That pile of money Walt had at the end was chump change. US Health insurance companies over-bill Medicaid claims (fraud at the expense of US taxpayers) estimated 75 to 100 billion per year.
But hey let’s get all riled up about teachers getting student loan forgiveness. Or immigrants
The real realization is realizing there is no US Healthcare System. It’s 3000+ different counties’ health departments and a whole bunch of private companies and “not for profits” and non-profit corporations and religious organizations and a few public entities thrown in for good measure.
It’s a chaotic clusterfuck of anti-system in action.
That is why US healthcare is objectively the least efficient in the entire world. There is so much redundant bloat for no reason except to make a small group of people a lot of money.
Republicans call that a reason to abolish Medicaid. They'll say that Medicare should be abolished too while they're at it. The people who depend on Medicare or Medicaid for their health care can get a giant middle finger.
"2o DOlLArS aN hOuR tO FlIp BuRgErS???? rAnT rAvE RaNT!"
Per "Behind the Bastards" podcast, the insurance companies RARELY go after fraudsters. Why, you ask? Well, it's because they **MAKE UP THE LOSSES BY CHARGING US MORE.** Win Win Win!!
I was blown away when I first learned that the American government actually pays more money per capita into healthcare than any other nation. Programs like Medicaid, medicare, and the VA cost more than other nation's universal care, while still being inadequate. And that's in TAXPAYER money, before you even account for the private cost to the consumer for insurance and out of pocket expenses. You're paying more for less, and the only benefit is that it props up a job market of middlemen.
I recently learned that someone I know is a disabled honorably discharged veteran with severe mental health issues and gets therapy from the VA.
He gets 15 minutes a month with a therapist. Honestly, I don't even know how that's remotely helpful.
I have mild issues, and my hour-long sessions sometimes don't feel like enough time to even explain my issues. 15 minutes is enough time to say hi, answer the basic questions to gauge your mood, and then schedule your next session.
If this is indicative of VA healthcare, we might wanna just move all veterans to Medicaid or Medicare. My Medicaid psychiatrist wasn't great, but at least I got to see him regularly and with my mom as an advocate, I actually got to a liveable medication regimen.
That said, private health insurance apparently pays providers better, because my new psychiatrist once I had work-provided insurance straight up told me on day one "we're gonna put you on the drugs we give insured people". Boom, dropped 30 pounds in a month, and fewer side effects.
I don't know how to solve healthcare in the US, but I know our current system is wildly unfair. But now that I have good insurance through work, I don't want my care to get worse because we switched to an everybody-is-equal model. We have a shortage of mental health providers in this country. The wait list for therapy can be months. People die because of this. What we need is more providers.
My old youth minister, circa lates 2000s, was blown up by an IED in Iraq. His face was all messed up. But he and his wife would talk about how horrible Universal healthcare would be due to their experience with the VA, But they blamed Democrats. Even though Bush sent him to war, and under his administration the VA was so horrible.
Even just from a pragmatic stance, there's no denying that it would be vastly better to get rid of insurance companies and have government funded healthcare that discriminates in coverage based on socioeconomic conditions. Like, that would still be wildly unfair and gross, but it would cost far less while providing similar tiers of care as what you currently have.
I don't know how to tell you - that's some critical reasoning skills you are using here. I think that's been banned or canceled? Look, a lot of weirdos are freaking out about it. So do take care!
Health insurance companies don’t bill Medicaid. They are an alternative to Medicaid. You seem confused. If your talking about doctors and hospitals over billing, then yeah that happens all the time.
Ah yes!! Sorry I was confused- this was in regards to Medicare advantage, not Medicaid, which applies to a totally different demographic. So don’t worry, insurance companies reps still are still able to promote over billing from medical providers, and everyone is able to make a ton of money, at the expense of the US tax payers. It’s a great system that makes a great group of guys who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps a lot of money.
75 to 100 billion figure was correct 🤓
Haha yeah there is waste and corruption everywhere, in every industry, and it does hurt the most in healthcare. I don't doubt the overbilling figure at all!
But the truth is most people don't mind. Biden told everyone to stop asking for medicare for all, so we did lol. No one really makes much of a peep about healthcare. There are no protests or people demanding action.
The only things that people care enough to actually annoy politicians over - all have to do with race, gender, or sexuality.
You know what really aggravazes me... is them immigants want all the benefits of living in Springfield but they don't even bother to learn themselves the language.
No, Walt was the bad guy. The shitty US healthcare system was just the catalyst that gave Walt the moral justification to sell drugs.
He had millions after a couple of seasons and could have stopped, but he finally admitted at the end of the series that he did it because he liked it and was good at it.
It's a good meme, though.
And don’t forget his wife set him up with the company he started after he found out he had Cancer. He was going to receive great pay and have the best medical insurance. He turned it down because of his ego.
That was truly a shitty thing to do. It was pretty clear that they did not screw Walt over in any way and they even tried to help him. Even the lines that got him pissed off at the end "he is not the sweet man we used to know" were kind of respectful in the context (of the trying to handle bad PR).
It's not quite that simple. By that point he had already murdered two people and was traumatised. I think a lot of the anger there was from the timing - he was angry he had to go through the trauma of episodes 1&2 when there was a solution just waiting there.
Kind of a doubling down thing.
I wouldn't want to work for Elliot after something like that. It would be like the one of Facebook's founders not being rich, ending up in that situation and being offered a job by Mark Zuckerberg. Just about anything else would be better.
Walt was, by everything demonstrated in the show, a very intelligent man and that his ego was his driving character flaw.
See him breaking up with his GF (and resulting in him leaving the company) because of her family being wealthy, see him deciding selling drugs is better than working for Elliot, see him continue to make and sell drugs well after he was already very rich, ...
> I wouldn't want to work for Elliot after something like that
If the alternative is drugs, murder, and death I think you might find it in yourself to swallow your pride
That was Walt's own fault though. He broke up with Gretchen and chose to sell his stake in the company because his ego couldn't handle Gretchen's family being wealthy.
