I love to see that kind of intercultural reading being made. In good faith, I respect it and disagree with its internal logic. If you think help is expected of you, you will not offer any mention of whether or not it’s a problem for you, period.

That’s a very generous reaction to being cussed at for following instructions. I have no problem being asked to wait. I actually appreciate having someone acknowledge that I’m there by telling me to wait. But damn. Keep it classy.

I’ve come to accept that “no problem” is just some people’s way to say “you’re welcome” but I still really dislike the sound of it right after I say thank you for something completely normal.

Cashier: “Here’s your change.”

Me: “Thank you.”

Cashier: “No problem.”

My brain: “Oh… I didn’t even think it could have been a problem to hand me my change, but I guess I’m glad to hear that it was not in fact any problem.”

Yes I think when an industry is new is about the only time that existing power structures don’t dominate, albeit briefly. I saw this up close with the advent of the WWW. In the early days, coding HTML was like working magic, and there were no established players who had a lock on how to do it better than what any enterprising young person could teach themselves through tinkering.

In addition to the multiple throws, and in addition to the direct nepotistic help, there is also just the osmosis effect. How many people would give their right arm to get basic mentoring from Bill Gates? Just knowing someone who’s succeeded at something gives you a massive cultural window into that thing and how to nail it. This kid is delusional. If she wants to do something totally on her own she should be a movie director or race car driver or flower arranger. What’s that? Starting up a tech company? Ohh… how original.

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I mean nepotism is hardly a new problem :)

A coworker of mine left to start his own startup. He claimed that the IPO of an old employer gave him a little bit of cushion to work with, and he was going to take his shot. I wished him well. It was a crazy dumb app idea. But you never know.

I do remember thinking “gee and he just had a baby too, what a time to take a risk.” I later learned that he had married old money. The second he had a kid with her, he couldn’t lose.

I guess it could be interpreted ways other than I intended, but since I know how it was intended, it’s kind of hard for my brain to successfully see how.

Yeah I like him too. The only asterisk on that is that I guess I might like some other actor better who didn’t have a family “in”

He was given roles in his uncles film because he was his nephew. The name change just swept this under the rug. He wanted to get the roles but not let anyone know he got them through favoritism.

You have misunderstood. He was in fact the beneficiary of nepotism: staring in his uncle’s films. But to keep this a secret, he changed his name. He was hiding the nepotism, not trying to avoid nepotism.

Walk a little more softly. You came off as confidently wrong there.

Reading this, I was reminded of how Nicolas Cage is part of the Coppola family but changed his name, I was told, so that he could “make it on his own.”

I looked that up and it turns out to be a complete lie. He actually changed his name to conceal the fact that he was not making it on his own.

EDIT to clarify if this was confusing: he was given roles by his uncle Francis Ford Coppola. This is nepotism aka “not making it on his own,” but with special help from family. To conceal the nepotism, his name was changed.

From Wikipedia:

At age 15, he tried to convince his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, to give him a screen test, telling him “I’ll show you acting.” His outburst was met with “silence in the car.”[20] By this stage of his career, Coppola had already directed Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman and Robert De Niro. Although early in his career Cage appeared in some of his uncle’s films, he changed his name to Nicolas Cage to avoid the appearance of nepotism as Coppola’s nephew. His choice of name was inspired by the Marvel Comicssuperhero Luke Cage and composer John Cage.[21][22]

How much shorter was the stay? Maybe we can apply some multiplier. At least the example you’re offering is a fully loaded in-and-out final bill, but all this trying to compare the costs of different medical procedures is fumbling in the dark. We know medical costs in the US are higher, and we usually know by how much. The numbers I see in a quick search are $13.4K per capita annually for the US and $9.6k for Switzerland, likely with better outcomes. Was higher costs the reason this couple’s insurance declined them? Maybe. It’s a fair guess, but that’s all. If someone wants to tell me there’s never any back and forth with their EU public health program before a bill gets paid, nor with the private insurance carriers every EU citizen that can afford them also has, then wow, that will have been the best thing I’ve ever heard about healthcare in the EU.

Whether cost was the sole issue would have been a great question for the reporter to ask someone. But as you can see, they don’t even need to work that hard at their job to get the outrage clicks they need.

Thank you for doing that research. I have done nothing here to defend costs in the US. As you said, even the number I pulled out of thin air was 100% more expensive in the US. Do I owe you some kind of apology for not guessing even worse?

Helllllo the baby was 7 weeks premature and in intensive care for 3 weeks. The cost of a normal birth is totally irrelevant. You didn’t read the article, obviously.

I paid literally zero for either of my kids births right here in California.

“Cute” with an n shoved in.

Saved you a click.

Yes the costs would be different. Perhaps 100,000€ instead of $200,000. The fact remains tourists don’t get free healthcare anywhere.

This is a complete nothingburger of a story. The couple got treatment. Their insurance was billed, exactly as it would have been if they’d been in Canada or Portugal.

Their insurance momentarily denied to cover them. Why aren’t we mad at them? Because this clickbait story was created to stoke a pre-existing “America sucks” narrative and get outrage clicks.

And they seem to have played everyone here perfectly.

Sorry to burst your bubble of USA-hatred but nope. Germany will not decline to treat you but they will bill you. Oh wait… that’s exactly what happened in the US! This was not just an emergency procedure but 3 weeks in the ICU.

This couple’s insurance ultimately decided to pay. So this is a total non story. It would have happened the same in a million places. Tourists do not get major services for free. If they did, people from around the world be showing up with conditions and just reporting straight to the ER and then hop skipping home.

This story was drummed up to tap into people hating on the US for its poor healthcare system. Which is usually valid. But if we judge by whether tourists get free major services, the US isn’t any worse off.

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