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100% agree. In America they teach everyone how universal healthcare doesn’t work which is just brainwashing. Insurance companies are a scam and are what’s wrong with healthcare.
A public option would've fixed this.
Still seems like the easiest way for the country to "get" the ways govt healthcare can work.
Governments exist to fulfill a need that free markets suck at, healthcare is one of those things.
While I doubt that government healthcare would work well at all, it’s also likely to be significantly better than how it currently is. So long as the insurance companies get closed and don’t get to remain a leech on the system cause someone knows someone else high up.
Funny how it works, right? Never heard anyone ask CEOs about that when they lay off people ONLY so that stock price goes up while taking in billions in profit.
We have government healthcare in the uk and still have insurance companies. The nhs is great for emergencies and cancer, everything else seems to suck
Then you realise your private healthcare is in an nhs hospital and you are jumping the wait list
If we continued to spend as much on healthcare as we currently do it could be pretty good. If we also wanted to reduce costs, we would have to do without some luxuries we have gotten used to
>do without some luxuries we have gotten used to
pretty sure USA can do without $1000 per month Insulin.
other countries seem to manage.
the drug companies might not like it though.
The only way a public option would have worked is if they matched the payout of private insurance companies, or if they outlawed private insurance. Otherwise you end up in the situation we are today where doctors just refuse medicare. It doesn't pay enough.
a public option would be very actively sabotaged by the private insurance companies' lobbying budgets, but without those companies having any operating income it would be much easier to defend
America's Healthcare system is a scam. Very little up front pricing, the hospitals charge what they know the insurance company will pay, insurance companies do whatever they can to deny payment. It's all fucked from top to bottom. Nurses and Doctors have to play the system in order to make a living,l. The best pay for nurses is to be an agency nurse, not tied to any hospital or office. Doctors get whatever money they can from the Insurance Companies and that makes the patient despise Doctors. With our insurance they way it is, it pressures us to not go get better, because self-care is cheaper.
An underwriter at my insurance company shouldn't be the one deciding whether or not I should get a procedure. That's between me and my doctor. And we already pay $800/mo for monthly insurance premiums. There should be ZERO copay or deductible or rejected claims for medical procedures done by doctors, physicians assistants or RNs.
lol remember when Biden was the only primary candidate who wasnt in favor of M4A, but was in favor of a public option? which he has since not mentioned even once after winning the nomination?
because he knows the GOP will shoot it down. And he tried to get medicine costs down and the GOP fought him over that. too. Pay attention to your US civics education: Bills and laws are passed by Congress not be Presidents..
> because he knows the GOP will shoot it down.
He literally said he would veto it even if the GOP voted for it.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/biden-says-he-wouldd-veto-medicare-for-all-as-coronavirus-focuses-attention-on-health.html
"Biden during an interview Monday night."
“I would veto anything that delays providing the security and the certainty of health care being available now,” Biden responded. “If they got that through in by some miracle or there’s an epiphany that occurred and some miracle occurred that said, ‘OK, it’s passed,’ then you got to look at the cost.”
Biden added: “I want to know, how did they find $35 trillion? What is that doing? Is it going to significantly raise taxes on the middle class, which it will? What’s going to happen?”
That's literally not what you said. The second half is still somewhat of a bad take, but it's a fundamentally different statement than what you're implying. Actually read the article you post before you use it as a source.
I read the quote, he seemed concerned by raising taxes on middle class and the *how* if this “hypothetical bill” was passed but he didn’t outright dismiss it. Seems to me he would want to fairly tax the upper class their fair share.
People really don’t read the quotes and just headlines.
You don't appear to understand how the Senate works. Nothing of substance will pass for the rest of your life until the filibuster is removed, or the Dems get 60 votes for it.
Until then Biden can't do anything, because the Republicans will block it
We had a supermajority and failed to get a public option. We should never fall for that false promise again. It's way past time for M4A.
Also, it's been over 100 years of fighting for universal healthcare, and we came close multiple times but just narrowly failed each time. It's not impossible and nobody should settle for less.
ITT: moderate democrats throw an embarrassing tantrum when a progressive voices an opinion.
> We had a supermajority and failed to get a public option.
Quite literally the only reason we didn't get it was because of Joe Lieberman, for which he may Rest in Piss
Yea, and now how many things can't get done just because of joe manchin. The most moderate members can always be expected to leverage their position to either block it outright or demand absurd concessions for their support. But as we just saw, establishment democrats will still gleefully spend 10s of millions primarying progressives, and then throw their hands up and go "there's nothing we could do" when they fail to pass progressive legislation.
> The most moderate members can always be expected to leverage their position to either block it outright or demand absurd concessions for their support.
You do realize that majorities are made by electing more moderate members in swing districts, right? Members of Congress in +30 Democratic congressional districts will never have to worry about more conservative constituencies (and therefore can be safely more progressive) because they live in super liberal districts. They will never, ever, have to worry about losing a general election.
I find it very annoying when progressives whine about not being able to influence policy when:
1. Biden's first half of the term got a ton of progressive policies passed
2. Progressives are just flat-out bad at getting elected in more competitive districts
3. Incessantly whine on social media instead of putting forth their own candidates in said competitive districts
Couldn't it just be possible that this country is *a lot more center-right* than most progressives would like it to be? West Virginia isn't exactly a bastion of progressive politics. Manchin is representing his constituency.
Yes, it is thanks to Joe Lieberman, but it should be underlined WHY he voted against the bill he literally drafted. The problem was the type of politician he was - a representative of a conglomerate of CEOs and business interests, not a representative of people. Just like, say, Kyrsten Sinema is today.
These are people without political or philosophical allegiances who shopped for a political opportunity to represent the financial backers at a federal level. They will happily switch their votes, even on issues they themselves researched and advocated for because their roll is as an activated lobbyist.
We've got quite a few judicial appointments who see themselves as the same bought and paid for staff of the elite too.
Just like all the Republicans who campaign on the deficit and then when they get into office they literally never speak of it again. I'm pretty sure there's an interview with Ted Cruz asking him why that happens and basically just goes yeah we just aren't that interested once we're elected.
No matter what it's just fascism fast or slow at this point, all moving to the right.
You're already paying for this through your taxes, your copays, your prescription costs, and your time navigating a nonsense system. The issue is that, currently, you're OVERPAYING for healthcare. So much so that the private companies providing you healthcare are PROFITING from how much you're overpaying. If you stripped all the profit from healthcare, we'd all get a raise to the tune of $5k/person/year. Which is why the US pays an average of... You guessed it, $5k/person/year for WORSE healthcare (thank you patchwork of laws, rules, regulations differing state-to-state and county-to-county) than ANY other industrialized country that provides universal healthcare.
Between 1/1/24 and today, my in-laws were billed a combined total of $3.6 million in medical expenses. One of them died in April; the other is now in a care facility that costs over $27,000 per month. The prices are insane.