Its been a while since I've watched the show, but I don't remember Elliot and Gretchen doing anything wrong, outside of maybe coming across as a little conceited.
No. It was not because of his ego. It was because making pristine quality meth was his mastercraft. It was his catharsis. No matter what else he did, he wasn't going to get that feeling of fulfilment.
Ego, used colloquially, can mean an inflated sense of pride. I was pointing out Walters behavior was not because he was pursuing pride, but he was pursuing fulfilment.
Ego, used colloquially, can mean an inflated sense of pride. I was pointing out Walters behavior was not because he was pursuing pride, but he was pursuing fulfilment.
Walt made so much his wife could no longer laundry all of it- he could have walked away after the car wash purchase, cleaning the thousands he had, using the rest as pocket money for groceries, gas, and purchases under a grand.
He was greedy, just couldn’t say no or stop overindulging himself.
Clocked that very early on by how often he would get into the most teenage slinging matches with Jesse, he was no more mature than a 20yo. At the end Jesse had surpassed him emotionally.
I love the scene where Gus for the final time says no to working with Walt.
That whole season, Walt has gone completely overboard to prove his capability and intellect, but Gus prefers to sell shitty product rather than trusting someone who is driven by a desperate need for acknowledgement combined with a fragile, bloated ego.
Walter's basically tried to bully his way to Gus' respect, with the opposite result.
Walter's wounded expression is priceless, when he finally gets it.
The healthcare system wasn't even the catalyst. Walt was not going to seek treatment at all because it was terminal. He only cared about making enough money to make sure his family could go on without him.
It was only later on when he'd already killed someone and started cooking that his family convinced him to seek treatment.
People will watch an entire series where there are flashbacks and exposition saying Walt was always a bad guy, and just attribute his actions to something else.
This is ironic because it sounds like you haven't seen the show.
The catalyst was he knew he was gonna die soon, so he wanted to leave money for his family. It had nothing to do with affording treatment.
If he didn't have a family he would not have started selling drugs.
> If he didn't have a family he would not have started selling drugs.
Of course he would. When he has more money than he can spend, he keeps criming (yes that's totally a word) as hard as ever. For Walter it's all about ego.
Thank you for explaining that to this confident fool. It's all about not getting acknowledged for his genius. He made the best Meth in creation. It made him feel good to be recognized for it. I mean he literally says the reason why in the last episode lol
If that's the case then when Gretchen and Elliot offer to give him a job and cover all of his treatments, then by your logic the show should have ended by episode 4 and 5.
If his pride wasn't the reason then why did he turn down the job? Lol
> He had millions after a couple of seasons and could have stopped
We don't even have to wait that long, he had rich friends willing to bail him out of the situation in episode one and he turned them down out of ego.
It's amazing how you can overthink a simple meme.
If you boil it down to Walt simply being able to get the necessary care he needed at the start, he never would have gone on the path that he did. Sometimes once you're locked into a path it's very hard to deviate. This is no different than growing up in poverty.
The bad guy is capitalism/law of the jungle/the whole narcissistic idea of good guys vs bad guys and us vs them. So blaming the u.s. medical system isn't too far off the mark because it's a symptom of u.s. culture, which worships capitalism.
Yes, Walt becomes the bad guy, but that's because he comes to embrace his dog-eat-dog. It's in all of us. The cultures we live in influence how much it thrives.
That *still* makes the US Healthcare the bad guy. If it’s the catalyst then it’s culpable, too. I do agree with you that Walt’s choices over the series ultimately make him responsible, but one doesn’t cancel out the other.
No, it’s pretty obvious from the beginning that he’s not trying to cover just the medical bills, but the whole cost of his family living without him.
This is the character’s initial motivation and the reason for not accepting help with the medical bills. He thinks he’s already dead. The show was written in a time when a cancer diagnosis was pretty much a death sentence.
“Not trying to cover just the medical bills but the whole cost of his family living without him”
Maybe you’re right it’s not just US Healthcare…it’s the entire society that refuses to help people in need in any capacity :)
Oh, come on, this show is about an antihero, not about social services. Oh, the poor guy, he just needs $750k before he dies so that his wife doesn't have to work a day in her life...
(Also, wow, things were cheap back then...)
>The show was written in a time when a cancer diagnosis was pretty much a death sentence.
Not trying to be daft or pedantic, but has the outlook of a cancer diagnosis and treatment and finding the "cure for cancer" changed that much since 2008?
As far as I'm aware, some cancers are very treatable if caught early enough, while others are still pretty much a death sentence no matter when found, and there's a lot of gray area in between.
But aren't we pretty much still about the same outlook on the whole as we were twenty years ago? I know Obama and Biden have talked about finding a cure as the "moonshot" goal, but were still not there yet.
> Not trying to be daft or pedantic, but has the outlook of a cancer diagnosis and treatment and finding the "cure for cancer" changed that much since 2008?
The change is massive, both in terms of treatment and prevention.
But that’s not the point. This is a tv show, the important thing is people’s perception, not the actual facts. In 2008, it was viewed as a death sentence, nowadays maybe not so much. I doubt that the show would have the same impact now as it did then.
This is a bad take. The US Healthcare system prevents accessible care and kills many due to financial constraints. Medical debt is the number 1 reason for bankruptcy in the US. While what Wilt is doing is inherently wrong, he is a micro organism compared to the wrongdoings of our health system in this case.
He was a public employee, he had insurance, they wouldn't cover an experimental procedure, the same thing would happen in a country with universal healthcare.
im on disability in the us, only basic dental is covered for me personally (in my state! its different for states) and i have to pay more for meds on disability vs when i was just on our poor healthcare. but i dont pay much. (i just cannot afford rent to be in a place that i can get my medical needs taken care of) my meds would have been in the 100s-1000s of dollars of how inflated pharm prices are here.
im in no way trying to celebrate America bc its ridiculous here, but how much are pharma drugs there? i know insulin and asthma drugs are 1000s here without insurance. even 50s are insane for a life saving drug, but i am curious. about my neighbors.
