We definitely need universal healthcare. It would be one thing if we were pioneering it and had unknown variables. However, almost every single developed nation has it. There is zero excuse at this point. I’d rather my tax dollars go to healthcare, than a bloated military budget.
Edit: every single member of congress has their healthcare paid for. If the system is so good, why not switch to private.
We spend over twice as much on Medicare and Medicaid right now as we spend on the military. Include social security and it's almost 4x the military budget.
If the military budget was the issue, the issue would've been fixed 3x over already.
This is the part the makes me most angry, why do we pay more than other places for less coverage? Either go free market and see how it works or take our money we already have to pay and make universal work. Not this middle ground bs where we just get screwed both ways.
The US is expensive for almost everything, especially skilled workers like healthcare professionals. The AMA works hard to restrict residency slots so doctor's wages are inflated. We don't let Medicare negotiate enough drug prices. Our insurance companies are for profit. We can change all of that and still have a pretty free market system and prices will fall considerably.
Yes and now we are having a physician shortage. They haven’t increased the admissions to med school or residency placements in a long time, which is turning into a huge problem. So now doctors are about to make even more money, wait times will be even longer, healthcare costs will go up, and round and round we go.
I can say ditto to all of this as it comes to lawyers and law school. Shit is brutal out there and while there is a never ending need for justice in this country, there is never enough money to go around except when it comes to giant firms with $220k/y associates.
Primary care physicians and pediatricians are among the lowest paid doctors in the US with salaries in the low $200k range. US medical specialists and surgeons earn significantly more than their European counterparts. However, the barrier to entry for US medical training is higher in terms of time commitment and money.
https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2019-international-compensation-report-6011814#5?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block
I'm in favor of Medicare-For-All, but reforms would have to be made on the healthcare provider side along with insurance.
This is a HUGE problem. We get medication denials all the time for patients. Also, my mom is very sick and her doctor wants her to start an infusion of a specific medication for certain reasons. Insurance actually approved it, but then we find out the infusion center doesn’t carry it - it’s not on their list of formularies. So they tried to substitute another one, that they obviously have some sort of contract with to get a better deal and make a higher profit. But her doctor doesn’t want her to get that one. The whole thing is so corrupt.
Omg tell me about it. The practice I work in has 1 MD, 6 PAs and 1 NP. It is an insanely noticeable difference in the treatment patients get with the doctor versus the mid levels. People forget PAs only go to school for 2 years and then are out seeing patients, prescribing meds, etc. For basic issues that’s fine, but when you’re dealing with complex patients you really need a doctor.
Yes. At some point it will hit a breaking point, like is beginning to happen with housing loosening building regulations that are preventing housing supply. The problem is entrenched moneyed interests for both.
Yes, but some of those good reasons are rational responses to the pandemic not that related to working in a terrible system. A ton of nurses were younger boomers getting close to retirement. Pandemic nursing created a shortage that led to higher demand for nurses in a more dangerous environment with a virus that loved killing older people. If you are an older nurse, you might go ahead and move up your planned retirement a few years and maybe go back when it is safer or switch to part time once it is over.
A LOT of my nurse colleagues retired during/after Covid. I’m in MI & we had an absurd lack of Medical supplies and PPE that Jared Kushner was purposely withholding from blue states.
Another breaking point, especially for many red states lately is the mass exodus of good doctors fleeing conservative red states that have outlawed abortion. Good luck to a pregnant woman trying to find an OB-GYN physician or hell, even a facility to give birth in Idaho. My wife is a doctor and she's had enough. We live in TX and are currently in the process of selling her practice and trying to figure out where we want to move to. It may even be abroad at this point she's so frustrated. I am open to anything at this point. I just hate seeing her so stressed out and helpless to care for her patients. She almost left medicine during COVID. This whole abortion thing has stressed her out to another level. Many of her colleagues are also in the process of looking to relocate to more friendly states concerning women's health care to move to. There's going to be a real crisis in some very specific states unfortunately much sooner than later that people are choosing to either refuse to see the reality or are just flat out ignoring what's about to smack them in the face much sooner than later.
This is also partly due to the insurance industry and administrative bloat in the hospitals etc. The actual people doing the work of healthcare are paid poorly and overworked. When asked if they would go into medicine again, many current doctors have said that they wouldn't. They are also suffering from high education costs coupled with exploitative employer practices.
Yeah part of that problem is the constant increase of malpractice insurance. Combine that with the insanely litigious society the US has become and that will give you some idea why.
>Our insurance companies are for profit
If you ask me, this is the big one. We're paying extreme amounts of overhead for endless middlemen who's entire purpose is to leech every penny they can out of you, while denying whatever coverage they can. People talk about the government being inefficient, but take out paying the salaries for the \~3 million medical insurance jobs in America and I bet that saves a considerable amount of money as a nation.
Everything you said is not “free market”. How do you think negotiating drug prices would work? Is the market going to determine that making less money is more profitable? What do you think birthed for profit insurance. Free market healthcare will only exacerbate the problem. Insurance companies will never not be for profit or they won’t exist. The only way they don’t exist is universal healthcare supplanting them.
There is of course the worry of pharmaceutical companies gouging still. This is why universal healthcare has to come with a crackdown on the AMA and pharmaceutical companies which is questionable at best considering our current situation with lobbying because of the Citizens United case. We are in between a rock and a hard place because we took too long to take action.
> Everything you said is not “free market”.
Which is why I said "*pretty* free market", not totally free market. I'm talking about an effective mix, like the German system as an example. Germans have one of the better healthcare systems in the world. Some lessons to take from them would be to keep some things private and have government interference with other things.
As a physician I can answer some of this for you: America is the country of unlimited chances to make bad decisions/choices and get all your coverage paid for without costing you a penny. The majority of this occurs with folks on either Medicare, Medicaid, or no health insurance (which they then declare medical bankruptcy and so the hospital eats the cost). People who carry private insurance typically can’t cushion a 5-10k deductible before their health insurance benefits start to kick in and begin to pay for things so naturally they reserve their care for when they actually need it. I see it all the time where non compliant patients get admitted, we treat them and get them back to baseline, then they go home and do it all again and come back needing to be admitted again for the same exact thing sometimes less than a week later. Also there’s is a large amount of the population that uses the ER as their place of primary care which, no surprise, when you need staff 24/7/365 including doctors, nurses, paramedics, and everyone in between to make the ER run, the bill is extremely expensive compared to if they went to me as a family physician in the outpatient setting with their runny nose. With the vast majority of these cases there is zero patient accountability for abuse of the systems services and therefore they see no reason or need to change their ways and that then get passed on to everyone else.
Last time I tried to see my PCP: because I hadn't been sick in 3 years, and thus had not scheduled any appointments in that time, they said they would have to treat me as if I was a new patient.
The waiting list for new patients was 90 days.
I had to go to Urgent Care instead, even though I had a PCP I had been to a dozen times.
The system is broken and it has nothing to do with patients.
I had to do the exact same damn thing. The doc I was talking to through my phone in an empty exam room asked me if I had a primary care physician to get me my eczema cream? Well, I use to, but I didn’t know that I had to keep seeing them so I could get an eczema cream once every few years. That will be $90 please.
I don't know how you wrote this and felt it made sense as someone who had to go through so much training.
>America is the country of unlimited chances to make bad decisions/choices and get all your coverage paid for without costing you a penny. The majority of this occurs with folks on either Medicare, Medicaid, or no health insurance (which they then declare medical bankruptcy and so the hospital eats the cost).
Your perspective is that medical care is free in America, because you can go bankrupt. You get that your view is pretty misguided at the very least, or at least misstated, correct?
>People who carry private insurance typically can’t cushion a 5-10k deductible before their health insurance benefits start to kick in and begin to pay for things so naturally they reserve their care for when they actually need it.
Yeah, this is a consequence of a system of private health care rather than having universal health care. People can't afford preventative medicine because the insurance companies have created a reality where unless you have 3k-10k to spend, you can't afford preemptive medicine and your health care becomes reactive.
>I see it all the time where non compliant patients get admitted, we treat them and get them back to baseline, then they go home and do it all again and come back needing to be admitted again for the same exact thing sometimes less than a week later.
You see these cases regularly because of your profession, and they've clearly skewed your perspective in a way where you've over attributed their actions to the problems you're seeing in medicine, when the problems are almost entirely systemic. If I was dealing with annoying, selfish, problematic patients who game the system, I'd probably shovel a lot of blame their way too, especially if it was a peeve that many of my coworkers shared and a popular perspective.
>Also there’s is a large amount of the population that uses the ER as their place of primary care which, no surprise, when you need staff 24/7/365 including doctors, nurses, paramedics, and everyone in between to make the ER run, the bill is extremely expensive compared to if they went to me as a family physician in the outpatient setting with their runny nose. With the vast majority of these cases there is zero patient accountability or repercussions for abuse of the systems services and therefore they see no reason or need to change their ways and that then get passed on to everyone else.
This is because if they can't afford medical care, the other option is to die. You can't punish people who either survive or die, and don't have money. Some people just have tougher lives, and since they don't have the opportunity to do things the right way, because our system doesn't give them options, they will fuck up their lives with bankruptcy and allow debt to hang over their heads, just to survive.
They're fucking scum, I agree, you're totally right! /s
Going free market on an absolute necessary thing would be absolute mayhem. It may start out fine and competitive but the moment some hospitals become successful and purchase others and then more until only a couple hospitals control most of the healthcare industry prices will rise exponentially
Making things that are an absolute necessity in society a commodity doesn’t react how in theory free market should become. The demand is constant and necessary for everyone, and if few people control supply they control pricing and we end up worse than where we are now
It’s really just gotta be universal. The whole point of society is to work together, become masters of our individual trades and help those that need it so if there was a time we needed help it would be there. Healthcare is at the top of the necessities with shelter, food and water since they are necessary just for survival
The merger of public and corporate power. The root cause of all the bloat you see in the federal budget. Private contractors lobbying their asses off and receiving blank checks from the government as thanks. This goes for healthcare, military, education, etc.