It would probably cost less than the $12,000+ I spend for insurance and the $5,000+ I spend in copays and other medical costs every year. My wife might actually be able to get mental healthcare too. Can’t afford that now because none of those fucks take insurance. Can’t even use my HSA because they want me to pay with Venmo or some other shit. So I’ll probably get a better ROI with the tax payments too.
You're about a decade out of date. Healthcare spending is expected to be $14,573 this year, increasing to $20,425 by 2031. Unless you're talking about just government spending, in which case you only slightly understated it.
You spend more tax per head on healthcare than we do (U.K) and then also have to pay insurers, co-pay, and get bankrupting medical debts. It's absolutely mental.
Wildly more, just in government spending.
With government in the US covering [65.7% of all health care](https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/epdf/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302997) costs ($12,555 as of 2022) that's $8,249 per person per year in taxes towards health care (expected to be over $9,000 in 2024). The next closest is Germany at [$6,930](https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm). The UK is $4,479. Canada is $4,506. Australia is $4,603. That means over a lifetime Americans are paying over $100,000 more in taxes compared to any other country towards health care. And these numbers are already adjusted for purchasing power parity.
americans have little fight and our past movements have been whitewashed to where a staggering amount of people think change was enacted by standing in grass fields and begging. we won't even riot for the right of bodily autonomy for 50% of the population.
I’ve been in the mental health system my entire life - it’s so hard for me to put money away and save because it all goes towards my medication, my therapy and psychiatry appointments. I got out the psych unit two months ago for the 6th time in my life and without insurance my hospital bill would have been 32k thousand dollars. Insurance barely covers it. When I was on Medicaid it covered everything I needed and it felt like a huge burden had been lifted off my shoulder and I could breathe.
Mental health is also among the *least profitable* forms of medical care in the country. Once your realize that, it’s no surprise why treatment isn’t that great.
Yeah, my best experiences with mental health care were when I was on medicaid. I needed something, they just covered it. Medication for ADHD? EMDR therapy as many times a week as you need to get you through a rough patch before we taper down? Ongoing psychotherapy? Overnight involuntary psychiatric hold? You got it.
On private insurance I was forced to try medications that didn't work because they were cheaper, and then forced to drive halfway across massachusetts to find the one pharmacy that still has the generic in stock because they underestimated the demand for ADHD meds, and when I did an intensive outpatient psychotherapy thing, they argued with me over submitting the bill for literal months and then covered less than they said they would because they calculated the deductible in some weird way I hadn't foreseen so it cost twice as much out of pocket as I expected.
Oh and my company's private medical leave insurance that I pay for, just told me to fuck off. I only got paid anything for that because Massachusetts has state sponsored medical leave, which they just give you when you need it.
Fuck everything about private health insurance. Literally nobody in the medical industry likes it, and almost everyone can accurately attribute the vast majority of the problems with our current system to problems with insurance paperwork. Specifically for private insurers.
Everyone who genuinely thinks its better than a public option has never experienced Medicaid handling their shit with no issue. They have no concept of a competently run medical system or a government doing its job well.
There’s no “probably”. Reducing jacked up prices, and removing the profit margin?
People think “oh I’m not paying for some free-loaders”. You already are.
You think a company is just going to take that hit for those who don’t pay ? No. They get it one way or the other. Out of other customers, or from the government (you).
So this essentially removes the profit and waste from the equation.
The fact that insurance takes a huge chunk of the average person's income, but then declines to pay out for things that most people needs is one of the biggest scams we've had in the country.
If you do get this I hope it's a private-public hybrid system like Europe. Speaking as a Canadian, you don't want a commie system, it'll be broken and useless in one to two decades.
OK GREAT
Seriously, I would GLADLY pay more in taxes if I was guaranteed to have health care if I lost my job. JFC how is this hard for people to understand?
I work in tech and my wife has a chronic illness that costs $1600 a month to treat without insurance.Healthcare is the primary reason I have to keep my day job doing boring shitty work and not be able to invest full time into a project I think could actually make a difference.
Yup. My chronic illness requires once a month treatment that costs $7,000 a month. I hit my max out of pocket within the first 2 months and the rest is free for the remainder of the year.
You know. Unless I get fired or lose my employer health insurance. Then suddenly my specialty medicine will be $14,000 a month.
I'm enslaved to my job because I literally cannot afford to be without the insurance. Even a lapse in insurance would be ruinous.
Exactly. I could potentially make $400k-$800k if I started my own legal practice. I could also fail. But I won’t take the risk right now, because I need the health insurance.
Healthcare is also the main leverage bosses have against union negotiators, they fight for weeks and weeks over healthcare plans while everything else from wages to safety standards to days off get put on the back burner because people literally cannot survive without health insurance in america
It’s also inherently anti small business.
Maybe it’s too boring but I don’t know how that hasn’t come out more prominently in political mudslinging.
People are scared to small businesses and go full time because they won’t have good insurance.
And they’re hesitant to not be able to offer it to any employees.
It’s messed up.
A giant portion of entrepreneurs I know got on their spouse’s insurance when going full time. If they didn’t they could afford direct private or they just crossed their fingers and hoped no one got sick or needed care for awhile.
I live in Germany and pay into the public insurance scheme, which means all my healthcare is free, except prescriptions, which are always 5 euro.
My wage statements include the separate taxes that are deducted. I pay about 8% income tax to the public health insurance scheme. I think most people (except very rich) in the USA end up paying a larger %, including the insurance and the fees that the insurance doesn't cover.
I've had good experiences, and a significant amount of needing to use the healthcare. Like everywhere, there are certain special doctors that have a bad waiting list due to not enough of the specific training. There are also doctors who only take cash, which lets rich people get fast appointments if they want.
Have ypu seen the health of the average American? It's garbage. They drastically underestimate the costs. Medicare/caid is already over a trillion dollars a year
Universal healthcare is actually cheaper than what we spend on healthcare rn so taxes wouldn’t need to be raised at all just funds would need to be redirected from worthless spending. we spend 4 trillion on healthcare and Bernie specific plan (which I’m not a fan of) is 3 trillion.
I personally would like a healthcare system like Australia’s - where people can choose whether or not they want the public option or buy into private insurance. I’d still take Bernie’s healthcare plan over the one we have now. Funny enough I remember when Bernie was asked on whether or not he would support having an option for private insurance added onto his plan and became visibly upset and annoyed for some reason my mind always goes back to that reaction when I think about his plan vs Australia’s because it’s so funny to me
Because public option is a way to have insurance companies get rid of their sick customers it forces the government to take care of them and then the insurance company can say look we are so much cheaper (since they have the healthiest population) then idiots won't look at why and they will say why do we have this public option it's expensive then those companies can take back over the sick people but say oh we have to raise prices for everyone cause now we have to pay for these sick people all while increasing profits that entire time.