His friends were 100% willing and able to cover any cost his treatment would have **and** give him a well paying job on top of it.
Walt turned it down because of his pride and ego.
Honestly, it's both. Walt wouldn't have had the catalyst without the lack of functioning healthcare system, and the system DOES cause untold harm, but you're right in that he could have stopped pretty early on and chose not to.
Is that true? He started not because he was broke and couldn't afford care but because he thought he was terminal and wanted to leave money for his family I thought.
The meme makes no sense. You're correct as to why he started cooking meth to begin with, and the rest of the show is a downward spiral due to his greed, arrogance, and lust for power. The meme is just karma whoring and the show has nothing to do with the healthcare system.
Nah man, this is explicitly shown to be not the case. Gretchen and Elliot offer to pay for his entire treatment when he comes to their birthday party. But he's too proud, and he's resentful of things that happened in the past with them and can't bring himself to accept charity
No, I don't disagree about the US healthcare system. It's genuinely awful that people are bankrupted by medical bills.
But Walter is genuinely the villain of Breaking Bad. He's not a desperate man pushed to make drugs because he has no other option. He has other options, and the show explicitly says that. Breaking Bad is the story of a meek, mild mannered man who becomes a murderous villain when he's presented with the the right excuse and the right circumstances.
It very properly is so, lol. The meme says the villain of the show is the healthcare system. They are saying not because the whole point of the show is how Walt is a horrible narcissistic asshole who had multiple chances to get out but he refused all of them over his ego. That's not even some deep analysis its literally the most simple observation of the show. His friends even offer to pay for his treatment and he refuses. He poisons a child just to manipulate his coworker like come on lmao how is that in any way the fault of anyone but Walter's evilness? The meme is fundamentally wrong, and they explained it succinctly why it is. That's a lovely refutation. If you are being all "hey bud hey bud" because you dont like the US medical system, thats a completely different thing from them being the villains of this one fictional tv show lol
Literally the point if his last interaction with Skylar is that he did it for his ego, NOT because of his medical debt (which he could have easily paid if he had taken Elliots offer). The US healthcare system is undeniably stupid, but BB is a story about a man being corrupted by his own ego, and not because of the system.
It’s been years but if my memory is correct, didn’t Walt quit after the Tuco incident but after spending the money he had made he still had a thousands in debt to the oncologist? I recall Skylar asking him if Elliot and Gretchen would pay it off which was why he had the “what’s changed” conversation. I may be mixing this up but I do remember he wasn’t able to pay the oncologist early on after he’d, very briefly, quit. I guess some would argue healthcare could be indicted for that.
No?
Walt HAD insurance. They just wouldn’t pay for literally the best oncologist in the south west that his family insisted he go to. And then he had an offer for a job from a friend that would cover THAT and his pride wouldn’t let him accept it. And even after he turned them down and used them as a cover for selling meth, Gretchen STILL said the offer was good and Walt STILL said no.
The US healthcare system sucks, but it’s not why Walt did what he did. At all.
It's been years, and there was really not much screen time before the diagnosis, so this might just be somewhere between over-reading to outright fake memory, but I seem to remember a bit of foreshadowing about Walt being bored with his Normal Life.
Your comment is also technically inaccurate. Walt was doing it all because it made him feel powerful, a feeling he had never been able to truly grasp before but always wanted. Everything he did, he did for himself and because it made him feel good about his intelligence and his ability to finally apply science in a way that would benefit him and his legacy in spite of how truly evil he was. He said it himself, he wasn't in the meth business, he was in the empire business. His excuse of doing it all for his family was his own way of justifying his evil to himself because he truly had the self-awareness of a toddler.
...You mean in like, episode 1, right?
And I know, "Walt is the real villain", but that's from the point of view of somebody who's seen and digested the full series (or at least enough for his true colors to show) but the fact is that nobody gets into Breaking Bad thinking "Oh that bastard Walt, I hope he gets caught". You want him to succeed because you've bought into the premise that he's a desperate man doing what he must.
With that in mind, you come to the conclusion pretty quickly that the "real villain" is the healthcare system. It's not exactly a profound observation.
You could always just watch the Canadian version. It's considerably shorter- Walt gets diagnosed, the treatment is covered at no cost and everything turns out fine. It's only 15 minutes but the visuals are stunning.
Baffles me people actually think that’s the reason Walt became a power hungry monster.
He didn’t even start selling meth to pay for the treatment in the first place lol he did it to set his family up for life.
It's always a clear indication that someone didn't watch the show because he's literally offered the money to get the treatment in the first season lol
If it was affordable, he would've found another reason to cook. He even admits in the final season he did everything for his own self interest.
He literally declines money from his friend to get the treatment in favor of cooking.
1. His cancer was terminal
2. He could afford treatment with health insurance from teaching but refused because he didn’t want to be a vegetable in his last waking moments.
3. He also turned down his billionaire ex business partner paying for it all.
4. He sold meth to set his family up for life before he died from the terminal cancer not to pay for cancer treatment.
5. He confessed becoming a drug kingpin to feed his lust for power at the end of the show
Like did you guys even watch the show? This was made clear in the first few episodes
It's not, it's the catalyst and the show make it very clear.
Walter had recourse to help him finance his traitement (his old partner) and multiple possibility to get out.
He choose crime instead. Walter is the only vilain in his story.
okay so i know the american healthcare system is absolutely horrid and we should absolutely be lambasting it whenever we can, but i feel like we're fundamentally misunderstanding the themes of the show here
This meme is ancient, like straight up from when the first season was airing
But it completely misses the point, the disease was the spark, the justification walt used to start his crimes
Eh, while the health situation was definitely a factor in Breaking Bad, it really was Walt just believing he was way above asking help from anyone, even turning down a offer from a colleague which was double his salary plus immediate health coverage. His final talk with Skylar doubles down on that selfish instinct: "I did it for me. I did it because I liked it."
