The State of Mind in the US

[Hurlshort]

4 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

My memory is a little foggy, but I didnt pay anything (or very very little) for the birth of my child.

Yeah, I was double covered at the time, so it was super cheap to have kids too. That has changed tremendously over the last decade. Premium costs have skyrocketed, so paying for double coverage is no longer very viable. 

Edited April 22, 2021 by Hurlsnot

[Skarpen]

10 hours ago, Gromnir said:

if it makes skarp_one feel better, after her attack incident, she tended to vote republican, or perhaps she voted republican 'cause that is what Gromnir were doing at the time. whatever.

Thank's for displaying the complete accuracy of the chart. Appreciate  

[ShadySands]

I want to say it was like 125k for the birth and care of my son because he had to spend about a week the NICU. I had great insurance at the time but it was still like 5-7k out of pocket.

[Hurlshort]

Damn. My son spent a week in the NICU too. It was not anywhere near that and that would have been very difficult to deal with on top of all the other new child expenses. I am sorry to hear that.

[LadyCrimson]

80% coverage of something (example, pulling #'s out of my hat again) sounds decent until the bill gets so high into the stratosphere that the remaining not covered is still far more than most people are going to have liquid/available to them.      Although tbh, unless it's 100% all the time/all conditions/time-period lengths, I'm not sure how one gets around that even if you did some reforming of the current system.  At some point there could be this bill for hundreds of thousands and even 5% of that could bankrupt most/average people.  Medical costs just go up and will keep going up.

Re: dental in the US ... it's separate from medical here, as well.  Usually less expensive (the plans I mean) then medical insurance, but also usually even less comprehensive.  The more common things that tend to crop up - root canals, cavities, etc. while not cheap, are likely going to be "only" hundreds, or under a few thousand, vs. hundreds of thousands for extended hospital stays/surgery or whatnot.

[LadyCrimson]

Oh and to be more on the original topic:

I think in the US, women definitely are more likely to seek out mental health counseling of some kind, possibly asking a doctor for a psychologist recommendation, where said psychologist may then tell them they seem to have a mental health issue.  But just going for an annual health checkup, psychology checking does not typically factor into that.  They just do physical stuff, they don't bring out the ink blots.  When people feel blue, if they can afford it, they find a psychologist or counselor on their own, either to talk or to try to get drugs.  If for no other reason then to try to keep it under wraps more.

I'm not sure how it works these days, but some level of mental health is often covered in medical plans.  Not sure how much on average. I'd guess some medical would cover initial/emergency mental health care and some visits with a psychologist but not really extended treatment. I'm probably out of date on that end tho, I haven't bothered to check up on such in years.

[Hurlshort]

I delivered groceries to a guy in an RV yesterday. He was parked on the street next to an RV repair shop, rather than in a park. I talked to him quite a bit as I unloaded. He said he had lost his spot at a nearby park, and the repair shop was letting him use their address for deliveries. He said he was an engineer, but he was on disability, and he was just trying to get healthy so he could get back to work. I had a good conversation with the guy, he was friendly and personable.

I was pretty upset afterwards. First off, I'm delivering stuff that I know is unhealthy for this guy. 15 bottles of Pepsi Zero are not going to help him get better. Secondly I'm like, where are the services to help this guy. He seemed intelligent, it didn't seem like drugs were an issue. He was unhealthy and disabled, but it seems like we should have systems in place to help people with better nutrition, better mental health, and better physical health. I think we just let people like this languish in poverty and it sucks.

[Boeroer]

On 4/16/2021 at 3:40 PM, Skarpen said:

Is that legit? 

Maybe. If it's legit: the reasons for that are obscure.

There was a study some years ago in Germany that showed that progressives (compared to conservatives) are more empathic, have a higher IQ and also higher education on average. I couldn't find the original study now but this other one from London basically says the same (German newspaper) : https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/iq-und-politische-einstellung-konservative-sind-weniger-intelligent-1.13440

At the same time that original study also showed that conservatives were happier/more satisfied with their lives. 

Like the graph above the study didn't say what the reasons were. It was simply not part of the study to ask for reasons like it isn't part of the graph.

For example one could assume that dumb and ignorant people have an easier time achieving happyness and therefore develop mental illnesses less often.
Or maybe it could be that intelligent people tend to try to get rid of mental illnesses via doctors and medicine - while the dumb ones are more likely to just beat up their wifes and kids to vent some steam or try to solve their problems with mass shootings more often - on average of course. Not speaking about individuals...


Who knows? Graph & study won't say. It's a mystery and everything we can do is speculate. Of course one could just go forth and draw quick conclusions that fit their agenda and confirm their biases and then be a prickish dîck about it. But that would be... dumb.


 

Edited April 25, 2021 by Boeroer