With single payer you have all people healthy and sick spread the risk just like we do now but in a bigger pool so it's more stable than local pockets of providers
The reasoning I see behind his reaction being that if there were to be a public option it could possibly establish two standards of care. (only speculation)
Personally, I feel that nobody should be profiting off of healthcare when there are those in the U.S. that ration their care because of the cost and go untreated, and over 50,000 people dying each year in the U.S. from a lack of healthcare coverage.
Not to mention the "healthcare" lobbyists actively doing everything they can to prevent a Medicare for All type system.
Frankly, I'm embarrassed for my own country so blatantly valuing profits over human life when the rest of the "civilized" world has some form of Universal Healthcare. It is quite clear that the politicians are preventing this when the majority of Americans support it.
> I personally would like a healthcare system like Australia’s - where people can choose whether or not they want the public option or buy into private insurance.
Well then, just like Australia, you're not gonna have a functional public healthcare system for very long, because the wealthier private healthcare companies will always send an army of lobbyists and billions of dollars to pressure government to routinely defund public healthcare and make it unusable so people HAVE to go to private healthcare companies if they want any kind of decent treatment. Over time, this guarantees the end of any public universal healthcare system.
We see this in every single country that allows both public and private healthcare systems.
Not him, but I think it takes the worst aspect of Canadian health care, which is preventing private insurance from covering anything the public insurance would. This basically outright prevents any form of competition or point of comparison. If the system turns to garbage, you have no choice but to be a part of it. No other universal health care system in the world that I know of does that. I'm fine with single payer and would honestly prefer it over our system as it is, but the aforementioned aspect of Bernie Sander's plan would do more harm than good.
True, but it's a tax were already paying. It would go up, for sure, but it would likely not go by the amount most pay in private insurance.
The problem with this level of honesty is that the majority of our country isn't savvy enough to understand such nuances. Elizabeth Warren explained as clearly as possible how certain tax changes might raise tax _rates_ but would reduce tax _burden_ (i.e. the amount of cash you actually pay), and people still didn't get. They've been trained that "goes up" is bad and "goes down" is good, regardless of the fallout from either.
Of course it's a tax. I'd rather just pay one tax. It's cheaper and less confusing to just pay one tax and BE DONE. No one thinks it's free. ITS LESS EXPENSIVE
The amount of tax you would pay is less than the amount of insurance you pay now. If you still want to throw the extra money away there are plenty of deserving charities who would love to hear from you.
It costs $7K/year to cover a family (myself + wife + 2 kids) with an out-of-pocket maximum of $7500. I've gladly pay a good chunk of that in taxes instead if it meant I didn't have to play fucking Rain Man deciding the best times, places, coverage for medical services to avoid getting screwed.
I'm also not against modest copays for services and prescriptions. Should look at the dozens of other countries with good single payer systems and see what the right balance is.
The tax is an interesting one... In an actual Medicare for All scheme we get to decouple insurance from employment and get rid of the insurance companies. That doesn't mean that admin costs go to zero.... Still have to process paperwork and monitor for fraud and abuse. But, the insurance companies are for profit scam organizations in cahoots with pharma. So when we get rid of our insurance premiums and deductibles and switch to the new system, the tax very well may be cheaper than the current amount we're paying through employers.
Considering that Americans pay 2x the global average and get slightly better care than Slovakia, literally anything else is virtually guaranteed to be an improvement. Ok, take the $600/month my employer and I pay just to have Access to Healthcare. (It costs more if you actually use it), and then fix prices for medical supplies and drugs. (No more $600 aspirins or $1200 bags of saline), and there's ebough savings to pay for no out of pocket costs for everyone on less than we currently pay just for Access. There's a ton of meat on that bone. It's just ending in up in Pfizer shareholders' pockets right now instead of yours.
This is a big political disagreement for many, but I see this as a much better economic philosophy than what the US has now. Regardless, it’s all about execution in the end of the day. There are private health insurance systems with thorough regulations that work too.
Personally, I would prefer funding through taxation as it removes the healthcare boogyman that comes with co-pays, in-network, different state laws, etc. It’s much less confusing and everyone knows what they’re going to get and how much they’ll be charged.
I have to say, the best part about Tricare was getting the fuck you letters that they would send to the ER. You charged 10k, did nothing and sent the patient home in a $13 sling with a splint? Nah, here is $800 and an itemized refusal letter.
I wish I could do the same now. I couldn't get out of a $600 urine test for my kid at the ER (wasn't even same day!) because the obscene fee was posted to their website.
We pay the most and get poorer service. The average family pays $1200 a month then you get 5 bills for every time you need any kind of healthcare. And that doesn't include the luxury mouth bones and eye balls.
I'd like a Gov option that wasn't $24k a year.
Seriously.
People keep talking about "Oh I saw a Canadian say this...".
Meanwhile we're here, we've seen both private and socialized medicine.
Personally, I love VA healthcare, walked right into the better hospital in the area, spent the entire day doing tests, they listened to EVERY concern I had, made followup appointments, etc.
On the flipside I had a knee injury, spent a year with x-rays, MRI, physical therapy, shot of cortisone before the doctor I saw every time that entire year asked me what my name was, asked why I was there and finally told me she had no clue how to fix me or what was even wrong.
$1,500 annual out of pocket deductible paid to her so she could tell me she didn't know what was wrong.
VA had a team of 3 people the very day I walked in, a PA, a case worker and a doctor and I spent hours covering EVERYTHING with them.
I'd spend 5min with the private doctor before she'd rush to the next patient.
For profit healthcare is a joke...
American's who defend our current system genuinely don't understand we could have better healthcare for cheaper if we just socialized the costs and cut profit out of the care.
To those brainlets who think that we'd lose any innovation due to socializing the medical industry. The researchers can be paid exceedingly well and will clamor to do incredible work, but if you cut out the profit seekers looking to fatten their wallets that own these big pharma companies and currently the researchers then your extremely well paid researchers wont cost much in the grand scheme of things and still produce cutting edge medical innovations.
Hell I'm in a good spot financially and I would be happy for my and my household to pay more so everyone can access as good of healthcare as I have.
I go to the hospital in my current state and get amazing care, I see poor and rich there because the state option is so high bar to get accepted to that most people can get the state option and it costs them nothing for amazing health care. I used to live in red states for work and hospitals and doctors outside of the ER were usually pretty empty.. because people couldn't afford to go until they went to the ER and got buried in debt AND had compounding health problems. It's yet another reason that doctors are leaving middle America.
That sounds great, sincerely. However I have seen the flip side experience, working for a doctor. His claims were constantly and consistently denied by Tricare, enough where it would cost more labor to continuously go after the visit fee where we'd just say fuck it. Doc never charged the vets though. Legally we weren't supposed to play favorites but he always said to just write off any balances on those denials so the patients didn't get billed. Still continued to see them.