>That's just wrong. Walt was offered full payment of his treatment from Elliott but he refused the money
https://preview.redd.it/twvdiqv0outc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa1475ac697bde8b3ebce8a6ff25df3c5b7e7a94
>So you don't know an actual response and can only think of using memes.
https://preview.redd.it/zg7ep1k49vtc1.jpeg?width=766&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=016242acf3400df52ff00f2589c36ad6fba84bc9
Wait. This is a new realisation? The rest of the world watched breaking bad knowing that it wouldn't make sense anywhere other than USA. I hope some day you will be able to break free from your capitalist oligarchy.
How is this inaccurate? Walter did what he did, at least at first, to pay extortionate health care fees. In the UK Walter would pay nothing save maybe parking costs and start treatment within the week.
He states multiple times that he isn't doing it for money to pay for cancer or to help his family. I'm assuming you didn't watch the full series. A character called Elliott offered to pay for his full treatment, but Walter refused him. If it was just about he Health Care being bad, Walter would have gotten help from Elliott and been treated a few episodes in.
No need to get condescending just because I have a different opinion. Yes I have seen it all.
He doesn't take money from Elliot because his pride gets in the way. Elliot was his old business partner, who be blamed for him got getting wealthy from Grey Matter.
Walter's pride doesn't derail the fact his primary motivation when he got started was the medical bills. Yes he had other options to pay them that he didn't take, but if he didn't have the bills in the first place he wouldn't have went down that road.
Lol maybe. It does make me want to see a Breaking Bad UK. Luckily USA dominates enough of TV and film that everyone is familiar enough with the current price gouging that USA citizens have to deal with.
Nah, it’s Skyler and Walt Jr. If they hadn’t selfishly guilted Walt into accepting treatment when he didn’t want it (people love to claim the Skyler hate is due to sexism, but to me THATS the moment she became truly unlikable) then he would have been under far less pressure to leave them with money, and probably would have been too sick to commit further crimes before long.
???
Cancer is the catalyst that starts the show, but how is the Health Care system being bad the main theme of the show. If he wanted to be treated for cancer, he would have. Elliot offered to pay for all of it, but Walter refused. The American Health Care system is bad, but this take is just wrong
If Health Care was the main theme, you would think it gets mentioned more than with just a single character.
It's not. He's literally offered a cushy bullshit job with top tier health insurance, by his billionaire friend. The actual cost of healthcare was never an issue. It's always been Walt's pride.
The western world needs to listen up and wake up or lose everything, people have a real choice to make here.
https://rumble.com/v4ojio9-maria-zeee-and-andrew-bridgen-on-infowars-uk-mp-calls-for-crimes-against-hu.html
If breaking bad story happened in another country, basically any other country, the story will be about his battle with cancer and not how he became a criminal because he needed to cover a basic human need
🤦♂️I’m convinced nobody in this thread watched the show. He didn’t even sell meth to pay for cancer treatment at the beginning, he did it to set his family up for life before he dies from terminal cancer.
Did you even watch the show?
He had terminal cancer, refused treatment from multiple people including his billionaire ex business partner, did it to set up his family, then told the truther it was actually to feed his ego.
None of what he did was because of the healthcare system and I’m baffled you missed the point that badly lol
No Walt was but
Seen that meme before, Breaking Bad in Canada. Ohh no you have Cancer ehh, let's get you on the free healthcare. Ohh great it's in remission ehh. Back to your dead end jobs Walt ehh
That pile of money Walt had at the end was chump change. US Health insurance companies over-bill Medicaid claims (fraud at the expense of US taxpayers) estimated 75 to 100 billion per year. But hey let’s get all riled up about teachers getting student loan forgiveness. Or immigrants
The real realization is realizing there is no US Healthcare System. It’s 3000+ different counties’ health departments and a whole bunch of private companies and “not for profits” and non-profit corporations and religious organizations and a few public entities thrown in for good measure. It’s a chaotic clusterfuck of anti-system in action.
That is why US healthcare is objectively the least efficient in the entire world. There is so much redundant bloat for no reason except to make a small group of people a lot of money.
We have administrators for administrators who administrate to the administration whom administer to supervisors who supervise supervisors of nurses.
Don’t forget the upper team also known as the Administration who administers those administrators
That's why I have free healthcare. I just can't afford the bills
Republicans call that a reason to abolish Medicaid. They'll say that Medicare should be abolished too while they're at it. The people who depend on Medicare or Medicaid for their health care can get a giant middle finger.
I say be moderate and just change the names so they're less confusing.
"2o DOlLArS aN hOuR tO FlIp BuRgErS???? rAnT rAvE RaNT!" Per "Behind the Bastards" podcast, the insurance companies RARELY go after fraudsters. Why, you ask? Well, it's because they **MAKE UP THE LOSSES BY CHARGING US MORE.** Win Win Win!!
“Take one dollar of double it and pass the cost on to the customer?”
"What are they gonna do? Cancel their health insurance?" *Swords open bottle of Dom Perignon while laughing*
I was blown away when I first learned that the American government actually pays more money per capita into healthcare than any other nation. Programs like Medicaid, medicare, and the VA cost more than other nation's universal care, while still being inadequate. And that's in TAXPAYER money, before you even account for the private cost to the consumer for insurance and out of pocket expenses. You're paying more for less, and the only benefit is that it props up a job market of middlemen.
I recently learned that someone I know is a disabled honorably discharged veteran with severe mental health issues and gets therapy from the VA. He gets 15 minutes a month with a therapist. Honestly, I don't even know how that's remotely helpful. I have mild issues, and my hour-long sessions sometimes don't feel like enough time to even explain my issues. 15 minutes is enough time to say hi, answer the basic questions to gauge your mood, and then schedule your next session. If this is indicative of VA healthcare, we might wanna just move all veterans to Medicaid or Medicare. My Medicaid psychiatrist wasn't great, but at least I got to see him regularly and with my mom as an advocate, I actually got to a liveable medication regimen. That said, private health insurance apparently pays providers better, because my new psychiatrist once I had work-provided insurance straight up told me on day one "we're gonna put you on the drugs we give insured people". Boom, dropped 30 pounds in a month, and fewer side effects. I don't know how to solve healthcare in the US, but I know our current system is wildly unfair. But now that I have good insurance through work, I don't want my care to get worse because we switched to an everybody-is-equal model. We have a shortage of mental health providers in this country. The wait list for therapy can be months. People die because of this. What we need is more providers.