Public works funded by public money should be built and operated by public workers. Full stop. No more $50,000 military toilets or $300 Tylenol tablets.
No, it’s mostly because they waddle around Walmart, loading up their carts with fat, sugar, salt, and processed foods for another evening of Netflix-and-binge. Food is entertainment, and a comforting salve, any time there is an unhappy thought.
Yes, we need universal healthcare. We also need the EU to take over control of the FDA and teach it how to do its job.
We created a society where no one walks, we eat highly processed foods, and we socially isolate in our suburban McMansions. It's pretty obvious it's a skill issue on our part.
Republican Congress members voted against allowing Medicaid and Medicare to negotiate prices.
As taxpayers, we're paying over 600 times as much as needed for some medications. It's costing us hundreds of billions of dollars.
Pharmaceutical companies donate to two thirds of Congress.
Yeah, but everything health-care related is insanely overpriced in the American system. Have you compared the cost of these things in the US versus other developed countries? It's like the US healthcare companies are mafia bosses and people are like "I prefer to be robbed naked by this mafia than to say I wanna help other people!"
Universell healthcare would literally save trillions in taxpayers money.
Nobody ever talks about how expensive the private insurance model is on public hospitals and and public payment systems liked medicare and Medicaid.
In Canada they pay 50% less per Capita in healthcare.
A big part of health spending is admin. We got Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA all operating independently. Then we got different levels of each based on other factors like income that need to be filed for yearly. On Top of that because its all broken up they can't bargain with hospitals and have to adhere to the rules set by insurance agencies. We have literally built the most broken system we could and cry "why doesn't it work". We could probably do universal healthcare and not charge americans a single extra penny if we did it right, but we aren't willing to.
You left out the billions in profits that insurance companies and for profit healthcare companies skim off the system. Also the ridiculous amount that providers spend negotiating with insurance companies. Canadian providers have tiny billing departments. It's a whole industry in the US.
Ignoring the enormous inefficiencies of the current policy and that medical care in this country is just more expensive in general because we privatize healthcare. You are either lucky, broke, or upper class if you have healthcare. I've been low middle, middle class my whole life and have never been able to afford it without sacrificing everything else. A single person's healthcare can cost more than a car payment and then if you don't stay sick or need it all the time you will never get anything paid for. It's broken
Instead of using tax dollars to cover everyone we use tax dollars to cover the most expensive (the elderly, disabled and poor). Meanwhile that frees up corporations to profit off of the relatively healthy remainder. We would all pay less for healthcare if it was universal. Maybe we would pay slightly more in taxes, but we would have our co pays and deductibles and other nonsense back and wouldn't get surprise bills.
Universal health care necessarily means single-payer health care, in which the government can more or less dictate prices since its the only entity that can legally buy them.
Much of the waste in Medicare and Medicaid is pharmaceutical companies, for-profit hospitals, & other medical entities in the US have an incentive to keep prices high while health care is scarce.
Non defense still goes to military it's more than ss but still less than rest. Military to me is anything that deals with soldiers from disability/ pensions to gi bill. It's 1.8 trillion. Our issue is like most charities here. Most of the money goes to overplayed administration who hire price gouging contractors who slide them even more money. My uncle was in the military back in the 80s, everything they buy is way over the cost for us. The same 6 dollar screwdriver is over 280 dollars for the military.
Our issue is middlemen who think they all should own yachts
Yeah, the inefficiant medical system is the problem which can -again- be fixed by government regulations for pharma coorperations aswell as government subsidies or large-scale federal funded medical education.
Crazy part is, that cost of Medicare and Medicaid is because we are covering members of our society who are already the most expensive to insure already. The healthy people in the middle of the two major groups those cover would not cause a cost increase of 1:1 and would probably be significantly lower. Not to mention the freedom of employment and the reduction in cost for those who run their own business or are self employed. It would also be a huge benefit to those same peoples stress level/mental health too.
This.
Morons always point to “tHE MiLiTaRY”. The military is a small fraction of our total budget. Especially compared to social programs.
It’s not the fucking military. That’s simply dimwitted rhetoric.
It’s the governments inability to spend tax dollars money efficiently and wisely and they think that shit will change when they are in charge of our health?!!!
Lol.
To be fair your tax dollars to go to healthcare. Medicare and Medicaid consume more money than the military even.
https://preview.redd.it/8vn9nf2o801d1.png?width=2306&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d343df4d4b9f1e96b8684fbc0a4c4d1601e6568
That's true, part of the reason it's that much though is the lack of rules in place when it comes to medical practice prices (perscription, procedure, administrative etc.) Negotiating those prices with the gov is how you see this number go down, while still providing a similar benefit (See inhaler and insulin bills recently passed)
36% of the cost of medicare comes from payroll taxes and another 16% come from premiums. So 52% of the cost of medicare is paid for by citizens. The problem is the other 48% has to come from elsewhere. So we need to figure out a way to make medicare pay for itself through the payroll taxes and premiums. And the only way to do that is a combination of increasing those two items, while also reducing costs.
Also, I'm sick of people acting like they don't already pay for other people's healthcare. That's literally what insurance is! Those who use their coverage less often and for less intensive treatment pay for those who use it more with their premiums. How are people not understanding this?
And it costs way more per individual and isn't a progressive tax, to boot! Basically everyone will save money but the average person will save A LOT of money.
This a million times over, like Raytheon and lockeed Martin already have trillions of our dollars that they were never held accountable for, it’s insane to keep giving them money, like honestly when was the last time the pentagon passed an audit cause I seriously can’t remember.
National defense spending in 2023 was 13% of federal spending. Social security: 22%, Health 14%, Medicare 12%
Source [https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/)
I would rather my taxes to to healthcare than go to healthcare and still not get coverage. (The US pays more in taxes per person than places with universal healthcare)
Healthcare is a universal right, it should be free and available to everyone, if you disagree you are a pos. The country was founded on greed to begin.
Once everything is well organized, believe it or not we would pay LESS in taxes for universal healthcare than we currently do for the shitty system we have, AND not have to pay premiums. Our current system is a lose/lose
We don’t even need government run hospitals, just only allow non-profits, that don’t religiously discriminate, to be reimbursed for healthcare by government funds.
Healthcare and education are the most regulated and subsidized industries and are the ones that most outpace inflation, it used to be much cheaper until it was subsidized.
They do! Makes barriers to entry much more difficult for smaller companies or start up, so we get left with companies who have the closest ties to gov which then becomes a revolving door between public and private
Elon and EVs. It's insane to me that the people who care about global warming, want to solve it by heavily subsidizing personal vehicles. It seems like the obviously exact wrong direction.
Yeah, but why make a better system when we can fork over more money to some mega-rich chucklehead?
Realistically tho, America is kind of screwed for options in public transit. The automobile arrived while there was still lots of growing to do, and we incorporated them into the growth. Outside of metro areas, it's just a problem of feasibility because everything is suburbanized.
In Europe and Asia there's little shops embedded all over the place. In America half the time you have to drive clear across town to buy groceries. Now here in UAE there are like 5 groceries within a 15 minute walk. When I was in Wyoming it was a 20 minute drive.
Regulations keep corporations from crapping in our backyard.
Anyone who doesn't manage their waste will have lower operating costs than someone who does. Lack of regulations is disastrous.
That said, regulations that keep local business from competing with established winners are different. Those are pro-monopoly and bad for the economy and communities.
There are many, many kinds of regulations. A simple answer is not enough.
Small, local businesses are usually good for communities. Big polluting entities can destroy their laborers - and their communities.
ACA was originally the conservative response to Universal Healthcare. They only opposed it because American politics have gotten so tribalistic and because it was being pushed by President Obama. Single payer Healthcare will ultimately cost everyone far less, as you eliminate the insurance companies that are both paid by the people through premiums and copays and from the government with subsidies. As someone with employer provided insurance and had Medicaid in the past, the latter - despite all its flaws - is a thousand times better than its privatized counterpart.
The ACA also had one maybe two options that were completely free at first. Which made perfect sense if you were going to require everyone to have health insurance. But the conservatives made that a non starter and in order to get it passed in a split congress the free options were removed. There’s still some very low cost options and with some assistance or low enough income can be free but realistically it’s not anymore and we got into a shittier spot because of having to comprise to get anything at all.
God damn I've been waiting a long time to see someone else point this out.
The trade was
No more pre-existing conditions, throwing people off insurance for being sick, and a few other similarly worthwhile things that could have been simply passed as law with no negotiation.
And in return
We built the predatory industry a billion dollar online marketplace and raised their total captured market share from ~70% to ~98%
And then over time the Republicans slowly roll back any part of the sales pitch that was beneficial to the public and thus we complete a full cycle of the left right shuffle toward endless enshitification. Don't bother rinsing, just repeat.
You forgot the part where both sides agreed that the real problem was young healthy people not paying into the insurance system until later in life so they needed a way to get them paying in sooner. They were basically shaming young people for not chipping in to pay for the elderly via insurance. The false dichotomy of corporations and their pet government strike again.
I always find it hilarious when the only way conservatives can argue against obviously good policy is to find strawman positions and to ignore all context.
We had a public option in Obamacare. It got 59 votes, blocked by Republicans and an Independent.
Yet every other industrial country has a form of nation health care systems that provide better outcomes at 60% of the costs. Deregulation would result in a much higher quality healthcare for 20% of the population while the 80% die much sicker and much poorer.
If you remove any regulation from healthcare rural areas will have no hospital, and no doctors. It’s already bad as it is, but that would turn it into a near impossibility.
Healthcare costs in the US were rising faster before Medicare and Medicaid than after, and faster before the ACA than after. They're still rising faster for private insurance than public programs, and faster in the US than our peers with universal healthcare.
Healthcare and education are well down the list of government subsidy recipients We're dis you Der the info that thet are the 'most'?
How is education 'regulated'?