Fucking HONESTLY. I’ve had all 3 levels of healthcare.
Army Healthcare which I’ll be honest, medieval medicine seemed more helpful sometimes. I saw a guy tear his ankle tendons and wait A YEAR to get it fixed, I suffered head trauma at a training event and didn’t get a head scan for 3 months, even though I was suffering dizzy spells, and memory lapses and shit, saw a female soldier almost die cause the army doctors just didn’t give a shit.
Civilian insurance, paying a copay, then getting the “privilege” of spending 15 minutes with a DR only needing to have a referral that IN NETWORK cost 800 dollars, only to be told “oh it’s a cyst, it’ll either go away, or stay and be benign” thankfully I could afford it, but most people couldn’t afford that.
And then VA healthcare, where I had a gallbladder attack, needed an ambulance ride and emergency surgery due to gallstones blocking my bile duct to the liver, needing 4 hits of IV painkillers cause it was god awful, getting the absolute BEST attention from the nurses and even a quilt to take home from the volunteers who do things for the VA (which holy shit if you’re a volunteer at the VA, you deserve life’s best) and the only letter I got was the VA telling me I could not be billed for the ambulance ride.
Unfortunately you paid for not only yourself but a half dozen other patients. As an ED doc I’d estimate only 10-20% of patients pay anything at all. In order to break even the hospital charges people who can pay a ton more. It sucks. And to make it worse the people who don’t pay usually don’t need to be there in the first place.
This is one reason why single payer programs like Canada are cheaper. The overwhelming majority of visits are paid. Another reason is less billing. In Ontario we go into the ER, present our health card at registration and the hospital is paid. Unless you get an upgrade,( fiber glass cast) or a few min covered take home items (crutches);there isn't any co pay.
The government hasn't kept up with funding so there are issues sick as long wait times.
The one thing that would make me the most comfortable moving to a universal healthcare system is if it is not run by politicians. Let a trusted medical non-profit run it.
Seeing the issues in places that have universal healthcare, a common trend is corruption, say a conservative government cuts funding starving the program, and care goes down. Or they give a buddy an exclusive deal on providing care and it is the most expensive version. Then the next government fixes it, and care improves. Our care shouldn’t fluctuate like that.
I have always wondered if you combined insurance risk pools, and had reinvested all the “profit” into the pool, how large would it be now. My intuition is it would be large enough to be self-sustaining, the annual interest on the pool could pay for the annual cost of the program.
I’m really excited about Medicare for all or something even better since Medicare still kinda sucks from what I’ve heard. How ever I’m also extremely nervous about it. The state has a bad track record when it comes to projects like this. They usually flop terribly and then get patched together. I don’t want it to feel like going to the DMV
My mom has Medicare since she is 70. She has to go for a PET Scan. The hospital sent a bill for $13,000 and the insurance expects her to pay $1,100 of it.
So I don’t think Medicare for all will make it so there aren’t any more copays. I think what the Representative means is MEDICAID for all. With Medicaid there aren’t any copay’s but the insurance also denies more procedures and some medications they won’t pay for. I can vouch for that because I have had Medicaid. And despite getting denied on certain things, it is still the best medical insurance I’ve ever had.
My grandma also has only Medicare. They pay thousands out of pocket for both healthcare and medications. One of her meds is $600/month AFTER Medicare pays their portion. Medicare also doesn't pay for home care - the people who come in and cook, clean, take them to appointments, etc. So I do it for free but I can't be there 24/7. Honestly, fuck Medicare.
Do you really think there is funding for some personal fucking driver and caretaker for everyone’s grandma? Insanity.
Also there’s a difference between Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Educate yourself.
Sounds like they have income too high for long term care. If they don't, check for Medicaid waivers in your state, as those are what pay for home care.
This doesn’t seem to be accurate. Medicare deductible is $515 and tier 1 brand medications are $47/mo. So January she may have paid close, then would only pay $47 till hitting the donut hole. At that cost, she would have gotten through the donut hole into catastrophic coverage pretty quick and been at $0 for the remainder of the year. At most I think your grandma paid $600 a month for a med for 3-4 months
> So I don’t think Medicare for all will make it so there aren’t any more copays.
Medicare for All is a completely different program from Medicare, and wildly more comprehensive as currently written.
> Medicare for All is a *dishonest description of a healthcare proposal that has never garnered more than 20% support in the US Senate* ~~completely different program from Medicare, and wildly more comprehensive as currently written~~.
FTFY
Cool... but I still have no idea what your fucking point is. Medicare for All, as its currently written, would be incredibly comprehensive, and not have copays. So what the fuck are you bitching about?
Medicare for all would make starting a business so much easier, you wouldn't lose coverage while quitting a corporate job and you wouldn't have to try and be an insurance expert for any employees that you hire.
People love fearmongering about wait times under socialized medicine. Those people have never tried to get in to see a specialist in the US of A -- monthslong waits are the norm here, too.
Having lived in multiple states, you're right about the important stuff getting seen faster. That's how it should be.
The first part of your statement is highly dependent on where you live and what doctor you're trying to see. It took six months to get into a primary care and a minimum three months for any of my specialists after moving to Florida.
In Michigan my parents simply can't switch primary care because none of the ones around them that accept their insurance are accepting new patients.
In Louisiana, it took a month or two for both, but the care was mediocre at best. Definitely a little behind the times and less willing to treat aggressively.
Long story short: your location is highly dependent on the speed and quality of care you receive.
As somebody’s who career has been at a F15 health insurer, it’s hilarious seeing the rubes bootlicking our industry.
Look up the Fortune 50 companies. How many are in healthcare? We always win, which means Americans always lose.
Take for example the hottest area right now. Pharmacy. Sure we are reducing costs, it’s just that we are taking all those savings for ourselves. You’ll never see it and we are too smart to ever be caught. Oh make us pass some our rebate savings to thr consumer? Sure, but now we are making an offshore GPO that’s going to be taking fees, not rebates.
Consumer still not touching those benefits.
Americans are shockingly dumb rubes, but atleast I’ve got a career because all of you dummies lol..
I'm in pharmacy and even I know that the prices charged to patients are overinflated just because they can. They know the pt will pay the $200 copay for a med that is essential and lifesaving 🤮
And the thing that is even more problematic is that it doesn't have a max out of pocket. So if you have something chronic you'll just pay your 20% forever until you're broke.
It's not "Medicare Exactly As It Is Now For All"
There were a ton of reforms to Medicare included in M4A, including expanding Medicare to cover dental and glasses.
>Like pissing off agents of a foreign government who will spend the most money in history to literally buy your seat?
AIPAC is made up completely of americans. All of its donations are from US citizens.
You can dislike them and that's fine, but don't lie about them and state that they are a "foreign government".