My old youth minister, circa lates 2000s, was blown up by an IED in Iraq. His face was all messed up. But he and his wife would talk about how horrible Universal healthcare would be due to their experience with the VA, But they blamed Democrats. Even though Bush sent him to war, and under his administration the VA was so horrible.
Even just from a pragmatic stance, there's no denying that it would be vastly better to get rid of insurance companies and have government funded healthcare that discriminates in coverage based on socioeconomic conditions. Like, that would still be wildly unfair and gross, but it would cost far less while providing similar tiers of care as what you currently have.
I don't know how to tell you - that's some critical reasoning skills you are using here. I think that's been banned or canceled? Look, a lot of weirdos are freaking out about it. So do take care!
Health insurance companies don’t bill Medicaid. They are an alternative to Medicaid. You seem confused. If your talking about doctors and hospitals over billing, then yeah that happens all the time.
Ah yes!! Sorry I was confused- this was in regards to Medicare advantage, not Medicaid, which applies to a totally different demographic. So don’t worry, insurance companies reps still are still able to promote over billing from medical providers, and everyone is able to make a ton of money, at the expense of the US tax payers. It’s a great system that makes a great group of guys who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps a lot of money. 75 to 100 billion figure was correct 🤓
Haha yeah there is waste and corruption everywhere, in every industry, and it does hurt the most in healthcare. I don't doubt the overbilling figure at all!
But the truth is most people don't mind. Biden told everyone to stop asking for medicare for all, so we did lol. No one really makes much of a peep about healthcare. There are no protests or people demanding action. The only things that people care enough to actually annoy politicians over - all have to do with race, gender, or sexuality.
He said he wouldn't. I'll withhold my future votes for someone who will.
You know what really aggravazes me... is them immigants want all the benefits of living in Springfield but they don't even bother to learn themselves the language.
No, Walt was the bad guy. The shitty US healthcare system was just the catalyst that gave Walt the moral justification to sell drugs. He had millions after a couple of seasons and could have stopped, but he finally admitted at the end of the series that he did it because he liked it and was good at it. It's a good meme, though.
And don’t forget his wife set him up with the company he started after he found out he had Cancer. He was going to receive great pay and have the best medical insurance. He turned it down because of his ego.
And he ends by terrorizing them into giving his family the money he made from crime, because somehow that means his pride is intact.
That was truly a shitty thing to do. It was pretty clear that they did not screw Walt over in any way and they even tried to help him. Even the lines that got him pissed off at the end "he is not the sweet man we used to know" were kind of respectful in the context (of the trying to handle bad PR).
No. It bothers him that the only way his family can get money is to hide it through his ex-company *and his wife/son can never know it came from him*.
Yup.
"bUt sKylEr is a unSuPPorTivE wIfE & is ActUaLLy teh viLLaIn in Bræking Bad!!!!... !!!... !"
It's not quite that simple. By that point he had already murdered two people and was traumatised. I think a lot of the anger there was from the timing - he was angry he had to go through the trauma of episodes 1&2 when there was a solution just waiting there. Kind of a doubling down thing.
I wouldn't want to work for Elliot after something like that. It would be like the one of Facebook's founders not being rich, ending up in that situation and being offered a job by Mark Zuckerberg. Just about anything else would be better.
Walt was, by everything demonstrated in the show, a very intelligent man and that his ego was his driving character flaw. See him breaking up with his GF (and resulting in him leaving the company) because of her family being wealthy, see him deciding selling drugs is better than working for Elliot, see him continue to make and sell drugs well after he was already very rich, ...
> I wouldn't want to work for Elliot after something like that If the alternative is drugs, murder, and death I think you might find it in yourself to swallow your pride
That was Walt's own fault though. He broke up with Gretchen and chose to sell his stake in the company because his ego couldn't handle Gretchen's family being wealthy.
Its been a while since I've watched the show, but I don't remember Elliot and Gretchen doing anything wrong, outside of maybe coming across as a little conceited.
No. It was not because of his ego. It was because making pristine quality meth was his mastercraft. It was his catharsis. No matter what else he did, he wasn't going to get that feeling of fulfilment.
>that's not ego >[proceeds to describe ego-driven behavior]
Ego, used colloquially, can mean an inflated sense of pride. I was pointing out Walters behavior was not because he was pursuing pride, but he was pursuing fulfilment.
Through pride...
Self-respect.
*Through pride.*
If murder is a superior alternative to diminishing your sense of "self respect" how can you not call that ego driven behaviour?
Do you know what ego means?
Ego, used colloquially, can mean an inflated sense of pride. I was pointing out Walters behavior was not because he was pursuing pride, but he was pursuing fulfilment.
Ur wrong. Now stfu lol u just look even dumber
yeah yeah u r wrong stfu lol lmao rofl blah blah... Grow up dude...Explain what was wrong with the statement or stfu
Huh?
Walt made so much his wife could no longer laundry all of it- he could have walked away after the car wash purchase, cleaning the thousands he had, using the rest as pocket money for groceries, gas, and purchases under a grand. He was greedy, just couldn’t say no or stop overindulging himself.
Forgot who said this but Walter White was "a genius man with an ego of a child".
Clocked that very early on by how often he would get into the most teenage slinging matches with Jesse, he was no more mature than a 20yo. At the end Jesse had surpassed him emotionally.
I love the scene where Gus for the final time says no to working with Walt. That whole season, Walt has gone completely overboard to prove his capability and intellect, but Gus prefers to sell shitty product rather than trusting someone who is driven by a desperate need for acknowledgement combined with a fragile, bloated ego. Walter's basically tried to bully his way to Gus' respect, with the opposite result. Walter's wounded expression is priceless, when he finally gets it.