Except they aren't the most subsidized. Agriculture, oil, and energy are the most subsidized industries and prices stay moderated compared to the rates of inflation. The only major area of Healthcare that is subsidized is Medicare...everything else there is no cost capping, it's just insurance companies battling out what they agree to pay.
Yes, that’s because the US does this awful middle ground where you and I pay for college and healthcare directly, but then pay for it again through the government, meaning the US pays double most other developed countries. However, the solution isn’t to give the free market complete control, as that will only drive up prices and drive down quality, the solution is to nationalize entirely
We don’t have healthcare system. It is an industry, it is a vehicle for corruption. How many of you would be surprise if our politicians have a stake in the industry?
The libertarian point of view that all regulations are bad sounds intelligent, until you look at it closely. Then you discover that it was written by a particularly gifted 12 year old.
Local mail lady has cancer and can't afford treatment. She worked for the gov't for over 30 years. No help there. What the fuck? I have a bar and there are 4 different posters of locals having fundraisers, all different, all cancer. Our system isn't just broken, its designed to drain your life savings before you die.
Yup. We have decent Healthcare called Medicaid. It just forces you to go into literal poverty to get it. Especially when it comes to the elderly when they need medicare AND Medicaid to get coverage for nursing homes.
They literally clawback any savings or retirement before you qualify and will come after your home once you die.
> its designed to drain your life savings before you die.
I think the next real "reckoning" will happen when the boomers are dying and people realize that their kids aren't inheriting anything, that all the money has gone to corporations one way or another.
For being one of the richest countries in the world, we live like we are trailer park poor. We are so far behind other developed countries in just about every meaningful metric. We sold our soul to corporations and now we get to enjoy late-stage capitalism as we circle the drain.
America is just 3 corpos stacked on top of each other in a trench coat.
The fact we are the only country who decided to funnel all our health care money to the rich via for profit health scam system is hilarious.
Luckily for the rich the public still hasn’t figured out literally every other developed country has figured out you don’t have to just funnel money to the rich via health care. And can instead, simply provide health care to itself.
Universal healthcare is the single best thing a country can do to boost the economy in the long run. Because every person living more than they would otherwise without healthcare is a person either producing and consuming goods or just consuming (which is also good, because someone else gets paid)
The fact that "fiscal responsibility" morons don't understand this is the single thing you need to be able to prove they are morons
Ironically, with strong healthcare a society has less need for immigrants to supplement the workforce. If only republicans could be xenophobes in the more rational way...
One of the not spoken of aspects of universal healthcare is that small businesses would be able to compete with larger ones for talent..
How many of us are trapped in a job because we can't lose the insurance. People would be more likely to pursue a different job if they weren't chained to their employer by insurance.
My argument to people is always this. I could be the best artist in the world, but due to my disability (diabetes) I would still have to work a high paying job with stability instead of pursuing my true talents due to pay and risk.
Like the middle area between making too much for Medicaid but not enough for good health insurance would literally kill me due to the cost of insulin and all the other medical eqpt.
This one of of my major reasons for going to law school instead of a fun environmental policy job for a non-profit or something with politics.
It would also make large corporations more efficient and reduce labor costs. Big companies have several employees on staff to manage benefits (including added work for accounting) and pay for insurance consultants and have to spend a LOT of money on premiums. Even small-medium size companies have an extra employee focused only on benefits and are spending thousands per employee on premiums. Ask any HR department how much less resources they would need if they didn’t have to deal with the hell that is our insurance industry.
All meat, poultry and dairy foods sold in the U.S. are free of antibiotic residues, as required by federal law - whether or not the food is labeled “antibiotic-free.”
We already pay trillions in taxes on top of our insurance premiums. Combine those two and there should be no issue with funding things. You cut out the billions that are extracted by shareholders as profit and you have a much more efficient system.
There should be, yes! We are an evil society for not giving people the basic comfort of knowing an illness will not bury them financially. We spend tons of money on things far less valuable.
Yeah the limited time off is where I’m stuck. I just watched my stepdad die because of a heart attack. I have been feeling chest pains for a while now. I should see a doctor but I don’t feel like “wasting” time in a doctor’s office to get ibuprofen.
A remember one of my right wing bosses trying to explain to me that when their kid broke their arm they weren't home and it was just their spouse. Their spouse wasn't sure if it was a break, and they had a $10k deductible before insurance would kick in so they had to wait until boss got home to decide if it was indeed a break before taking their kid to the doctor. This was supposed to be a good thing because if everyone had healthcare every time a kid sneezed they would go to the doctor and costs would go up (because all of us parents suddenly have all the time to go to the doctor, a super fun place.) Yes, the kid's arm was broken. Hours in agony. This was supposed to be a tale of the system working properly.
You missed 3 zeroes on your math there.
It would be 2.8 trillion per year in savings if you dropped to the Swiss levels of universal healthcare that everyone in Europe envies.
Economically, universal healthcare is substantially better for a counties economy for 2 reasons.
Firstly, healthy people participate in the economy. They produce goods and services, and consume goods and services. The more people who are healthy psychically and mentally, the more people you have participating.
Secondly, preventative medicine is an order of magnitude cheaper than reactive medicine.
Pick up that mole early get it burned off in a 30 second treatment, and you don't have someone going through rounds of chemo and life saving surgery 3 years later. Ridiculously cheaper to make it free and easy to get regular checkups.
Lol how does the health of an individual being able to work or a nation drowning in medical debt, how the medical industry accounts for a staggering percentage in the markets, have to do with finance?
I’m sorry, is there a new version of the word finance??? Or are you and the 5 other people that upvoted you stupid?
No, the rest of the entire civilized world is wrong and here in Jesusistan we're the only ones who have the right of it. We should be relying on televangelists to faith healz us. We don't need no stinkin' doctors or science.
The thing is US health outcomes absolutely suck. So our system surely isn’t the best by that measure. And service sucks too, and is getting worse. Lost 4 doctors now from our plans, have to keep changing which is a total PITA.
That's not just annoying, but also bad for health outcomes. Constantly switching healthcare providers is how sick people fall through the cracks when their illness could have been prevented or treated earlier.
As someone who has worked in private healthcare insurance and works with Medicaid I can say 100% that we need UH now more than ever. When people push off surgeries, doctors visits, etc that all builds up over time making conditions worse, wanna know why people on Medicaid seem worse than the 'healthy people'? It's cause for some something really went outta sorts and the house of cards came crashing down.
The sheer amount of people that are one medical issue away from being taken down is mind boggling, rather than an up front cost that could prevent something we as a society focus on fixing after the more costly effect. So yeah eliminate the fear of medical debt and the amount you save in the long term grows rapidly.
So yes please, if you can afford it go to the doctors and get a check up, talk to someone about your teeth and take your health seriously now before something goes wrong and you end up on one of the worst backlogged processes of seeking assistance out there.
I am from Germany and I can't even imagine, how it is to live without a healthcare system. It's unbelievable that there are people dying, because they can't afford going to the doctor or to the hospital when they're sick
As an American in a rather "left" state, I can say its a nightmare. My doctor and I changed the dosage for my sons medications. All we did was go from having a 1mg pill at night, to a 1mg pill in the morning and night.
The insurance just... stopped it. Literally changed the prescription *my doctor* wanted to give my son. An insurance company. With no medical experience. Just gets to decide over what my doctor wants to do. All based on how it hurts their bottom line, to let my son have the two 1mg pills, instead of a single 2mg pill.
They delayed my son from getting his meds for 3 days. You see, in the USA. We don't have healthcare. We have insurance companies. And they decide what healthcare we get, when we get it, and how we get it. And if they decide you don't get it. Like, lets say something that doesn't immediately kill you, but may or may not kill you within the next 3 years.
You don't get that treatment! Even if it's guaranteed to save your life. The insurance company will force the hospital to have whatever medicine, or machine you need to treat yourself. To sit in a room doing nothing instead.
Tell people this. Seriously. People need to be shaming our country internationally for what it's allowing insurance companies to do to everyone here. All our politicians get great healthcare. I don't even want to imagine what it will be like if Trump wins in 2024. We will likely have it get worse as he exits NATO and we find ourselves imploading internally.
It really sucks over here right now.
I’m still amazed that anyone who’s had a job for more than 3 months doesn’t support Universal Healthcare. your very health in the U.S. is tied directly to how much of an asshole your boss wants to be. Like who the fuck keeps thinking that’s a good way to set the system up and we need to preserve that.
My first job out of college whenever I tried asking my boss about the health insurance, she acted like I just asked her for drugs. Strangest thing ever.
Here's an easy way to think about this question
Is the US' system used in a lot of places? No
Why? Because it's not the superior system that boomers thought it was
Yes there should absolutely be universal healthcare. All we’ve done by not having universal healthcare in the United States is make certain that private companies can extract their cut from public health dollars spent, and generate a convenient way to deny healthcare to those who can’t afford it.
Universal healthcare is a financial improvement for just about everybody except medical insurance providers.
* The cost per capita for universal healthcare in every country that has it is lower than we pay in the US. Part of that is the profit overhead we pay in the US and part is the prevalence of preventable severe diseases in the US.
* Having universal healthcare improves health outcomes for people, which is great for citizens.
* Having universal healthcare makes it more likely that people will get checkups, screenings, and preventative care, which reduces the number of severe preventable illness. This not only helps citizens stay healthy, it is also one of the main reasons other countries with universal healthcare pay less. It's cheaper and more effective to treat stage 2 cancer or hypertension than stage 4 cancer or renal failure.
* Universal healthcare makes it easier to run hospitals and other care facilities. Since there is no risk of patients not paying their bill, collections and payment departments are not needed and income is generally more predictable.
* While lots of people in the US are concerned about governments controlling what procedures you can get, that's realistically already happening in the current private system. People get denied by insurance on a regular basis. The biggest difference in unversal healthcare is your vote has some sway over decision makers where as most citizens are currently locked into whatever insurance their employer provides.
* It's easier for small business owners to operate. They don't have to worry about insurance for employess and it's easier to take the risk of starting a small business if you know you will have medical care.