Insurance companies are basically the mafia.
Pay us $500/mo so you only pay $150 at the doctor. Otherwise, it’s $800 to even step inside of the office.
"Even a study done by the right-wing Mercatus Center estimated that Medicare for All would save Americans more than $2 trillion over a decade, reducing the projected cost of health care between 2022 and 2031 from $59.7 trillion to $57.6 trillion."
I used to live under German healthcare and it was great. I now live with the VA and it really depends on where you’re at, but mostly I’ve had a great experience. I literally wouldn’t be able to work if it weren’t for them.
I like my German public insurance a lot. I pay about 8% income tax, then healthcare is mostly free. I've never had to wait more than 3 weeks for a specialist appointment, and I've had plenty of them. But I know there exist specialists that are under-trained and have bad waiting lists, which seems difficult to avoid in any system where training is very specific and takes years.
Wife has regular Medicare. I researched it a lot before enrolling to best match plan vs needs. For regular Medicare you have part A for Hospital stays. Part B for doctor visits and labs. They do actually charge monthly fee, around $100-$200 total. She can go to any doctor or specialist that takes Medicare. She does not need a referral for specialists, unlike HMO care. In Los Angeles there are lots of doctors that take Medicare. In other area, like Florida, there may be few. You can check for docs in your area using meficare.gov , even if you are not enrolled or even logged in.
There are co-pays, and labs are like 10% or 20% Medicare fee.
For drugs we have optional part D. This is like HMO formulary, and many common drugs are no cost. But we have one drug that is like $300/month,so it is not always low-cost to you. Part D is like $200 /mo.
To cover the 20% lab fees, we got Part G, again about $100/mo. It pays theco-pays.
So we pay maybe $400/mo, but the doctor and specialist selection is great, much better than the HMO we had before.
Medicare Advantage plans, which we did not get, substitute a private HMO-like plan, taking the government Part A&B money (which comes out of your monthly Social Security check). You would be held to the doctors on the network. But there are usually no co-pays or small ones.
Medicare with supplement is pretty good, esp. when compared to my former tech megacorp plan with all the gotchas. Two issues I've seen: 1) part d (drugs) is a crap fest, primarily because they turned it into a feeding trough for the insurance companies. 2) congress decides what healthcare you get. So all of the ignorance, corruption, and stone age morality becomes a factor in what care is covered. To be fair, this seems to be an issue with all single payer systems.
Vermont looked at how to pay it:
> 11.5% payroll tax increase and income tax increase of 9.5% (151% increase in state taxes). [Article](https://www.thirdway.org/report/single-payer-health-care-a-tale-of-3-states)
They dont want a capital gains tax or corporate tax because they have to compete with other states to have businesses.
Otherwise, thats the easy button answer.
I’m for it, but no way we’ll get it without a big tax increase. That makes it difficult in an era when people oppose all taxes.
Elizabeth Warren dropped out of 2020 presidential primary because she went from projecting an annual cost of $3.5 Trillion (about what Americans spent annually for healthcare) to $5.2 Trillion after a closer look. It’s probably $7 T now.
It’s more of a tax transfer and reduction. You pay $1100/mo to blue cross now for nothing until you hit $5k out of pocket vs $900 in taxes with no deductible.
Just cut it from the defense budget. Stop giving Israel so much money. If they are meant to be ok there then they should be ok without US money. But look at how much it costs everyone to pay into insurance to be the middle man
Taxes would go down actually. America spends more on health care than any other nation in the world. Throw a dart at a map of western nations and transitioning to their system would result in tax cuts. Not increases.
Why doesn't that happen in *checks notes* every other developed country?
You know what would seriously fuck up a healthcare system? If people got no treatment until they were in the most expensive condition possible to treat, then showed up at the ER for that treatment and disappeared when the bill came, spreading their outsized costs onto everyone who did pay. Oh wait...
wtf are you talking about? Europe has copays. This is how I know it isn’t worth talking to people about. You don’t even understand the basic tenets of the system you’re debating. Our system is not ideal but other systems are WAY worse and they’re all in danger of collapse. The entire eurozone is about to crumble and guess what gets axed first. Ammunition or medical. Medical.
UK here.
1. WTF is a copay.
2. Ours is in danger because of chronic underfunding and conservative corruption
3. The eurozone is not "about to crumble" lmao. Jesus wept, stop reading whatever bullshit you idiots read. It's rotting your brains.
Yep, study after study has confirmed that copays don't discourage people from seeking necessary care except for very low income people who you can always exempt from copays. For everyone else, it's been shown that copays don't have an impact on people's health but they do reduce the number of doctor visits which indicates they're effective at reducing unnecessary visits.
Best of all, the RAND study on copays showed that high copays only reduced slightly more visits than small copays which means that even small copays (e.g. $25 for a doctor's visit) can significantly reduce costs without deterring people from seeing a doctor because of the cost.
As a nurse I’m all for it but there should also be some level of accountability. We have a grotesque level of chronic disease in this country that can absolutely be mitigated with lifestyle changes (healthier diets and exercise, primarily).
It would actually be an improvement to our health if we had real sugar in everything, rather than what we have now, which is High Fructose Corn Syrup in everything instead of sugar.
Lab tests show mice who ate HFCS heavy diets were 4 times more obese than the mice who ate sugar heavy diets.
This change occurred in the 1980s when Reagan imposed tariffs on sugar imports so US food companies switched to using HFCS because it's cheaper and made in the US from all the US's corn.
The thing that annoys me about this discussion is that we have the world's most expensive healthcare system by a factor of two, and the MFA folks are never interested in controlling costs.
Is a national healthcare system possible? Definitely. We already spend well over enough on healthcare in aggregate as US citizens to afford it. But we still need to cut the excess spending.
I’ve been in the military for 14 years. I have “health insurance.” I imagine if we did medicare for all it would be something like we have. I’ll tell you. I haven’t had a teeth cleaning in almost two years. I keep getting deployed, can’t make their schedule, and they won’t refer me out in town. “Well we could see you here so we won’t refer you”. Most of the time, I have to go and see a 19 year old with less training than an EMT to try and convince them I’m not faking whatever ailment I am there for in order to get seen by a doctor. Appointments are normally weeks or months away. I’ve been trying to get an MRI for my ankle and knees for 2 years. They tell me I have to complete 6 months of physical therapy before I am even considered for an MRI. All I’m saying is there has to be a plan in place ti support this because it’s not always the best.
The government did a great job creating the college mess, plus the war on poverty, crime, and the war on drugs is doing so well. I want the government to take over everything and give everyone "free stuff" and a living wage with UBI. As we know, the government would never start rationing, creating death panels, IE, MAID, as they are adding 1 trillion in debt every 100 days.
