Hello,
Today’s post is a risky one, because I’m going to be talking about things that I hate about the USA. Keep in mind, that all of those opinions are subjective, and I’m no expert in economics, education, politics or healthcare. Those are just pure observations from the perspective of a polish girl living in Florida.
- Healthcare. American healthcare is unnecessarily complicated in my opinion. This is of course a very wide subject, but I’m going to try to give you the essentials of what I can’t understand or accept in the way healthcare system works here. First of all, insurance. If you don’t have it, you’re screwed. The cost of my dental procedures (x-rays, single cleaning, oral exam, a few fillings) was approximately $2000 without insurance. Every single doctor visit (dermatologist, physician, eye doctor) costs me around $150 each (+ the cost of medications). You’re supposed to be provided with a health insurance from your employer (if you’re working full – time). If not, you have to get one yourself, otherwise you might be penalized (“The fee is increasing for 2016. For 2015, the penalty for no health insurance is $325 per person or 2% of your annual household income – whichever is higher. For 2016, the fee is $695 or 2.5% of your income — whichever is higher.“). Most of the health insurance providers are private companies. The “public” ones are: Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, but keep in mind, that you have to be eligible to get them (“Generally, individuals who are eligible for both programs are older or disabled (or both) and need help paying their Medicare costs because they have very low incomes. Medicaid covers premiums, deductibles, co-payments, coinsurance, and other Medicare costs and provides some health benefits that Medicare does not.“). The monthly cost of your insurance plan depends on your medical needs. If you’re a fairly healthy person, your monthly fees shouldn’t be too bad. If you’re a person like me, who has a lot of different health issues and a low income (due to inability to work because of the health problems), I wish you good luck surviving. I hear all the time polish people complaining about our healthcare, but really it’s not bad at all compared to what I have to deal with here in the USA. Whenever I needed healthcare in Poland, I had it. OK, maybe it took a few more hours to get into the doctor’s office at the ER than it would take here, but at least it didn’t make me go bankrupt. And at this point, I’d rather wait a little longer in order to get my procedures done at basically no cost (because the fees in Poland are pretty much nothing compared to what they are here in the USA), than pay what I make in a month for spending 2 hours in a hospital room).
- American mentality. The USA is a land of FAKE positivity and happiness that they force on everyone else. You can’t have a bad day here, can’t be sad, mad or stressed out. You’re always obligated to smile, even if you want to punch the wall, or cry your eyes out. Basically, you have to act 90% of the time, unless you’re by yourself. For me it’s nothing but stupidity and I never understood nor accepted this type of mentality. They would rather ignore some major life events, than admit the fact, that life isn’t always so nice and colorful. I can guarantee you, that 99% of Americans would say they’d rather be a stupid moron than a miserable genius. For them happiness is all that matters and they have no idea about philosophy and literature. (If an American is reading this, I’m not saying don’t be optimistic, or be pessimistic. I’m saying: BE REALISTIC.)
- Their understanding of money. They save where they should be spending/investing, and they spend where they should be saving. Example: they are fine with spending $50 for a dinner at 5GUYS, but they will have an issue paying $50 more to get better glasses.
Alright, that’s it for this post. I’ll soon come back with a part 2, and after that with a post about what I love about the USA 🙂
My ESOL 