I fully agree. On one hand people in the US only show medical bills that don't include insurance deductions, which are exceptionally high. While most people have insurance, so never face these payments, most people that don't never make the full payments and do get reductions. There are exceptions, but exaggerating the problem (which it still is a problem!) is not helpful but actively harmful to the conversation since it creates an easy to tear down strawman. Similarly romanticizing the healthcare of other countries is problematic. I'm going through a situation right now where my gf went back to her home country which has a nationalized health care only to find that she's paying more that we paid here. Where we didn't even max out our deductible for a near death experience that led to months in a hospital. But costs are wildly variable and this makes it hard to wrap our heads around because the systems are not easy to compare.

> r.e. Oregon

I'm curious if anyone clicked on any of the links that the article offers. While the article says "Last year, the state experienced one of the _sharpest rises_ in overdose deaths in the nation..." the "sharpest rise" link goes to a CDC website (https://archive.ph/7MbUn) that seems to only work in Edge browser. But that those numbers are based on predicted rather than reported, and that there are similar or even larger increases in Washington (24), Mane (17), (put Oregon here (14.5)) Wyoming (13), Nevada (12.5), Oklahoma (12), Texas (10.5), and Alabama (10) (rounded to nearest .5% of increased change). Interestingly here Oregon has one of the smallest gaps. Similarly the data only goes up to Feb 2023 which is only 2 months of the law being in effect. The sharp rise appears to be October to December of 2022 and a reported fall thereafter (only time that Oregon's reported and predicted values diverge). The article does not actually make a strong evidence based case around Oregon, but rather focuses on emotional with a sprinkling of policy and facts. But of course this is the case, as there's absolutely no way we could accurately judge if Oregon's experiment is a success given that it has only been running for 7 months and we'd need several years worth of data to make such a judgement (especially as we'd expect early results to have higher variance as a learning curve exists). Any data right now is more likely the result of coupled effects rather than actual policy. I mean it isn't like addictions are cured in a few weeks. And if I recall, Portugal had similar initial strains and that it has widely been discussed that people predict initial increases before overall trend downs, made long prior to even Oregon discussing decriminalization. I'm pretty sure we see a similar effect with weed. Like I said, shit is complicated.

I think what is instead happening is that due to the lack of any real evidence people are grasping at weak ones, and pretending their straw armor is made of steel because it supports their prior beliefs. Who knows if Oregon will be a success or not, but it is far to early to tell or have strong opinions.