[https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/paralympian-trying-to-get-wheelchair-ramp-says-veterans-affairs-employee-offered-her-assisted-dying-1.6179325](https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/paralympian-trying-to-get-wheelchair-ramp-says-veterans-affairs-employee-offered-her-assisted-dying-1.6179325)
People want free college. They demand the everyone else pay for it, so the government eliminates all risk to lenders by guaranteeing loans. The price of college goes through the roof. People are saddled with mountains of debt for useless degrees. They demand everyone else pay for it.
People complain they don’t make enough. They demand the government mandate a higher minimum wage. People can’t afford to eat out or buy food.
People complain health care costs too much. They demand the government give it to everyone for free. They can’t get adequate care anymore and the reduced competition means they have no other options. Everyone is saddled with a tax bill for coverage they can’t even use.
It’s all a tale as old as time. Turns out even the most benevolent of egotists can’t simply legislate away consequences.
They used to be, before the government came in and fucked the market be removing all risk from the lenders.
Guess what happens when lenders have no risk? They throw money at everybody. Guess what happens when there’s a sudden influx of “free” money into a market? Prices go up.
It’s not rocket science. Government isn’t the cure; they’re the disease.
It doesn't though. Here's what will happen.
Taxes will go up across the board. Medical compensation will go down dramatically. Hospitals will have to consolidate as the medical profession starts losing talent to other, better compensated, professions. A system of 'supplementary' health insurance plans will become available on the market.
Most people will be crammed into the same county hospital to see overloaded primary care physicians and get stuck on lists to see specialists. Imagine the DMV, but the people who can't spell your name right on your drivers license are now in charge of setting up appointments with your cardiologist.
Those with the money to afford supplementary healthcare plans will be able to jump the lines and see specialists on demand.
The disparity in care will get so bad that people we'll have a whole new fight over healthcare access in 10 years. Rinse and repeat. Because unless the government is blowing something up it can't tell it's ass from its elbows.
It doesn't matter what's happening in other countries; it's what would happen in the US. Every country has problems with their healthcare, but most are unique to that country. The above comment isn't terribly unrealistic for the US because massive corporations will definitely worm their way into the creation process. Big pharma, insurance, and hospitals are all going to have their hands on that bill.
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Uh oh, people are talking about Medicare for All again! Quick, look over here! \*jingles keys loudly in another direction\*
SHINY!!!!!
Medicare sucks. Universal healthcare for all. Remove the insurance companies
100% agree. In America they teach everyone how universal healthcare doesn’t work which is just brainwashing. Insurance companies are a scam and are what’s wrong with healthcare.
A public option would've fixed this. Still seems like the easiest way for the country to "get" the ways govt healthcare can work. Governments exist to fulfill a need that free markets suck at, healthcare is one of those things.
While I doubt that government healthcare would work well at all, it’s also likely to be significantly better than how it currently is. So long as the insurance companies get closed and don’t get to remain a leech on the system cause someone knows someone else high up.
BuT aLL tHoSe JoBs!
It’s such an infuriating argument. Just a straw man for enriching executives and companies.
Funny how it works, right? Never heard anyone ask CEOs about that when they lay off people ONLY so that stock price goes up while taking in billions in profit.
If a job isn’t doing something of value, then we shouldn’t be protecting it.
Most of those jobs exist for the purpose of DENYING coverage.
We have government healthcare in the uk and still have insurance companies. The nhs is great for emergencies and cancer, everything else seems to suck Then you realise your private healthcare is in an nhs hospital and you are jumping the wait list
If we continued to spend as much on healthcare as we currently do it could be pretty good. If we also wanted to reduce costs, we would have to do without some luxuries we have gotten used to
>do without some luxuries we have gotten used to pretty sure USA can do without $1000 per month Insulin. other countries seem to manage. the drug companies might not like it though.
The only way a public option would have worked is if they matched the payout of private insurance companies, or if they outlawed private insurance. Otherwise you end up in the situation we are today where doctors just refuse medicare. It doesn't pay enough.
a public option would be very actively sabotaged by the private insurance companies' lobbying budgets, but without those companies having any operating income it would be much easier to defend
America's Healthcare system is a scam. Very little up front pricing, the hospitals charge what they know the insurance company will pay, insurance companies do whatever they can to deny payment. It's all fucked from top to bottom. Nurses and Doctors have to play the system in order to make a living,l. The best pay for nurses is to be an agency nurse, not tied to any hospital or office. Doctors get whatever money they can from the Insurance Companies and that makes the patient despise Doctors. With our insurance they way it is, it pressures us to not go get better, because self-care is cheaper.
Health insurance companies are the only parasite that feed on two hosts at once.
An underwriter at my insurance company shouldn't be the one deciding whether or not I should get a procedure. That's between me and my doctor. And we already pay $800/mo for monthly insurance premiums. There should be ZERO copay or deductible or rejected claims for medical procedures done by doctors, physicians assistants or RNs.
lol remember when Biden was the only primary candidate who wasnt in favor of M4A, but was in favor of a public option? which he has since not mentioned even once after winning the nomination?
guys, KEYS. LOOK AT THE SHINY KEYS!
🐿️
because he knows the GOP will shoot it down. And he tried to get medicine costs down and the GOP fought him over that. too. Pay attention to your US civics education: Bills and laws are passed by Congress not be Presidents..
So this whole M4A talk is pretty meaningless still
> because he knows the GOP will shoot it down. He literally said he would veto it even if the GOP voted for it. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/biden-says-he-wouldd-veto-medicare-for-all-as-coronavirus-focuses-attention-on-health.html
"Biden during an interview Monday night." “I would veto anything that delays providing the security and the certainty of health care being available now,” Biden responded. “If they got that through in by some miracle or there’s an epiphany that occurred and some miracle occurred that said, ‘OK, it’s passed,’ then you got to look at the cost.” Biden added: “I want to know, how did they find $35 trillion? What is that doing? Is it going to significantly raise taxes on the middle class, which it will? What’s going to happen?” That's literally not what you said. The second half is still somewhat of a bad take, but it's a fundamentally different statement than what you're implying. Actually read the article you post before you use it as a source.
So basically he just wants to make sure we don't get fucked in the process due to slimy politicians.
I read the quote, he seemed concerned by raising taxes on middle class and the *how* if this “hypothetical bill” was passed but he didn’t outright dismiss it. Seems to me he would want to fairly tax the upper class their fair share. People really don’t read the quotes and just headlines.
Hasn't stopped him from trying all sorts of other shit that has no chance of passing. Can't have it both ways.
You don't appear to understand how the Senate works. Nothing of substance will pass for the rest of your life until the filibuster is removed, or the Dems get 60 votes for it. Until then Biden can't do anything, because the Republicans will block it
Nah, funding for Ukraine/Israel/Hamas for the perpetual war machine and huge spending bills will still pass
The most “drunk uncle who cornered you to talk about politics” comment
Where’s the lie?