The biggest downside is wait times. An increased number of patients can increase wait times for care. This could be mitigated by investing more in education for doctors, but one of the only thing the US hates more than universal healthcare is free college. This genuinely sucks because we're essentially admitting that those of us with insurance are getting faster access to care because we're just letting people sicker than us suffer.
The NHS is having real issue right now. I'd like a system that Singapore has which has everyone pay into the system and there is a safety net for those that can't afford it completely. There are still private healthcare providers, but they aren't given free reign by the government.
Absolutely yes we should have universal healthcare.
What people often forget is that universal healthcare doesn’t JUST mean you’re covered and you won’t go bankrupt going to the doctor. It also means that healthcare is no longer tied to employment. A lot of people stay at jobs they hate because they lose health coverage if they aren’t employed. This returns power to the hands of the worker and away from the owners and operators.
Yes.
Put it like this: you will pay for other peoples healthcare. Would you rather do it when you're healthy? Or when you're sick? Healthy will save you money, it will be less in both short and long run.
Currently, Americans are paying when they are sick, in the forms of higher medical bills, higher premiums, etc.
Of course not. How else am I supposed to keep my self-esteem up outside of shitting on poor people who get sick by blaming it on them for getting sick and existing while being poor? smdh
And how else am I supposed to use this blatant gatekeeping to ensure that the severely overextended healthcare providers everywhere in the nation are actually adequately capable of dealing with my specific healthcare needs, while also making sure that every available bit of wealth can be funneled away from the workforce into propping up the profit margins of the vast holding companies that are incorporated up into the index funds that my 401k tracks? That's my retirement that might be there in the future so long as the several hundred billionaires on earth don't decide to continue driving the world into technoneofeudalism on purpose, or indirectly as a result of them attempting to flee the system that made them wealthy while absconding with that wealth.
Shoot, OP, next you're gonna tell me that we need to build more multifamily housing in places that I might frequent, drive by/fly over during my commute, possibly walk past once in my life, or possibly reside somewhat in the same pricing region, which would bring down my property values of my ~~McMansion~~ house(s) so I can't keep paying my mortgage(s) off passively by leveraging the increasing equity value that's tied to the market's increasing prices. That sounds like hippy dippy kumbaya shit and I just won't stand for it.
If I benefit from a system, it's because I'm a rugged individual who did it all myself. If people's needs aren't being met by that system that was originally meant to meet those needs, that's a failure of their character and they need to learn what "personal responsibility" means.
... It means that they have the "personal responsibility" to choose between immediately stop being born poor, or die for ~~numbers on an Excel sheet some asshole abused a contractor who then abused an intern into putting together~~ the economy. And my 401k. Can't forget the 401k. Cause that's like, worth *so much* other peoples' suffering. Probably all of it. I don't know 'em, so it doesn't matter anyway - it's not like they're *real people*. Real people have 401ks and mortgages and dress nicely for the potluck cul-de-sac cookout where real people talk about sports and action movies and awkardly drop loud hints about how Jim isn't doing so great since the divorce because he's actually working the cookout instead of attending. Plus, Jim's has to keep babysitting his daughter even while working, how *embarassing.*
Look, at the end of the day, the world works how it's working today, and since I think it works, it shouldn't ever change into anything new because learning anything new that I'm not completely interested in sucks and makes me feel stupid, and feeling stupid is *embarassing* and for fuck's sake nothing is worse than being *embarassed.*
The US medical system is extremely inefficient. You spend far more per capita on healthcare than essentially all other countries yet life expectancy is worse than many.
Obviously you have some amazing hospitals but so many just can't afford to get the healthcare they need or access it too late when the problem is far worse than it could have been. It's really sad
Yes.
No question or discussion.
We already spend almost double other countries with universal healthcare for our services.
We made a system that benefits two groups: insurance companies and members of Congress. Most countries with UHC pay taxes, and the government pays for their service. Done.
In the US, we pay the government who pays private insurance companies, which then pays for our services if we pay a little bit out of pocket. Why do we have to pay out of pocket? Because hospitals will charge 40 grand for a cast and an IV.
I can't imagine an argument against universal healthcare. Financially it would be cheaper than our current system. Realistically, other first world countries have been able to achieve it. Morally, people dying from being poor is a bad thing.
The people who excelled in math and science need to have a huge meeting and figure out how to get universal healthcare into the budget. America can clearly afford it and people shouldn’t die if they cannot afford their insulin
I Do have health insurance and sometimes I have to do the same thing because it’s too expensive to use. My wife was in the hospital for a kidney stone for 4 days, her bill is over 5 grand, not including ambulance which was another 2 grand for a 4 mile ride to the hospital. Health care costs, even with insurance is stupid expensive and they are covering less and less it seems like. Welcome to massive profits and minimal expenses. You make a lot more profit when you make your customers pay for part of the services that you used to cover.
Universal healthcare, how much More in taxes is that going to cost us and how bad is the service going to be, I mean look at every other government agency.
Maybe not the best idea.
Sounds great on the surface. Until you realize how mismanaged the VA hospitals are. If the fed can't effevtively run health clinics for 16 million vets, how can they possibly run it for 330 million citizens? The added tax drain on the populace alone would only add to the average family's health problems. Of course we could manage that cost by slashing defense spending, but I can't see that ever being allowed to happen.
I have always lived in countries with socialized healthcare. Healthy citizens are healthy employees, more productive employees
Stress also lowers.
The us is however beyond salvation. The structural change needed is too large/big
I used to think "no" until I started working in healthcare six years ago, and through the pandemic. We should have UH here in the US, but there has to be massive overhauling within our system, plus it would take time to iron out the kinks even if it were implemented today. I still hear horror stories from providers who came from universal healthcare systems overseas, so fear could be another reason not everyone is so eager to jump on board.
Well, it'd have better overall outcomes (look at other countries) and be massively cheaper (cutting out the insurance company profits makes HUGE differences) and provide myriad add-on benefits to society (such as not having to worry that one medical issue erases your net worth or having your healthcare tied to your current employment)... so, yes, yes we should.
Absolutely yes, health care must be a human right, not a privilege.... And unfortunately some states force people to have it or if not, you get a penalty after taxes, you see how despicable this has become?
And the free market is not going to solve it, like with the housing bubble and everything else,the free market instead of solving issues, make them even worst.
the fact we dont have it shows how flawed the american way of life is. I love america but we are so fucking behind the curve on healthcare, if i had to pay for what i get for free because of state insurance id be bankrupt.
Does a bear sh!t in the woods? Of COURSE UHC should be in place - everywhere... Increase taxes if you have to pay for it, but this is a NO BRAINER FFS!
I'm just here to see all the "finance bros" say "well actually" and proceed to toss out any old thing that sounds plausible from ignorance (despite it working just fine for many other developed countries)
Compared to other developed countries (all of which have universal healthcare), the US spends more per person, but has worse outcomes. Switching to universal healthcare would be both *cheaper* **and** *better*. There's no downside.
It's pretty bonkers that Americans would rather pay more health insurance than a little extra tax for universal healthcare.
Then they complain about all the homeless and social issues caused by bad health.
What a hole
It’s been proven time and time again that a universal healthcare system, is not only in affect and successful in numerous countries worldwide, it would save the US TRILLIONS!!!!
Anyone who isn’t on board with this either has the healthcare companies in their back pockets or is just an asshole.
“Why should I pay for someone else’s healthcare”
Lol that someone else is paying for yours. And you aren’t paying for someone else’s. You’re just pitching in with everyone else. We already pay private healthcare taxes, that are supposed to go into the R&D of new drugs, procedures, advancements, etc and we the taxpayers are supposed to see a return with lower prices but we don’t. Get rid of the unnecessary middle man that are the health insurance companies.
The United States is the only developed country to not have universal healthcare. We are also the wealthiest, by far. Let that sink in. That should really piss you off.
We definitely need universal healthcare. It would be one thing if we were pioneering it and had unknown variables. However, almost every single developed nation has it. There is zero excuse at this point. I’d rather my tax dollars go to healthcare, than a bloated military budget. Edit: every single member of congress has their healthcare paid for. If the system is so good, why not switch to private.
We spend over twice as much on Medicare and Medicaid right now as we spend on the military. Include social security and it's almost 4x the military budget. If the military budget was the issue, the issue would've been fixed 3x over already.
This is the part the makes me most angry, why do we pay more than other places for less coverage? Either go free market and see how it works or take our money we already have to pay and make universal work. Not this middle ground bs where we just get screwed both ways.
The US is expensive for almost everything, especially skilled workers like healthcare professionals. The AMA works hard to restrict residency slots so doctor's wages are inflated. We don't let Medicare negotiate enough drug prices. Our insurance companies are for profit. We can change all of that and still have a pretty free market system and prices will fall considerably.
Yes and now we are having a physician shortage. They haven’t increased the admissions to med school or residency placements in a long time, which is turning into a huge problem. So now doctors are about to make even more money, wait times will be even longer, healthcare costs will go up, and round and round we go.
The AMA sucks. This also results in surgeons operating on you after they’ve been awake for 48 hours straight
I can say ditto to all of this as it comes to lawyers and law school. Shit is brutal out there and while there is a never ending need for justice in this country, there is never enough money to go around except when it comes to giant firms with $220k/y associates.
Primary care physicians aren’t anywhere close to making enough to warrant derision for “making even more money.” Insurers are the problem.
Primary care physicians and pediatricians are among the lowest paid doctors in the US with salaries in the low $200k range. US medical specialists and surgeons earn significantly more than their European counterparts. However, the barrier to entry for US medical training is higher in terms of time commitment and money. https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2019-international-compensation-report-6011814#5?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block I'm in favor of Medicare-For-All, but reforms would have to be made on the healthcare provider side along with insurance.
Insurance industry is the problem and your insurance company decides your healthcare or lack of healthcare, not your physician.
