orphan-crushing-machine

Hah, as if a mere $20,000 would be enough to pause the machine for long enough to pull out 200 orphans.

This is PR slop for a startup. Their workers have no benefits or stability.

>So, a 50 year old former "business manager in a government role" is now working as a delivery worker in Colombia, and the fact that the company gave him a loan for an e-bike

Millions of venezuelan migrants are in a similar situation. It is not uncommon to see former university professors with PHDs, lawyers, engineers with decades of experience, etc. to find themselves in another country working as Uber drivers and other types of jobs. Having to migrate really fucking sucks especially if you are old. Consider yourself lucky if you live in a country that is politically and economically stable and you have some sort of net to support you when things don't work out for you.

It would be interesting to know how many of those old professors with PHDs, lawyers, engineers supported Hugo Chavez at the beginning.

This goes for European countries as well. Even well-educated people, from whatever country locals deem undesirable at that moment, in general do not get the chance to work in jobs that suit their education. Sometimes these people have benefited from taxpayer funded education in that host country, but the prevalent racist attitudes exclude them from even getting job interviews. E.g. Finland is losing lots of immigrants they have spent lots of money educating to this- not helped by the policies of the current government- people they need to stay in order to plug the plummeting birth rate are forced to leave the country because there is nothing there for them besides rejection after rejection, or jobs that do not match their education.

This tends to be a much lesser problem once the person's original country is in the EU, but yeah if you are coming from outside the EU it can be super tricky. Even professions that is desperate need like nursing and doctors can be hard because of the recertifications required.

Your glass is half empty.

Whatever it is is better than the same thing with loud gas motorbikes being everywhere.

Ok, fair enough, then maybe they shouldn't have picked this 50 year old guy who used to have a management job but was then forced to flee his country and work as a delivery worker, but a 22 year old who used to sell drugs but now makes an honest living (maybe they couldn't find one?).

But yeah, that aside, I can definitely sympathize with reducing the number of loud stinking gas motorbikes and scooters. Maybe also give loans to users of gas chainsaws, leaf blowers etc. etc. to replace those too...

From my reading, the article is about how e-bikes are proving to be economically viable and how that benefits the environment. Even more positive is that they are becoming available locally in a way that is accessible to a delivery driver on a fixed low income. Those things seem like something to be pretty optimistic about.

I never owned a car, I commute to work in an e-bike and most other places I go to. It is usually faster than car (if you account parking) or public transport.

Since I got an e-bike I haven't bought a single month public-transport cards, I maybe take the metro/bus 4-10 times per month (depends a lot on the weather). The bike paid itself several times over since I got it around 2019.

Me and my partner manage to save a lot of money per month, even though we just bought a new, very expensive (because it is close to downtown) apartment with a huge mortgage by just living close to place we go to, not having a car and using the e-bike.

"There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in." - Desmond Tutu

Society is not ready for the conversation because more often that not, inquisitive people who dare go upstream find out that capitalism - directly or indirectly - is pushing into the river, and have to walk back down to while hanging their head, and continue pulling those they can out of the river.

Yes I'm sure it's the capitalism in Venezuela that pushed these people into taking these jobs in Columbia.

I think you can do better than that in charitably reading what I said in the context of a hagiography whose centerpiece is a loan to a 50 year-old immigrant for an e-bike.

Welcome to the Orphan Crushing Machine - https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/orphan-crushing-machine

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