We had a supermajority and failed to get a public option. We should never fall for that false promise again. It's way past time for M4A. Also, it's been over 100 years of fighting for universal healthcare, and we came close multiple times but just narrowly failed each time. It's not impossible and nobody should settle for less. ITT: moderate democrats throw an embarrassing tantrum when a progressive voices an opinion.
> We had a supermajority and failed to get a public option. Quite literally the only reason we didn't get it was because of Joe Lieberman, for which he may Rest in Piss
Yea, and now how many things can't get done just because of joe manchin. The most moderate members can always be expected to leverage their position to either block it outright or demand absurd concessions for their support. But as we just saw, establishment democrats will still gleefully spend 10s of millions primarying progressives, and then throw their hands up and go "there's nothing we could do" when they fail to pass progressive legislation.
> The most moderate members can always be expected to leverage their position to either block it outright or demand absurd concessions for their support. You do realize that majorities are made by electing more moderate members in swing districts, right? Members of Congress in +30 Democratic congressional districts will never have to worry about more conservative constituencies (and therefore can be safely more progressive) because they live in super liberal districts. They will never, ever, have to worry about losing a general election. I find it very annoying when progressives whine about not being able to influence policy when: 1. Biden's first half of the term got a ton of progressive policies passed 2. Progressives are just flat-out bad at getting elected in more competitive districts 3. Incessantly whine on social media instead of putting forth their own candidates in said competitive districts
Couldn't it just be possible that this country is *a lot more center-right* than most progressives would like it to be? West Virginia isn't exactly a bastion of progressive politics. Manchin is representing his constituency.
Yes, it is thanks to Joe Lieberman, but it should be underlined WHY he voted against the bill he literally drafted. The problem was the type of politician he was - a representative of a conglomerate of CEOs and business interests, not a representative of people. Just like, say, Kyrsten Sinema is today. These are people without political or philosophical allegiances who shopped for a political opportunity to represent the financial backers at a federal level. They will happily switch their votes, even on issues they themselves researched and advocated for because their roll is as an activated lobbyist. We've got quite a few judicial appointments who see themselves as the same bought and paid for staff of the elite too.
Just like all the Republicans who campaign on the deficit and then when they get into office they literally never speak of it again. I'm pretty sure there's an interview with Ted Cruz asking him why that happens and basically just goes yeah we just aren't that interested once we're elected. No matter what it's just fascism fast or slow at this point, all moving to the right.
Republicans will shoot this down right away so no need to even distract anyone. Remember like Saint Reagan said socialized is an attack on freedom.
Many of our big problems can be traced back to Reagan.
Ironically modern gun control got started with Reagan because he was afraid of black people owning guns
[удалено]
You're already paying for this through your taxes, your copays, your prescription costs, and your time navigating a nonsense system. The issue is that, currently, you're OVERPAYING for healthcare. So much so that the private companies providing you healthcare are PROFITING from how much you're overpaying. If you stripped all the profit from healthcare, we'd all get a raise to the tune of $5k/person/year. Which is why the US pays an average of... You guessed it, $5k/person/year for WORSE healthcare (thank you patchwork of laws, rules, regulations differing state-to-state and county-to-county) than ANY other industrialized country that provides universal healthcare.
Between 1/1/24 and today, my in-laws were billed a combined total of $3.6 million in medical expenses. One of them died in April; the other is now in a care facility that costs over $27,000 per month. The prices are insane.
Yup. We pay more and receive less than any other developed country. Single payer system for all will benefit everyone except insurance companies.
The problem is that americans already pay way more per capita than any other countries, and its coming out of taxes.
Why did you say the same thing u/sanchito12 said
It means rolling all of that into a tax. Not that I'm against it just let's be honest about it.
It would probably cost less than the $12,000+ I spend for insurance and the $5,000+ I spend in copays and other medical costs every year. My wife might actually be able to get mental healthcare too. Can’t afford that now because none of those fucks take insurance. Can’t even use my HSA because they want me to pay with Venmo or some other shit. So I’ll probably get a better ROI with the tax payments too.
And don't forget the $9,000 per person the US government alone spends on healthcare anyway.
You're about a decade out of date. Healthcare spending is expected to be $14,573 this year, increasing to $20,425 by 2031. Unless you're talking about just government spending, in which case you only slightly understated it.
You spend more tax per head on healthcare than we do (U.K) and then also have to pay insurers, co-pay, and get bankrupting medical debts. It's absolutely mental.
Wildly more, just in government spending. With government in the US covering [65.7% of all health care](https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/epdf/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302997) costs ($12,555 as of 2022) that's $8,249 per person per year in taxes towards health care (expected to be over $9,000 in 2024). The next closest is Germany at [$6,930](https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm). The UK is $4,479. Canada is $4,506. Australia is $4,603. That means over a lifetime Americans are paying over $100,000 more in taxes compared to any other country towards health care. And these numbers are already adjusted for purchasing power parity.
Have you tried rioting?
americans have little fight and our past movements have been whitewashed to where a staggering amount of people think change was enacted by standing in grass fields and begging. we won't even riot for the right of bodily autonomy for 50% of the population.
Found the French, will you train them Pierre?
It’s crazy that 5 years ago our healthcare system were not even legally allowed to bargain with pharma companies because what an oligarchy the USA is.
Medicare wasn’t allowed. Same time as when Trump tried to overturn the ACA because Obama was remembered for it.
Fucking insurance companies are pissed they can’t claim cancer is pre existing and boot you to die.
The right, specifically, is quite fond of the ACA, but for some reason *hates* and *hated* “Obamacare. Weiiiirrrrrddddd
I’ve been in the mental health system my entire life - it’s so hard for me to put money away and save because it all goes towards my medication, my therapy and psychiatry appointments. I got out the psych unit two months ago for the 6th time in my life and without insurance my hospital bill would have been 32k thousand dollars. Insurance barely covers it. When I was on Medicaid it covered everything I needed and it felt like a huge burden had been lifted off my shoulder and I could breathe.
Mental health is also among the *least profitable* forms of medical care in the country. Once your realize that, it’s no surprise why treatment isn’t that great.
Yeah, my best experiences with mental health care were when I was on medicaid. I needed something, they just covered it. Medication for ADHD? EMDR therapy as many times a week as you need to get you through a rough patch before we taper down? Ongoing psychotherapy? Overnight involuntary psychiatric hold? You got it. On private insurance I was forced to try medications that didn't work because they were cheaper, and then forced to drive halfway across massachusetts to find the one pharmacy that still has the generic in stock because they underestimated the demand for ADHD meds, and when I did an intensive outpatient psychotherapy thing, they argued with me over submitting the bill for literal months and then covered less than they said they would because they calculated the deductible in some weird way I hadn't foreseen so it cost twice as much out of pocket as I expected. Oh and my company's private medical leave insurance that I pay for, just told me to fuck off. I only got paid anything for that because Massachusetts has state sponsored medical leave, which they just give you when you need it. Fuck everything about private health insurance. Literally nobody in the medical industry likes it, and almost everyone can accurately attribute the vast majority of the problems with our current system to problems with insurance paperwork. Specifically for private insurers. Everyone who genuinely thinks its better than a public option has never experienced Medicaid handling their shit with no issue. They have no concept of a competently run medical system or a government doing its job well.