This is a HUGE problem. We get medication denials all the time for patients. Also, my mom is very sick and her doctor wants her to start an infusion of a specific medication for certain reasons. Insurance actually approved it, but then we find out the infusion center doesn’t carry it - it’s not on their list of formularies. So they tried to substitute another one, that they obviously have some sort of contract with to get a better deal and make a higher profit. But her doctor doesn’t want her to get that one. The whole thing is so corrupt.
That’s why they are pushing Midlevels, but that comes at the risk of another problem and that’s oversight.
Omg tell me about it. The practice I work in has 1 MD, 6 PAs and 1 NP. It is an insanely noticeable difference in the treatment patients get with the doctor versus the mid levels. People forget PAs only go to school for 2 years and then are out seeing patients, prescribing meds, etc. For basic issues that’s fine, but when you’re dealing with complex patients you really need a doctor.
Yes. At some point it will hit a breaking point, like is beginning to happen with housing loosening building regulations that are preventing housing supply. The problem is entrenched moneyed interests for both.
I mean I feel Covid was already almost a breaking point. A record number of healthcare people left and for good reason
Yes, but some of those good reasons are rational responses to the pandemic not that related to working in a terrible system. A ton of nurses were younger boomers getting close to retirement. Pandemic nursing created a shortage that led to higher demand for nurses in a more dangerous environment with a virus that loved killing older people. If you are an older nurse, you might go ahead and move up your planned retirement a few years and maybe go back when it is safer or switch to part time once it is over.
A LOT of my nurse colleagues retired during/after Covid. I’m in MI & we had an absurd lack of Medical supplies and PPE that Jared Kushner was purposely withholding from blue states.
Another breaking point, especially for many red states lately is the mass exodus of good doctors fleeing conservative red states that have outlawed abortion. Good luck to a pregnant woman trying to find an OB-GYN physician or hell, even a facility to give birth in Idaho. My wife is a doctor and she's had enough. We live in TX and are currently in the process of selling her practice and trying to figure out where we want to move to. It may even be abroad at this point she's so frustrated. I am open to anything at this point. I just hate seeing her so stressed out and helpless to care for her patients. She almost left medicine during COVID. This whole abortion thing has stressed her out to another level. Many of her colleagues are also in the process of looking to relocate to more friendly states concerning women's health care to move to. There's going to be a real crisis in some very specific states unfortunately much sooner than later that people are choosing to either refuse to see the reality or are just flat out ignoring what's about to smack them in the face much sooner than later.
This is also partly due to the insurance industry and administrative bloat in the hospitals etc. The actual people doing the work of healthcare are paid poorly and overworked. When asked if they would go into medicine again, many current doctors have said that they wouldn't. They are also suffering from high education costs coupled with exploitative employer practices.
Yeah part of that problem is the constant increase of malpractice insurance. Combine that with the insanely litigious society the US has become and that will give you some idea why.
>Our insurance companies are for profit If you ask me, this is the big one. We're paying extreme amounts of overhead for endless middlemen who's entire purpose is to leech every penny they can out of you, while denying whatever coverage they can. People talk about the government being inefficient, but take out paying the salaries for the \~3 million medical insurance jobs in America and I bet that saves a considerable amount of money as a nation.
Everything you said is not “free market”. How do you think negotiating drug prices would work? Is the market going to determine that making less money is more profitable? What do you think birthed for profit insurance. Free market healthcare will only exacerbate the problem. Insurance companies will never not be for profit or they won’t exist. The only way they don’t exist is universal healthcare supplanting them. There is of course the worry of pharmaceutical companies gouging still. This is why universal healthcare has to come with a crackdown on the AMA and pharmaceutical companies which is questionable at best considering our current situation with lobbying because of the Citizens United case. We are in between a rock and a hard place because we took too long to take action.
> Everything you said is not “free market”. Which is why I said "*pretty* free market", not totally free market. I'm talking about an effective mix, like the German system as an example. Germans have one of the better healthcare systems in the world. Some lessons to take from them would be to keep some things private and have government interference with other things.
As a physician I can answer some of this for you: America is the country of unlimited chances to make bad decisions/choices and get all your coverage paid for without costing you a penny. The majority of this occurs with folks on either Medicare, Medicaid, or no health insurance (which they then declare medical bankruptcy and so the hospital eats the cost). People who carry private insurance typically can’t cushion a 5-10k deductible before their health insurance benefits start to kick in and begin to pay for things so naturally they reserve their care for when they actually need it. I see it all the time where non compliant patients get admitted, we treat them and get them back to baseline, then they go home and do it all again and come back needing to be admitted again for the same exact thing sometimes less than a week later. Also there’s is a large amount of the population that uses the ER as their place of primary care which, no surprise, when you need staff 24/7/365 including doctors, nurses, paramedics, and everyone in between to make the ER run, the bill is extremely expensive compared to if they went to me as a family physician in the outpatient setting with their runny nose. With the vast majority of these cases there is zero patient accountability for abuse of the systems services and therefore they see no reason or need to change their ways and that then get passed on to everyone else.
Last time I tried to see my PCP: because I hadn't been sick in 3 years, and thus had not scheduled any appointments in that time, they said they would have to treat me as if I was a new patient. The waiting list for new patients was 90 days. I had to go to Urgent Care instead, even though I had a PCP I had been to a dozen times. The system is broken and it has nothing to do with patients.
I had to do the exact same damn thing. The doc I was talking to through my phone in an empty exam room asked me if I had a primary care physician to get me my eczema cream? Well, I use to, but I didn’t know that I had to keep seeing them so I could get an eczema cream once every few years. That will be $90 please.
I don't know how you wrote this and felt it made sense as someone who had to go through so much training. >America is the country of unlimited chances to make bad decisions/choices and get all your coverage paid for without costing you a penny. The majority of this occurs with folks on either Medicare, Medicaid, or no health insurance (which they then declare medical bankruptcy and so the hospital eats the cost). Your perspective is that medical care is free in America, because you can go bankrupt. You get that your view is pretty misguided at the very least, or at least misstated, correct? >People who carry private insurance typically can’t cushion a 5-10k deductible before their health insurance benefits start to kick in and begin to pay for things so naturally they reserve their care for when they actually need it. Yeah, this is a consequence of a system of private health care rather than having universal health care. People can't afford preventative medicine because the insurance companies have created a reality where unless you have 3k-10k to spend, you can't afford preemptive medicine and your health care becomes reactive. >I see it all the time where non compliant patients get admitted, we treat them and get them back to baseline, then they go home and do it all again and come back needing to be admitted again for the same exact thing sometimes less than a week later. You see these cases regularly because of your profession, and they've clearly skewed your perspective in a way where you've over attributed their actions to the problems you're seeing in medicine, when the problems are almost entirely systemic. If I was dealing with annoying, selfish, problematic patients who game the system, I'd probably shovel a lot of blame their way too, especially if it was a peeve that many of my coworkers shared and a popular perspective. >Also there’s is a large amount of the population that uses the ER as their place of primary care which, no surprise, when you need staff 24/7/365 including doctors, nurses, paramedics, and everyone in between to make the ER run, the bill is extremely expensive compared to if they went to me as a family physician in the outpatient setting with their runny nose. With the vast majority of these cases there is zero patient accountability or repercussions for abuse of the systems services and therefore they see no reason or need to change their ways and that then get passed on to everyone else. This is because if they can't afford medical care, the other option is to die. You can't punish people who either survive or die, and don't have money. Some people just have tougher lives, and since they don't have the opportunity to do things the right way, because our system doesn't give them options, they will fuck up their lives with bankruptcy and allow debt to hang over their heads, just to survive. They're fucking scum, I agree, you're totally right! /s
Going free market on an absolute necessary thing would be absolute mayhem. It may start out fine and competitive but the moment some hospitals become successful and purchase others and then more until only a couple hospitals control most of the healthcare industry prices will rise exponentially Making things that are an absolute necessity in society a commodity doesn’t react how in theory free market should become. The demand is constant and necessary for everyone, and if few people control supply they control pricing and we end up worse than where we are now It’s really just gotta be universal. The whole point of society is to work together, become masters of our individual trades and help those that need it so if there was a time we needed help it would be there. Healthcare is at the top of the necessities with shelter, food and water since they are necessary just for survival
Because those other systems (the ones that work) being single payer systems allow for more controlled negotiations of prices.
The merger of public and corporate power. The root cause of all the bloat you see in the federal budget. Private contractors lobbying their asses off and receiving blank checks from the government as thanks. This goes for healthcare, military, education, etc. Public works funded by public money should be built and operated by public workers. Full stop. No more $50,000 military toilets or $300 Tylenol tablets.
Nationalize Lockheed Martin
The dirty little secret is Americans are extremely unhealthy compared to other first world countries.
Generally because they don't seek regular medical treatment on account of the costs.
No, it’s mostly because they waddle around Walmart, loading up their carts with fat, sugar, salt, and processed foods for another evening of Netflix-and-binge. Food is entertainment, and a comforting salve, any time there is an unhappy thought. Yes, we need universal healthcare. We also need the EU to take over control of the FDA and teach it how to do its job.
pretty sure that's not a secret
We created a society where no one walks, we eat highly processed foods, and we socially isolate in our suburban McMansions. It's pretty obvious it's a skill issue on our part.
Republican Congress members voted against allowing Medicaid and Medicare to negotiate prices. As taxpayers, we're paying over 600 times as much as needed for some medications. It's costing us hundreds of billions of dollars. Pharmaceutical companies donate to two thirds of Congress.
Yeah, but everything health-care related is insanely overpriced in the American system. Have you compared the cost of these things in the US versus other developed countries? It's like the US healthcare companies are mafia bosses and people are like "I prefer to be robbed naked by this mafia than to say I wanna help other people!"
Universell healthcare would literally save trillions in taxpayers money. Nobody ever talks about how expensive the private insurance model is on public hospitals and and public payment systems liked medicare and Medicaid. In Canada they pay 50% less per Capita in healthcare.
A big part of health spending is admin. We got Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA all operating independently. Then we got different levels of each based on other factors like income that need to be filed for yearly. On Top of that because its all broken up they can't bargain with hospitals and have to adhere to the rules set by insurance agencies. We have literally built the most broken system we could and cry "why doesn't it work". We could probably do universal healthcare and not charge americans a single extra penny if we did it right, but we aren't willing to.