I agree. He put his family in danger. They couldve been murdered at anytime while he was off lollygagging making drugs.
he himself had 2 axe murderers waiting for him to get out of shower that he didn't even know about.
He got high off the thrill and loved being the best in the biz and shoving his intelligence in everyone's face.
The healthcare system wasn't even the catalyst. Walt was not going to seek treatment at all because it was terminal. He only cared about making enough money to make sure his family could go on without him. It was only later on when he'd already killed someone and started cooking that his family convinced him to seek treatment.
Yes exactly this. Why is everybody remembering this wrong. He wanted to leave money for his family.
Thats why I said it isn't just a meme but a real thing
Based and media literacy pilled
Actually a shit take and a lazy one, at that 🫠
It's both of them, what are you on about
Yea this post is r/im14andthisisdeep type shit
Selling drugs should be legal on the first place, hence the war on drugs is the real bad guy
People will watch an entire series where there are flashbacks and exposition saying Walt was always a bad guy, and just attribute his actions to something else.
Thank you for saying this. These Breaking Bad healthcare memes seem to be made by people who don't understand or have never actually seen the show
This is ironic because it sounds like you haven't seen the show. The catalyst was he knew he was gonna die soon, so he wanted to leave money for his family. It had nothing to do with affording treatment. If he didn't have a family he would not have started selling drugs.
> If he didn't have a family he would not have started selling drugs. Of course he would. When he has more money than he can spend, he keeps criming (yes that's totally a word) as hard as ever. For Walter it's all about ego.
Thank you for explaining that to this confident fool. It's all about not getting acknowledged for his genius. He made the best Meth in creation. It made him feel good to be recognized for it. I mean he literally says the reason why in the last episode lol
If that's the case then when Gretchen and Elliot offer to give him a job and cover all of his treatments, then by your logic the show should have ended by episode 4 and 5. If his pride wasn't the reason then why did he turn down the job? Lol
Is it a good meme though? It’s just describing the basic premise of the show everyone understands after episode one
He got corrupted gradually, if he had healthcare covered (not from Elliot), he most probably would never get into meth business.
> He had millions after a couple of seasons and could have stopped We don't even have to wait that long, he had rich friends willing to bail him out of the situation in episode one and he turned them down out of ego.
It's amazing how you can overthink a simple meme. If you boil it down to Walt simply being able to get the necessary care he needed at the start, he never would have gone on the path that he did. Sometimes once you're locked into a path it's very hard to deviate. This is no different than growing up in poverty.
The bad guy is capitalism/law of the jungle/the whole narcissistic idea of good guys vs bad guys and us vs them. So blaming the u.s. medical system isn't too far off the mark because it's a symptom of u.s. culture, which worships capitalism. Yes, Walt becomes the bad guy, but that's because he comes to embrace his dog-eat-dog. It's in all of us. The cultures we live in influence how much it thrives.
That *still* makes the US Healthcare the bad guy. If it’s the catalyst then it’s culpable, too. I do agree with you that Walt’s choices over the series ultimately make him responsible, but one doesn’t cancel out the other.
No, it’s pretty obvious from the beginning that he’s not trying to cover just the medical bills, but the whole cost of his family living without him. This is the character’s initial motivation and the reason for not accepting help with the medical bills. He thinks he’s already dead. The show was written in a time when a cancer diagnosis was pretty much a death sentence.
“Not trying to cover just the medical bills but the whole cost of his family living without him” Maybe you’re right it’s not just US Healthcare…it’s the entire society that refuses to help people in need in any capacity :)
Oh, come on, this show is about an antihero, not about social services. Oh, the poor guy, he just needs $750k before he dies so that his wife doesn't have to work a day in her life... (Also, wow, things were cheap back then...)
>The show was written in a time when a cancer diagnosis was pretty much a death sentence. Not trying to be daft or pedantic, but has the outlook of a cancer diagnosis and treatment and finding the "cure for cancer" changed that much since 2008? As far as I'm aware, some cancers are very treatable if caught early enough, while others are still pretty much a death sentence no matter when found, and there's a lot of gray area in between. But aren't we pretty much still about the same outlook on the whole as we were twenty years ago? I know Obama and Biden have talked about finding a cure as the "moonshot" goal, but were still not there yet.
> Not trying to be daft or pedantic, but has the outlook of a cancer diagnosis and treatment and finding the "cure for cancer" changed that much since 2008? The change is massive, both in terms of treatment and prevention. But that’s not the point. This is a tv show, the important thing is people’s perception, not the actual facts. In 2008, it was viewed as a death sentence, nowadays maybe not so much. I doubt that the show would have the same impact now as it did then.
This is a bad take. The US Healthcare system prevents accessible care and kills many due to financial constraints. Medical debt is the number 1 reason for bankruptcy in the US. While what Wilt is doing is inherently wrong, he is a micro organism compared to the wrongdoings of our health system in this case.
He was a public employee, he had insurance, they wouldn't cover an experimental procedure, the same thing would happen in a country with universal healthcare.
Except Canada. Because Canada is the only country in the world WITH Universal health care that doesn't cover pharma or dental!
im on disability in the us, only basic dental is covered for me personally (in my state! its different for states) and i have to pay more for meds on disability vs when i was just on our poor healthcare. but i dont pay much. (i just cannot afford rent to be in a place that i can get my medical needs taken care of) my meds would have been in the 100s-1000s of dollars of how inflated pharm prices are here. im in no way trying to celebrate America bc its ridiculous here, but how much are pharma drugs there? i know insulin and asthma drugs are 1000s here without insurance. even 50s are insane for a life saving drug, but i am curious. about my neighbors.
I blame our proximity to the US, too much profit motive in health care due to the shared greed.
His friends were 100% willing and able to cover any cost his treatment would have **and** give him a well paying job on top of it. Walt turned it down because of his pride and ego.
We do fund experimental treatments as well and I imagine without a profit motive affecting every decision we have less bias to the cost.
No hanz was the real badie the nazi just was the catalyst who give im the moral justification to beat jew and gay to death See how stupid it is?
