The staff were pretty kind all around, facility was clean.
The dystopian aspect was how many people I saw denied, because they had donated yesterday. You can give twice a week, but have to wait a day in between. I saw at least four or five people get turned away, and they were all pretty upset. The line was extremely long - there are tons of people desperate enough to wait in line for hours to go through the painful process of having their blood sapped out.
I also got a preloaded card as my payment, which has a ton of fees associated with it - I’ll get charged if I use it at an atm or check the balance. I know these cash cards are often also used to pay people who work at like McDonald’s - it just seems like so much of the US is designed to nickel and dime the shit out of the poor.
Its not inherently bad, but when 15-20% of the countries population is below the poverty line, then yes, it is a very bad idea.
By 15-20% you mean 11.1% (or possibly a bit higher)?
source
Further, your response sounds like its just to my rhetorical question of “is it?” without any recognition of the future policy you’re implying of banning paying for blood. Let say you get your way and paying for blood products in the USA is banned as it is in most other countries immediately. More than 70 percent of the entire world’s plasma used for plasma therapies is now gone. How many lives has your policy cost in the weeks and months from patients around the world going without these and dying? What is your plan to not only deal with aftermath of your policy, but create an alternative that would prevent future suffering and fatalities for scarce supplies?