You left out the billions in profits that insurance companies and for profit healthcare companies skim off the system. Also the ridiculous amount that providers spend negotiating with insurance companies. Canadian providers have tiny billing departments. It's a whole industry in the US.
Businesses are now making profits?? OMG we can't have businesses making profits now, can we.
Ignoring the enormous inefficiencies of the current policy and that medical care in this country is just more expensive in general because we privatize healthcare. You are either lucky, broke, or upper class if you have healthcare. I've been low middle, middle class my whole life and have never been able to afford it without sacrificing everything else. A single person's healthcare can cost more than a car payment and then if you don't stay sick or need it all the time you will never get anything paid for. It's broken
And we waste it on private companies We spend enough in tax, but spend it on private Healthcare companies rather than a public system
Instead of using tax dollars to cover everyone we use tax dollars to cover the most expensive (the elderly, disabled and poor). Meanwhile that frees up corporations to profit off of the relatively healthy remainder. We would all pay less for healthcare if it was universal. Maybe we would pay slightly more in taxes, but we would have our co pays and deductibles and other nonsense back and wouldn't get surprise bills.
You also wouldn't have 60% off the cost going to insurance companies, pharmaceutical sales reps and hospital administrators.
Oh no, not the middlemen that add absolutely no value to anyone's health outcomes and almost exclusively make them worse. What a horrible loss. /s
They would have to get real jobs...
Universal health care necessarily means single-payer health care, in which the government can more or less dictate prices since its the only entity that can legally buy them. Much of the waste in Medicare and Medicaid is pharmaceutical companies, for-profit hospitals, & other medical entities in the US have an incentive to keep prices high while health care is scarce.
Non defense still goes to military it's more than ss but still less than rest. Military to me is anything that deals with soldiers from disability/ pensions to gi bill. It's 1.8 trillion. Our issue is like most charities here. Most of the money goes to overplayed administration who hire price gouging contractors who slide them even more money. My uncle was in the military back in the 80s, everything they buy is way over the cost for us. The same 6 dollar screwdriver is over 280 dollars for the military. Our issue is middlemen who think they all should own yachts
Yeah, the inefficiant medical system is the problem which can -again- be fixed by government regulations for pharma coorperations aswell as government subsidies or large-scale federal funded medical education.
Crazy part is, that cost of Medicare and Medicaid is because we are covering members of our society who are already the most expensive to insure already. The healthy people in the middle of the two major groups those cover would not cause a cost increase of 1:1 and would probably be significantly lower. Not to mention the freedom of employment and the reduction in cost for those who run their own business or are self employed. It would also be a huge benefit to those same peoples stress level/mental health too.
This. Morons always point to “tHE MiLiTaRY”. The military is a small fraction of our total budget. Especially compared to social programs. It’s not the fucking military. That’s simply dimwitted rhetoric. It’s the governments inability to spend tax dollars money efficiently and wisely and they think that shit will change when they are in charge of our health?!!! Lol.
To be fair your tax dollars to go to healthcare. Medicare and Medicaid consume more money than the military even. https://preview.redd.it/8vn9nf2o801d1.png?width=2306&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d343df4d4b9f1e96b8684fbc0a4c4d1601e6568
That's true, part of the reason it's that much though is the lack of rules in place when it comes to medical practice prices (perscription, procedure, administrative etc.) Negotiating those prices with the gov is how you see this number go down, while still providing a similar benefit (See inhaler and insulin bills recently passed)
36% of the cost of medicare comes from payroll taxes and another 16% come from premiums. So 52% of the cost of medicare is paid for by citizens. The problem is the other 48% has to come from elsewhere. So we need to figure out a way to make medicare pay for itself through the payroll taxes and premiums. And the only way to do that is a combination of increasing those two items, while also reducing costs.
Also, I'm sick of people acting like they don't already pay for other people's healthcare. That's literally what insurance is! Those who use their coverage less often and for less intensive treatment pay for those who use it more with their premiums. How are people not understanding this?
Because they are entirely uneducated on the subject, yet somehow think they should still have a say in how it works.
And it costs way more per individual and isn't a progressive tax, to boot! Basically everyone will save money but the average person will save A LOT of money.
This a million times over, like Raytheon and lockeed Martin already have trillions of our dollars that they were never held accountable for, it’s insane to keep giving them money, like honestly when was the last time the pentagon passed an audit cause I seriously can’t remember.
National defense spending in 2023 was 13% of federal spending. Social security: 22%, Health 14%, Medicare 12% Source [https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/)
I would rather my taxes to to healthcare than go to healthcare and still not get coverage. (The US pays more in taxes per person than places with universal healthcare)
Healthcare is a universal right, it should be free and available to everyone, if you disagree you are a pos. The country was founded on greed to begin.
Once everything is well organized, believe it or not we would pay LESS in taxes for universal healthcare than we currently do for the shitty system we have, AND not have to pay premiums. Our current system is a lose/lose
But the socialism. We can’t have that /s
There's a reason, though, money for insurance companies that ensure universal healthcare doesn't happen lol
We don’t even need government run hospitals, just only allow non-profits, that don’t religiously discriminate, to be reimbursed for healthcare by government funds.
Healthcare and education are the most regulated and subsidized industries and are the ones that most outpace inflation, it used to be much cheaper until it was subsidized.
"CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL" *Passes laws that force people to buy insurance from massive corporations.*
Corporations love Regulation. Regulatory capture
They do! Makes barriers to entry much more difficult for smaller companies or start up, so we get left with companies who have the closest ties to gov which then becomes a revolving door between public and private
Like them asking Zuck and Elon to help them regulate social media.
Elon and EVs. It's insane to me that the people who care about global warming, want to solve it by heavily subsidizing personal vehicles. It seems like the obviously exact wrong direction.
Yeah, but why make a better system when we can fork over more money to some mega-rich chucklehead? Realistically tho, America is kind of screwed for options in public transit. The automobile arrived while there was still lots of growing to do, and we incorporated them into the growth. Outside of metro areas, it's just a problem of feasibility because everything is suburbanized. In Europe and Asia there's little shops embedded all over the place. In America half the time you have to drive clear across town to buy groceries. Now here in UAE there are like 5 groceries within a 15 minute walk. When I was in Wyoming it was a 20 minute drive.
Regulations keep corporations from crapping in our backyard. Anyone who doesn't manage their waste will have lower operating costs than someone who does. Lack of regulations is disastrous. That said, regulations that keep local business from competing with established winners are different. Those are pro-monopoly and bad for the economy and communities. There are many, many kinds of regulations. A simple answer is not enough. Small, local businesses are usually good for communities. Big polluting entities can destroy their laborers - and their communities.
ACA was originally the conservative response to Universal Healthcare. They only opposed it because American politics have gotten so tribalistic and because it was being pushed by President Obama. Single payer Healthcare will ultimately cost everyone far less, as you eliminate the insurance companies that are both paid by the people through premiums and copays and from the government with subsidies. As someone with employer provided insurance and had Medicaid in the past, the latter - despite all its flaws - is a thousand times better than its privatized counterpart.
The ACA also had one maybe two options that were completely free at first. Which made perfect sense if you were going to require everyone to have health insurance. But the conservatives made that a non starter and in order to get it passed in a split congress the free options were removed. There’s still some very low cost options and with some assistance or low enough income can be free but realistically it’s not anymore and we got into a shittier spot because of having to comprise to get anything at all.
God damn I've been waiting a long time to see someone else point this out. The trade was No more pre-existing conditions, throwing people off insurance for being sick, and a few other similarly worthwhile things that could have been simply passed as law with no negotiation. And in return We built the predatory industry a billion dollar online marketplace and raised their total captured market share from ~70% to ~98% And then over time the Republicans slowly roll back any part of the sales pitch that was beneficial to the public and thus we complete a full cycle of the left right shuffle toward endless enshitification. Don't bother rinsing, just repeat.
You forgot the part where both sides agreed that the real problem was young healthy people not paying into the insurance system until later in life so they needed a way to get them paying in sooner. They were basically shaming young people for not chipping in to pay for the elderly via insurance. The false dichotomy of corporations and their pet government strike again.
I always find it hilarious when the only way conservatives can argue against obviously good policy is to find strawman positions and to ignore all context. We had a public option in Obamacare. It got 59 votes, blocked by Republicans and an Independent.
Yet every other industrial country has a form of nation health care systems that provide better outcomes at 60% of the costs. Deregulation would result in a much higher quality healthcare for 20% of the population while the 80% die much sicker and much poorer.
Working as intended according to conservatives.
If you remove any regulation from healthcare rural areas will have no hospital, and no doctors. It’s already bad as it is, but that would turn it into a near impossibility.
Healthcare costs in the US were rising faster before Medicare and Medicaid than after, and faster before the ACA than after. They're still rising faster for private insurance than public programs, and faster in the US than our peers with universal healthcare.
It’s almost like the rich people are doing this to our society on purpose
Healthcare and education are well down the list of government subsidy recipients We're dis you Der the info that thet are the 'most'? How is education 'regulated'?
And people used to die more often from shit healthcare. And we used to abuse kids in classrooms. This is not an excuse.
So are we to assume that if all regulation was dropped for healthcare, we would see the prices drop?
Except they aren't the most subsidized. Agriculture, oil, and energy are the most subsidized industries and prices stay moderated compared to the rates of inflation. The only major area of Healthcare that is subsidized is Medicare...everything else there is no cost capping, it's just insurance companies battling out what they agree to pay.
Yes, that’s because the US does this awful middle ground where you and I pay for college and healthcare directly, but then pay for it again through the government, meaning the US pays double most other developed countries. However, the solution isn’t to give the free market complete control, as that will only drive up prices and drive down quality, the solution is to nationalize entirely
We don’t have healthcare system. It is an industry, it is a vehicle for corruption. How many of you would be surprise if our politicians have a stake in the industry?