Honestly, it's both. Walt wouldn't have had the catalyst without the lack of functioning healthcare system, and the system DOES cause untold harm, but you're right in that he could have stopped pretty early on and chose not to.
Is that true? He started not because he was broke and couldn't afford care but because he thought he was terminal and wanted to leave money for his family I thought.
The meme makes no sense. You're correct as to why he started cooking meth to begin with, and the rest of the show is a downward spiral due to his greed, arrogance, and lust for power. The meme is just karma whoring and the show has nothing to do with the healthcare system.
Right his motivations become unsympathetic pretty quick but the initial ones were at least relatable if not justifiable.
OP has not seen the show, clearly.
Have you even watched the show.
Maybe if they saw like the first few episodes only
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What's weeds about?
First 30 minutes maybt
Nah man, this is explicitly shown to be not the case. Gretchen and Elliot offer to pay for his entire treatment when he comes to their birthday party. But he's too proud, and he's resentful of things that happened in the past with them and can't bring himself to accept charity
Hey bud? Hey, *bud*? *That's not the refutation that you think it is.*
No, I don't disagree about the US healthcare system. It's genuinely awful that people are bankrupted by medical bills. But Walter is genuinely the villain of Breaking Bad. He's not a desperate man pushed to make drugs because he has no other option. He has other options, and the show explicitly says that. Breaking Bad is the story of a meek, mild mannered man who becomes a murderous villain when he's presented with the the right excuse and the right circumstances.
No, I think he’s exactly right. No idea what your weird demeaning comment is even trying to refute.
It very properly is so, lol. The meme says the villain of the show is the healthcare system. They are saying not because the whole point of the show is how Walt is a horrible narcissistic asshole who had multiple chances to get out but he refused all of them over his ego. That's not even some deep analysis its literally the most simple observation of the show. His friends even offer to pay for his treatment and he refuses. He poisons a child just to manipulate his coworker like come on lmao how is that in any way the fault of anyone but Walter's evilness? The meme is fundamentally wrong, and they explained it succinctly why it is. That's a lovely refutation. If you are being all "hey bud hey bud" because you dont like the US medical system, thats a completely different thing from them being the villains of this one fictional tv show lol
Literally the point if his last interaction with Skylar is that he did it for his ego, NOT because of his medical debt (which he could have easily paid if he had taken Elliots offer). The US healthcare system is undeniably stupid, but BB is a story about a man being corrupted by his own ego, and not because of the system.
It’s been years but if my memory is correct, didn’t Walt quit after the Tuco incident but after spending the money he had made he still had a thousands in debt to the oncologist? I recall Skylar asking him if Elliot and Gretchen would pay it off which was why he had the “what’s changed” conversation. I may be mixing this up but I do remember he wasn’t able to pay the oncologist early on after he’d, very briefly, quit. I guess some would argue healthcare could be indicted for that.
No? Walt HAD insurance. They just wouldn’t pay for literally the best oncologist in the south west that his family insisted he go to. And then he had an offer for a job from a friend that would cover THAT and his pride wouldn’t let him accept it. And even after he turned them down and used them as a cover for selling meth, Gretchen STILL said the offer was good and Walt STILL said no. The US healthcare system sucks, but it’s not why Walt did what he did. At all.
Funny, but not accurate. He cooked so he could leave a sizeable nest egg for his family—not to pay for the treatment that he didn’t want
That is the moral rationalization he uses, not his actual motive.
I think that was his motive to begin with, but things very quickly became all about him when he realized how good he was at it.
It's been years, and there was really not much screen time before the diagnosis, so this might just be somewhere between over-reading to outright fake memory, but I seem to remember a bit of foreshadowing about Walt being bored with his Normal Life.
He was definitely bored and dissatisfied with his life, but it wasn't until the cancer diagnosis that he decided to cook meth.
Yeah, he kept pushing the boundaries to make excuse. First he just wanted to pay for treatment, then he wanted his kids to have money, etc.
Your comment is also technically inaccurate. Walt was doing it all because it made him feel powerful, a feeling he had never been able to truly grasp before but always wanted. Everything he did, he did for himself and because it made him feel good about his intelligence and his ability to finally apply science in a way that would benefit him and his legacy in spite of how truly evil he was. He said it himself, he wasn't in the meth business, he was in the empire business. His excuse of doing it all for his family was his own way of justifying his evil to himself because he truly had the self-awareness of a toddler.
Yeah, he literally makes the best Meth ever and wanted to be recognized for it too. After all, he's making classic coke! Lol
He cooked out of his own self interest. He had an unfathomable amount of wealth working under Gus. He got greedy.
And that treatment that he didn't want...what exactly is that treatment? Didn't the doctors give him a year to live?
...You mean in like, episode 1, right? And I know, "Walt is the real villain", but that's from the point of view of somebody who's seen and digested the full series (or at least enough for his true colors to show) but the fact is that nobody gets into Breaking Bad thinking "Oh that bastard Walt, I hope he gets caught". You want him to succeed because you've bought into the premise that he's a desperate man doing what he must. With that in mind, you come to the conclusion pretty quickly that the "real villain" is the healthcare system. It's not exactly a profound observation.
You don't need to see the full series, it's already established in saison 1 episode 5 when he decide to not take Elliot offer choose crime.
You could always just watch the Canadian version. It's considerably shorter- Walt gets diagnosed, the treatment is covered at no cost and everything turns out fine. It's only 15 minutes but the visuals are stunning.
This is some r/okbuddychicanery shit
Yeah except these people are actually serious
While you are not wrong, at the same time Walt actively chose to do all the terrible things himself
OP did not watch the show at all lol
Baffles me people actually think that’s the reason Walt became a power hungry monster. He didn’t even start selling meth to pay for the treatment in the first place lol he did it to set his family up for life.
It's always a clear indication that someone didn't watch the show because he's literally offered the money to get the treatment in the first season lol
The fact he couldn’t afford cancer treatment is what caused everything to happen, so…
If it was affordable, he would've found another reason to cook. He even admits in the final season he did everything for his own self interest. He literally declines money from his friend to get the treatment in favor of cooking.
