Probably a Sergeant. If not a Sergeant they are a Sergeant in the making. That's who I want making sure I keep things in perspective as an officer.
Meanwhile, out of nowhere, Kat is suddenly feeling very grateful for her job's healthcare package.
She doesn't think anything is out of the ordinary, since she has had this same thought every day since she got hired.
Could be worse, could be the 'social medicine' kind where he'd sit in a hallway for ten hours before being seen by a 'Dr' that doesn't speak english and completely misdiagnoses what you have then sends you home to come back the next day in an ambulance because you almost died. Or find out you need hip/knee/back/heart ot any other surgery but are told "the wait list is longer than your expected lifespan but would you like us to kill you now ?" which actually happened to me. Plus you get to pay well over 50% in income taxes plus another 15% on everything you buy to be 'blessed' with the privilige of not being allowed to pay for anything better, even through insurance, unless you're a politician who goes to the US for treatment we pay for.
After dealing with that all my life and having lost relatives unnecessarily to it, I'd love to have the US system instead.
Interesting, I don't usually hear stories like this about the bad side of socialized medicine. Can I ask what country this was in and what treatment you needed?
I believe it was in Fictiotopia, and they needed a treatment for their arse after pulling too much out of it. That or they've fallen for the classic conservative government con of 'If we make the nationalised thing deliberately bad, people will switch to private and we'll be able to sell off the assets to our mates.'
I believe it was the real world and spewing "must be conservatie misinformation" while ignoring things that don't match the socialist utopia is about as apathetic as you can get.
That's it, this is a comic strip I happen to like and I'm done trying to explain real issues to people who have never lived them but think they're fantastic.
My apologies to the artists, but some things needed to be cleared up a little.
Okay, let's cool down a bit here... I'm Canadian (as is Llywenna, apparently), and I can absolutely believe pretty much everything in that story. Tax rates might be a little exaggerated, but everything else tracks. I'd still rather this system than the USA, but only because I think socialized medicine would be easier to fix than profit-driven hospitals. That doesn't mean those problems don't need fixing, because they absolutely do, and its irresponsible to deny the existence of flaws in a system just because you think it's not the worst option.
Sure, Canada, I need back surgery but can't have it because it's rationed and I'm not a priority. I had an issue with blod clots that almost killed me and during treatment the 'Dr' asked if I wanted 'assistance in dying', unfortunately for them I got better. I watched my mother lie on a stretcher in a busy hallway with no real care for four days waiting for a bed and a month waiting for treatment for what should have been a routine condition she eventually died in hospital from. Something that if addressed properly and the surgery done promptly, might not have been fatal. Those are only a few, the list goes on and on and on. We just gave the gov't another $4500 dollars in taxes and they're going up, now they're after our retirement funds. I know trhis is a comic that isn't intended to dea lwith such things but when poeple puke out the "we need socialized medicine, the US system sucks" what they really mean is they want someone else to pay for their care because they don't want to pay for insurance. Here's a newsflash for you, if you don't have private insurance in the land of socialized medicine, you'll have to pay out of pocket for everything anyway, the hospital sends you a bill if your provincial health care card expires and you don't renew it in time. If you need an ambulance it's $100 cash but it's $500 if you put it on your insurance so you end up paying them $100 regardless. Meanwhile, politicians jump the line at the military hospitals pushing servicemen and women aside or go to the US or India for private surgeries we're not allowed to pay for if we want to and can be fined for trying to do it.
Congratulations. That ambulance bill can be upwards of $2000 in the US. And all those issues about getting ignored and discarded unless you can shell out are magnified even further. Plus people are getting ruinous insurance bills or even more ruinous medical bills if they can't. Hard data actually tells us that we spend more in the US for even worse results than anywhere else. You're just providing an anecdote while having an obvious axe to grind, and if I was interested in anecdata then I've got as many if not more accounts from random places online how much better it is with socialized medicine all over.
I'm sorry about your mom dying, but, my guy, literally everything you complained about happens in the US, too. And in many cases, it's worse. Your mom still would've died in the US healthcare system.
Actually, the US system does all that too; but they charge you 10x the amount of money. I guess it's better in the sense that it leaves you for dead a lot sooner.
It might look better sometimes because a poor people don't even bother going to the doctor lots of times and well-off people go for every minor ailment that doesn't really warrant a doctor visit.
Tie an old sock with an onion it around his neck, dump him out of bed and tell him to die on his own time ;)
I'm having trouble understanding that bottom text bubble. Who is saying it and what do they mean by "Oh we not saying bye to people now"?
That's probably Joaquin. He might've wanted a thanks.
Petra (the guard talking to Al) goes back to talking to Al without thanking or acknowledging Joaquin any further and he feels a bit slighted
Both of you, thanks for the clarification. I guess to me it feels like "saying bye" is implying someone is leaving as opposed to "saying thanks". This is also making me imagine an alternate scenario where Petra responds with "K, thanks, bye" before returning to the conversation. XD
Man, now I'm wondering what diseases you can and can't cure with magic... like an infectious disease sure, but cancer? Autoimmune disorder? What does magic define as a disease, anyway? If it's a separate lifeform that's inherently parasitic...
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Maybe don't use restoration on pregnant women.
Another question: how would magical cures affect the beneficial bacteria in your stomach?
and if it differentiates using dna, apparently you can have that be different in different tissues, even changing over the course of your life (like pregnancy having moms wind up with baby's dna) so...
I mean it's one healing spell, Michael. What could it cost? A gold piece?
40 gold is "more than a month of savings"? If that's close to ballpark (ie not more than two months of savings, say), then note he said savings, not income, so that's disposable income. Compare and contrast to "50 gold of rare gems" earlier, and assuming a guard makes somewhat close to an average tradesman (say not less than half), and note that a teleportation scroll cost "more than 10 years of an average tradesman's salary" (not savings)...
Er, the math makes less and less sense to me. It looks more like random numbers.
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