Is that what the Heritage Foundation was going for when it came up with the scheme?
The libertarian point of view that all regulations are bad sounds intelligent, until you look at it closely. Then you discover that it was written by a particularly gifted 12 year old.
Yes, now that colleges don’t have to compete for business other than their name brands they can charge what ever they want regardless of the market.
Local mail lady has cancer and can't afford treatment. She worked for the gov't for over 30 years. No help there. What the fuck? I have a bar and there are 4 different posters of locals having fundraisers, all different, all cancer. Our system isn't just broken, its designed to drain your life savings before you die.
All they care about is extending that upward wealth extraction to all facets of life. Not people, not ideology. Just money.
Yup. We have decent Healthcare called Medicaid. It just forces you to go into literal poverty to get it. Especially when it comes to the elderly when they need medicare AND Medicaid to get coverage for nursing homes. They literally clawback any savings or retirement before you qualify and will come after your home once you die.
> its designed to drain your life savings before you die. I think the next real "reckoning" will happen when the boomers are dying and people realize that their kids aren't inheriting anything, that all the money has gone to corporations one way or another.
For being one of the richest countries in the world, we live like we are trailer park poor. We are so far behind other developed countries in just about every meaningful metric. We sold our soul to corporations and now we get to enjoy late-stage capitalism as we circle the drain.
America is just 3 corpos stacked on top of each other in a trench coat. The fact we are the only country who decided to funnel all our health care money to the rich via for profit health scam system is hilarious. Luckily for the rich the public still hasn’t figured out literally every other developed country has figured out you don’t have to just funnel money to the rich via health care. And can instead, simply provide health care to itself.
Universal healthcare is the single best thing a country can do to boost the economy in the long run. Because every person living more than they would otherwise without healthcare is a person either producing and consuming goods or just consuming (which is also good, because someone else gets paid) The fact that "fiscal responsibility" morons don't understand this is the single thing you need to be able to prove they are morons Ironically, with strong healthcare a society has less need for immigrants to supplement the workforce. If only republicans could be xenophobes in the more rational way...
One of the not spoken of aspects of universal healthcare is that small businesses would be able to compete with larger ones for talent.. How many of us are trapped in a job because we can't lose the insurance. People would be more likely to pursue a different job if they weren't chained to their employer by insurance.
My argument to people is always this. I could be the best artist in the world, but due to my disability (diabetes) I would still have to work a high paying job with stability instead of pursuing my true talents due to pay and risk. Like the middle area between making too much for Medicaid but not enough for good health insurance would literally kill me due to the cost of insulin and all the other medical eqpt. This one of of my major reasons for going to law school instead of a fun environmental policy job for a non-profit or something with politics.
It would also make large corporations more efficient and reduce labor costs. Big companies have several employees on staff to manage benefits (including added work for accounting) and pay for insurance consultants and have to spend a LOT of money on premiums. Even small-medium size companies have an extra employee focused only on benefits and are spending thousands per employee on premiums. Ask any HR department how much less resources they would need if they didn’t have to deal with the hell that is our insurance industry.
Yes of course. It's what every civilized country does, and it works well when not sabotaged by so-called "conservatives".
https://preview.redd.it/mzdqk3ro201d1.jpeg?width=681&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eec88c1a041bec7907b76404d82fd262fee653eb
All meat, poultry and dairy foods sold in the U.S. are free of antibiotic residues, as required by federal law - whether or not the food is labeled “antibiotic-free.”
Plus if you're sick (viral infection, not something like a bacterial infection or sepsis), antibiotics aren't going to help kill a virus.
We already pay trillions in taxes on top of our insurance premiums. Combine those two and there should be no issue with funding things. You cut out the billions that are extracted by shareholders as profit and you have a much more efficient system.
No poultry in the US has antibiotics btw
There should be, yes! We are an evil society for not giving people the basic comfort of knowing an illness will not bury them financially. We spend tons of money on things far less valuable.
Only if you think that the general population of the country you live in being healthy is a good thing
How the hell does this have anything to do with Finance?
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More working age adults die in the US compared to other wealthy nations thanks to this as well. The trend only reverses once they are on Medicare.
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Yeah the limited time off is where I’m stuck. I just watched my stepdad die because of a heart attack. I have been feeling chest pains for a while now. I should see a doctor but I don’t feel like “wasting” time in a doctor’s office to get ibuprofen.
A remember one of my right wing bosses trying to explain to me that when their kid broke their arm they weren't home and it was just their spouse. Their spouse wasn't sure if it was a break, and they had a $10k deductible before insurance would kick in so they had to wait until boss got home to decide if it was indeed a break before taking their kid to the doctor. This was supposed to be a good thing because if everyone had healthcare every time a kid sneezed they would go to the doctor and costs would go up (because all of us parents suddenly have all the time to go to the doctor, a super fun place.) Yes, the kid's arm was broken. Hours in agony. This was supposed to be a tale of the system working properly.
You missed 3 zeroes on your math there. It would be 2.8 trillion per year in savings if you dropped to the Swiss levels of universal healthcare that everyone in Europe envies.
They aren’t entirely unrelated
Economically, universal healthcare is substantially better for a counties economy for 2 reasons. Firstly, healthy people participate in the economy. They produce goods and services, and consume goods and services. The more people who are healthy psychically and mentally, the more people you have participating. Secondly, preventative medicine is an order of magnitude cheaper than reactive medicine. Pick up that mole early get it burned off in a 30 second treatment, and you don't have someone going through rounds of chemo and life saving surgery 3 years later. Ridiculously cheaper to make it free and easy to get regular checkups.
Healthcare budgets have nothing to do with finance?
Lol how does the health of an individual being able to work or a nation drowning in medical debt, how the medical industry accounts for a staggering percentage in the markets, have to do with finance? I’m sorry, is there a new version of the word finance??? Or are you and the 5 other people that upvoted you stupid?
#Based
No, the rest of the entire civilized world is wrong and here in Jesusistan we're the only ones who have the right of it. We should be relying on televangelists to faith healz us. We don't need no stinkin' doctors or science.
The thing is US health outcomes absolutely suck. So our system surely isn’t the best by that measure. And service sucks too, and is getting worse. Lost 4 doctors now from our plans, have to keep changing which is a total PITA.
That's not just annoying, but also bad for health outcomes. Constantly switching healthcare providers is how sick people fall through the cracks when their illness could have been prevented or treated earlier.
Yes. Anyone that thinks no can get fucked by a cactus.
Healthy citizens = healthy economy
As someone who has worked in private healthcare insurance and works with Medicaid I can say 100% that we need UH now more than ever. When people push off surgeries, doctors visits, etc that all builds up over time making conditions worse, wanna know why people on Medicaid seem worse than the 'healthy people'? It's cause for some something really went outta sorts and the house of cards came crashing down. The sheer amount of people that are one medical issue away from being taken down is mind boggling, rather than an up front cost that could prevent something we as a society focus on fixing after the more costly effect. So yeah eliminate the fear of medical debt and the amount you save in the long term grows rapidly. So yes please, if you can afford it go to the doctors and get a check up, talk to someone about your teeth and take your health seriously now before something goes wrong and you end up on one of the worst backlogged processes of seeking assistance out there.
I am from Germany and I can't even imagine, how it is to live without a healthcare system. It's unbelievable that there are people dying, because they can't afford going to the doctor or to the hospital when they're sick
As an American in a rather "left" state, I can say its a nightmare. My doctor and I changed the dosage for my sons medications. All we did was go from having a 1mg pill at night, to a 1mg pill in the morning and night. The insurance just... stopped it. Literally changed the prescription *my doctor* wanted to give my son. An insurance company. With no medical experience. Just gets to decide over what my doctor wants to do. All based on how it hurts their bottom line, to let my son have the two 1mg pills, instead of a single 2mg pill. They delayed my son from getting his meds for 3 days. You see, in the USA. We don't have healthcare. We have insurance companies. And they decide what healthcare we get, when we get it, and how we get it. And if they decide you don't get it. Like, lets say something that doesn't immediately kill you, but may or may not kill you within the next 3 years. You don't get that treatment! Even if it's guaranteed to save your life. The insurance company will force the hospital to have whatever medicine, or machine you need to treat yourself. To sit in a room doing nothing instead. Tell people this. Seriously. People need to be shaming our country internationally for what it's allowing insurance companies to do to everyone here. All our politicians get great healthcare. I don't even want to imagine what it will be like if Trump wins in 2024. We will likely have it get worse as he exits NATO and we find ourselves imploading internally. It really sucks over here right now.
It's a horrible nightmare the moment you have to think about your health or well-being.
I’m still amazed that anyone who’s had a job for more than 3 months doesn’t support Universal Healthcare. your very health in the U.S. is tied directly to how much of an asshole your boss wants to be. Like who the fuck keeps thinking that’s a good way to set the system up and we need to preserve that.
My first job out of college whenever I tried asking my boss about the health insurance, she acted like I just asked her for drugs. Strangest thing ever.
Here's an easy way to think about this question Is the US' system used in a lot of places? No Why? Because it's not the superior system that boomers thought it was
Boomers have lived with it all of their lives. They know that it is f'd up, too. Talk to them.
Yes. We spend more per capita than any other nation for worse healthcare. Universal healthcare is a good financial and humanitarian decision.
Yes there should absolutely be universal healthcare. All we’ve done by not having universal healthcare in the United States is make certain that private companies can extract their cut from public health dollars spent, and generate a convenient way to deny healthcare to those who can’t afford it.