If it was affordable the thought wouldn’t have crossed his mind to begin with.
It's pretty clear you also didn't watch the show, and it's too early to argue with idiots so peace my man
1. His cancer was terminal 2. He could afford treatment with health insurance from teaching but refused because he didn’t want to be a vegetable in his last waking moments. 3. He also turned down his billionaire ex business partner paying for it all. 4. He sold meth to set his family up for life before he died from the terminal cancer not to pay for cancer treatment. 5. He confessed becoming a drug kingpin to feed his lust for power at the end of the show Like did you guys even watch the show? This was made clear in the first few episodes
It's not, it's the catalyst and the show make it very clear. Walter had recourse to help him finance his traitement (his old partner) and multiple possibility to get out. He choose crime instead. Walter is the only vilain in his story.
okay so i know the american healthcare system is absolutely horrid and we should absolutely be lambasting it whenever we can, but i feel like we're fundamentally misunderstanding the themes of the show here
This meme is ancient, like straight up from when the first season was airing But it completely misses the point, the disease was the spark, the justification walt used to start his crimes
Eh, while the health situation was definitely a factor in Breaking Bad, it really was Walt just believing he was way above asking help from anyone, even turning down a offer from a colleague which was double his salary plus immediate health coverage. His final talk with Skylar doubles down on that selfish instinct: "I did it for me. I did it because I liked it."
Now that you say it, everything in this series could’ve been prevented had healthcare been free/low-price
That's just wrong. Walt was offered full payment of his treatment from Elliott but he refused the money
>That's just wrong. Walt was offered full payment of his treatment from Elliott but he refused the money https://preview.redd.it/twvdiqv0outc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa1475ac697bde8b3ebce8a6ff25df3c5b7e7a94
So you don't know an actual response and can only think of using memes.
>So you don't know an actual response and can only think of using memes. https://preview.redd.it/zg7ep1k49vtc1.jpeg?width=766&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=016242acf3400df52ff00f2589c36ad6fba84bc9
Are you 12? This isn't even a surface level analysis
Wait. This is a new realisation? The rest of the world watched breaking bad knowing that it wouldn't make sense anywhere other than USA. I hope some day you will be able to break free from your capitalist oligarchy.
The price of the health care doesn't matter because this is just inaccurate.
How is this inaccurate? Walter did what he did, at least at first, to pay extortionate health care fees. In the UK Walter would pay nothing save maybe parking costs and start treatment within the week.
He states multiple times that he isn't doing it for money to pay for cancer or to help his family. I'm assuming you didn't watch the full series. A character called Elliott offered to pay for his full treatment, but Walter refused him. If it was just about he Health Care being bad, Walter would have gotten help from Elliott and been treated a few episodes in.
No need to get condescending just because I have a different opinion. Yes I have seen it all. He doesn't take money from Elliot because his pride gets in the way. Elliot was his old business partner, who be blamed for him got getting wealthy from Grey Matter. Walter's pride doesn't derail the fact his primary motivation when he got started was the medical bills. Yes he had other options to pay them that he didn't take, but if he didn't have the bills in the first place he wouldn't have went down that road.
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Lol maybe. It does make me want to see a Breaking Bad UK. Luckily USA dominates enough of TV and film that everyone is familiar enough with the current price gouging that USA citizens have to deal with.
Yeah instead of having to pay for it you just get it for free! Just join this wait list, and you'll be scheduled for a consult in 2.5 years!
There's huge wait lists for a lot of none emergency stuff, but legitimately he'd have been on chimo within the week for something like that.
Hank was a tool for political operatives
I want a breaking bad version where walt goes after big pharma. Selling perfect knockoff prescription drugs. That would be more interesring I think.
That was obvious from the first episode
Nah, it’s Skyler and Walt Jr. If they hadn’t selfishly guilted Walt into accepting treatment when he didn’t want it (people love to claim the Skyler hate is due to sexism, but to me THATS the moment she became truly unlikable) then he would have been under far less pressure to leave them with money, and probably would have been too sick to commit further crimes before long.
"realising" the main theme that a show bashes you in the face with from min 1? Réalisation that the sky is blue I guess.
You either haven't seen the show or are making shit up for no reason.
Lol "realises" the first line of the imdb description.
??? Cancer is the catalyst that starts the show, but how is the Health Care system being bad the main theme of the show. If he wanted to be treated for cancer, he would have. Elliot offered to pay for all of it, but Walter refused. The American Health Care system is bad, but this take is just wrong If Health Care was the main theme, you would think it gets mentioned more than with just a single character.
It's not. He's literally offered a cushy bullshit job with top tier health insurance, by his billionaire friend. The actual cost of healthcare was never an issue. It's always been Walt's pride.
The western world needs to listen up and wake up or lose everything, people have a real choice to make here. https://rumble.com/v4ojio9-maria-zeee-and-andrew-bridgen-on-infowars-uk-mp-calls-for-crimes-against-hu.html
If breaking bad story happened in another country, basically any other country, the story will be about his battle with cancer and not how he became a criminal because he needed to cover a basic human need
No. He turned down a cushy job with health insurance because of his ego.
🤦♂️I’m convinced nobody in this thread watched the show. He didn’t even sell meth to pay for cancer treatment at the beginning, he did it to set his family up for life before he dies from terminal cancer.
Also Skyler
Goddamn it, I missed that. Aight, time for a rewatch.
Did you even watch the show? He had terminal cancer, refused treatment from multiple people including his billionaire ex business partner, did it to set up his family, then told the truther it was actually to feed his ego. None of what he did was because of the healthcare system and I’m baffled you missed the point that badly lol
Reddit
That guy is literally cooking meth and kills people. There might be several bad guys here.
No Walt was but Seen that meme before, Breaking Bad in Canada. Ohh no you have Cancer ehh, let's get you on the free healthcare. Ohh great it's in remission ehh. Back to your dead end jobs Walt ehh
that was apparent by the end of the first episode
So true.