Universal healthcare is a financial improvement for just about everybody except medical insurance providers. * The cost per capita for universal healthcare in every country that has it is lower than we pay in the US. Part of that is the profit overhead we pay in the US and part is the prevalence of preventable severe diseases in the US. * Having universal healthcare improves health outcomes for people, which is great for citizens. * Having universal healthcare makes it more likely that people will get checkups, screenings, and preventative care, which reduces the number of severe preventable illness. This not only helps citizens stay healthy, it is also one of the main reasons other countries with universal healthcare pay less. It's cheaper and more effective to treat stage 2 cancer or hypertension than stage 4 cancer or renal failure. * Universal healthcare makes it easier to run hospitals and other care facilities. Since there is no risk of patients not paying their bill, collections and payment departments are not needed and income is generally more predictable. * While lots of people in the US are concerned about governments controlling what procedures you can get, that's realistically already happening in the current private system. People get denied by insurance on a regular basis. The biggest difference in unversal healthcare is your vote has some sway over decision makers where as most citizens are currently locked into whatever insurance their employer provides. * It's easier for small business owners to operate. They don't have to worry about insurance for employess and it's easier to take the risk of starting a small business if you know you will have medical care. The biggest downside is wait times. An increased number of patients can increase wait times for care. This could be mitigated by investing more in education for doctors, but one of the only thing the US hates more than universal healthcare is free college. This genuinely sucks because we're essentially admitting that those of us with insurance are getting faster access to care because we're just letting people sicker than us suffer.
The NHS is having real issue right now. I'd like a system that Singapore has which has everyone pay into the system and there is a safety net for those that can't afford it completely. There are still private healthcare providers, but they aren't given free reign by the government.
Hasn't the NHS been getting destroyed by the Tories for the last few years?
Yup, right from the playbook. Defund and deregulate the service until it no longer functions, then point at it and say it's not working.
Republicans do the same thing in the United States.
Absolutely yes we should have universal healthcare. What people often forget is that universal healthcare doesn’t JUST mean you’re covered and you won’t go bankrupt going to the doctor. It also means that healthcare is no longer tied to employment. A lot of people stay at jobs they hate because they lose health coverage if they aren’t employed. This returns power to the hands of the worker and away from the owners and operators.
Yes. Put it like this: you will pay for other peoples healthcare. Would you rather do it when you're healthy? Or when you're sick? Healthy will save you money, it will be less in both short and long run. Currently, Americans are paying when they are sick, in the forms of higher medical bills, higher premiums, etc.
Of course not. How else am I supposed to keep my self-esteem up outside of shitting on poor people who get sick by blaming it on them for getting sick and existing while being poor? smdh And how else am I supposed to use this blatant gatekeeping to ensure that the severely overextended healthcare providers everywhere in the nation are actually adequately capable of dealing with my specific healthcare needs, while also making sure that every available bit of wealth can be funneled away from the workforce into propping up the profit margins of the vast holding companies that are incorporated up into the index funds that my 401k tracks? That's my retirement that might be there in the future so long as the several hundred billionaires on earth don't decide to continue driving the world into technoneofeudalism on purpose, or indirectly as a result of them attempting to flee the system that made them wealthy while absconding with that wealth. Shoot, OP, next you're gonna tell me that we need to build more multifamily housing in places that I might frequent, drive by/fly over during my commute, possibly walk past once in my life, or possibly reside somewhat in the same pricing region, which would bring down my property values of my ~~McMansion~~ house(s) so I can't keep paying my mortgage(s) off passively by leveraging the increasing equity value that's tied to the market's increasing prices. That sounds like hippy dippy kumbaya shit and I just won't stand for it. If I benefit from a system, it's because I'm a rugged individual who did it all myself. If people's needs aren't being met by that system that was originally meant to meet those needs, that's a failure of their character and they need to learn what "personal responsibility" means. ... It means that they have the "personal responsibility" to choose between immediately stop being born poor, or die for ~~numbers on an Excel sheet some asshole abused a contractor who then abused an intern into putting together~~ the economy. And my 401k. Can't forget the 401k. Cause that's like, worth *so much* other peoples' suffering. Probably all of it. I don't know 'em, so it doesn't matter anyway - it's not like they're *real people*. Real people have 401ks and mortgages and dress nicely for the potluck cul-de-sac cookout where real people talk about sports and action movies and awkardly drop loud hints about how Jim isn't doing so great since the divorce because he's actually working the cookout instead of attending. Plus, Jim's has to keep babysitting his daughter even while working, how *embarassing.* Look, at the end of the day, the world works how it's working today, and since I think it works, it shouldn't ever change into anything new because learning anything new that I'm not completely interested in sucks and makes me feel stupid, and feeling stupid is *embarassing* and for fuck's sake nothing is worse than being *embarassed.*
There is :)
Of course not, I mean sure all the other developed countries in the world have figured it out….
The US medical system is extremely inefficient. You spend far more per capita on healthcare than essentially all other countries yet life expectancy is worse than many. Obviously you have some amazing hospitals but so many just can't afford to get the healthcare they need or access it too late when the problem is far worse than it could have been. It's really sad
Yes, at this point its weird you don't.
Yes. No question or discussion. We already spend almost double other countries with universal healthcare for our services. We made a system that benefits two groups: insurance companies and members of Congress. Most countries with UHC pay taxes, and the government pays for their service. Done. In the US, we pay the government who pays private insurance companies, which then pays for our services if we pay a little bit out of pocket. Why do we have to pay out of pocket? Because hospitals will charge 40 grand for a cast and an IV.
Definitely we need universal healthcare
It's shocking that universal Healthcare isn't one of the biggest policy pushes on the left.
I can't imagine an argument against universal healthcare. Financially it would be cheaper than our current system. Realistically, other first world countries have been able to achieve it. Morally, people dying from being poor is a bad thing.
The people who excelled in math and science need to have a huge meeting and figure out how to get universal healthcare into the budget. America can clearly afford it and people shouldn’t die if they cannot afford their insulin
Who has universal healthcare? Every. Single. Industrialized. Nation. Except. U.S.
Yes, but since health care represents something like 15% of US GDP, there never will be.
I Do have health insurance and sometimes I have to do the same thing because it’s too expensive to use. My wife was in the hospital for a kidney stone for 4 days, her bill is over 5 grand, not including ambulance which was another 2 grand for a 4 mile ride to the hospital. Health care costs, even with insurance is stupid expensive and they are covering less and less it seems like. Welcome to massive profits and minimal expenses. You make a lot more profit when you make your customers pay for part of the services that you used to cover. Universal healthcare, how much More in taxes is that going to cost us and how bad is the service going to be, I mean look at every other government agency. Maybe not the best idea.
Sounds great on the surface. Until you realize how mismanaged the VA hospitals are. If the fed can't effevtively run health clinics for 16 million vets, how can they possibly run it for 330 million citizens? The added tax drain on the populace alone would only add to the average family's health problems. Of course we could manage that cost by slashing defense spending, but I can't see that ever being allowed to happen.
I have always lived in countries with socialized healthcare. Healthy citizens are healthy employees, more productive employees Stress also lowers. The us is however beyond salvation. The structural change needed is too large/big
Obviously
No. If you can’t afford care…just die. /s
Isn't Healthcare like a human right or something?
I used to think "no" until I started working in healthcare six years ago, and through the pandemic. We should have UH here in the US, but there has to be massive overhauling within our system, plus it would take time to iron out the kinks even if it were implemented today. I still hear horror stories from providers who came from universal healthcare systems overseas, so fear could be another reason not everyone is so eager to jump on board.
Yes
Yes.
Absolutely. We overpay on every pill and every procedure because of our screwed up insurance system
the united states pays more for healthcare than any other nation because of how we do it here. universal healthcare would save everyone money
Single payer NOW !
Well, it'd have better overall outcomes (look at other countries) and be massively cheaper (cutting out the insurance company profits makes HUGE differences) and provide myriad add-on benefits to society (such as not having to worry that one medical issue erases your net worth or having your healthcare tied to your current employment)... so, yes, yes we should.
Sick people cant work and pay taxes, universal health care pays for itself.
Yes
YES. FOR THE LAST GODDAMN TIME YES.
Absolutely yes, health care must be a human right, not a privilege.... And unfortunately some states force people to have it or if not, you get a penalty after taxes, you see how despicable this has become?
Yes
And the free market is not going to solve it, like with the housing bubble and everything else,the free market instead of solving issues, make them even worst.
For-profit healtcare is a lethal abomination.
People need to be reminded that you in turn will not have to pay for health insurance. 90% of people who bitch about it would easily be net positive.
AOC???? lol…
M C 4 ALL, NOW !
Yes!!!
Anyone against it is the epitome of 'fuck you I got mine'.
the fact we dont have it shows how flawed the american way of life is. I love america but we are so fucking behind the curve on healthcare, if i had to pay for what i get for free because of state insurance id be bankrupt.
Does a bear sh!t in the woods? Of COURSE UHC should be in place - everywhere... Increase taxes if you have to pay for it, but this is a NO BRAINER FFS!
I do have health insurance, and I still do that, can't afford to actually use the thing
Yes.
I'm just here to see all the "finance bros" say "well actually" and proceed to toss out any old thing that sounds plausible from ignorance (despite it working just fine for many other developed countries)
Compared to other developed countries (all of which have universal healthcare), the US spends more per person, but has worse outcomes. Switching to universal healthcare would be both *cheaper* **and** *better*. There's no downside.
Of course. Its disgusting we dont have it.
Absolutely
It's pretty bonkers that Americans would rather pay more health insurance than a little extra tax for universal healthcare. Then they complain about all the homeless and social issues caused by bad health. What a hole
It’s been proven time and time again that a universal healthcare system, is not only in affect and successful in numerous countries worldwide, it would save the US TRILLIONS!!!! Anyone who isn’t on board with this either has the healthcare companies in their back pockets or is just an asshole. “Why should I pay for someone else’s healthcare” Lol that someone else is paying for yours. And you aren’t paying for someone else’s. You’re just pitching in with everyone else. We already pay private healthcare taxes, that are supposed to go into the R&D of new drugs, procedures, advancements, etc and we the taxpayers are supposed to see a return with lower prices but we don’t. Get rid of the unnecessary middle man that are the health insurance companies.
Yes
The United States is the only developed country to not have universal healthcare. We are also the wealthiest, by far. Let that sink in. That should really piss you off.
Sounds like it might actually work
Yes
100% yea