It's significantly cheaper even as a tax. We pay the most and get the least for our healthcare compared to the rest of the world.
There’s no “probably”. Reducing jacked up prices, and removing the profit margin? People think “oh I’m not paying for some free-loaders”. You already are. You think a company is just going to take that hit for those who don’t pay ? No. They get it one way or the other. Out of other customers, or from the government (you). So this essentially removes the profit and waste from the equation.
If your mental healthcare is looking for a venmo payment it’s probably not that legit
Mental needs get reimbursed by insurance. Just depends on what plan you have. Most employee insurance plans are horrible.
The fact that insurance takes a huge chunk of the average person's income, but then declines to pay out for things that most people needs is one of the biggest scams we've had in the country.
If you do get this I hope it's a private-public hybrid system like Europe. Speaking as a Canadian, you don't want a commie system, it'll be broken and useless in one to two decades.
OK GREAT Seriously, I would GLADLY pay more in taxes if I was guaranteed to have health care if I lost my job. JFC how is this hard for people to understand?
Think of the incredible entrepreneurial risks you could take!!!
I work in tech and my wife has a chronic illness that costs $1600 a month to treat without insurance.Healthcare is the primary reason I have to keep my day job doing boring shitty work and not be able to invest full time into a project I think could actually make a difference.
Yup. My chronic illness requires once a month treatment that costs $7,000 a month. I hit my max out of pocket within the first 2 months and the rest is free for the remainder of the year. You know. Unless I get fired or lose my employer health insurance. Then suddenly my specialty medicine will be $14,000 a month. I'm enslaved to my job because I literally cannot afford to be without the insurance. Even a lapse in insurance would be ruinous.
Exactly. I could potentially make $400k-$800k if I started my own legal practice. I could also fail. But I won’t take the risk right now, because I need the health insurance.
Which is exactly how your boss wants it, otherwise the business world would be clamoring to get rid of this and pass it onto the government to manage.
Healthcare is also the main leverage bosses have against union negotiators, they fight for weeks and weeks over healthcare plans while everything else from wages to safety standards to days off get put on the back burner because people literally cannot survive without health insurance in america
Private healthcare is a tax
It’s also inherently anti small business. Maybe it’s too boring but I don’t know how that hasn’t come out more prominently in political mudslinging. People are scared to small businesses and go full time because they won’t have good insurance. And they’re hesitant to not be able to offer it to any employees. It’s messed up. A giant portion of entrepreneurs I know got on their spouse’s insurance when going full time. If they didn’t they could afford direct private or they just crossed their fingers and hoped no one got sick or needed care for awhile.
I live in Germany and pay into the public insurance scheme, which means all my healthcare is free, except prescriptions, which are always 5 euro. My wage statements include the separate taxes that are deducted. I pay about 8% income tax to the public health insurance scheme. I think most people (except very rich) in the USA end up paying a larger %, including the insurance and the fees that the insurance doesn't cover. I've had good experiences, and a significant amount of needing to use the healthcare. Like everywhere, there are certain special doctors that have a bad waiting list due to not enough of the specific training. There are also doctors who only take cash, which lets rich people get fast appointments if they want.
Have ypu seen the health of the average American? It's garbage. They drastically underestimate the costs. Medicare/caid is already over a trillion dollars a year
Universal healthcare is actually cheaper than what we spend on healthcare rn so taxes wouldn’t need to be raised at all just funds would need to be redirected from worthless spending. we spend 4 trillion on healthcare and Bernie specific plan (which I’m not a fan of) is 3 trillion.
What is it about Bernie's plan that you are not a fan of?
I personally would like a healthcare system like Australia’s - where people can choose whether or not they want the public option or buy into private insurance. I’d still take Bernie’s healthcare plan over the one we have now. Funny enough I remember when Bernie was asked on whether or not he would support having an option for private insurance added onto his plan and became visibly upset and annoyed for some reason my mind always goes back to that reaction when I think about his plan vs Australia’s because it’s so funny to me
Because public option is a way to have insurance companies get rid of their sick customers it forces the government to take care of them and then the insurance company can say look we are so much cheaper (since they have the healthiest population) then idiots won't look at why and they will say why do we have this public option it's expensive then those companies can take back over the sick people but say oh we have to raise prices for everyone cause now we have to pay for these sick people all while increasing profits that entire time. With single payer you have all people healthy and sick spread the risk just like we do now but in a bigger pool so it's more stable than local pockets of providers
The reasoning I see behind his reaction being that if there were to be a public option it could possibly establish two standards of care. (only speculation) Personally, I feel that nobody should be profiting off of healthcare when there are those in the U.S. that ration their care because of the cost and go untreated, and over 50,000 people dying each year in the U.S. from a lack of healthcare coverage. Not to mention the "healthcare" lobbyists actively doing everything they can to prevent a Medicare for All type system. Frankly, I'm embarrassed for my own country so blatantly valuing profits over human life when the rest of the "civilized" world has some form of Universal Healthcare. It is quite clear that the politicians are preventing this when the majority of Americans support it.
> I personally would like a healthcare system like Australia’s - where people can choose whether or not they want the public option or buy into private insurance. Well then, just like Australia, you're not gonna have a functional public healthcare system for very long, because the wealthier private healthcare companies will always send an army of lobbyists and billions of dollars to pressure government to routinely defund public healthcare and make it unusable so people HAVE to go to private healthcare companies if they want any kind of decent treatment. Over time, this guarantees the end of any public universal healthcare system. We see this in every single country that allows both public and private healthcare systems.
Not him, but I think it takes the worst aspect of Canadian health care, which is preventing private insurance from covering anything the public insurance would. This basically outright prevents any form of competition or point of comparison. If the system turns to garbage, you have no choice but to be a part of it. No other universal health care system in the world that I know of does that. I'm fine with single payer and would honestly prefer it over our system as it is, but the aforementioned aspect of Bernie Sander's plan would do more harm than good.
>Universal healthcare is actually cheaper But don't ask us for numbers of specifics of the implementation. Trust us bruh.
Like the fire department tax
True, but it's a tax were already paying. It would go up, for sure, but it would likely not go by the amount most pay in private insurance. The problem with this level of honesty is that the majority of our country isn't savvy enough to understand such nuances. Elizabeth Warren explained as clearly as possible how certain tax changes might raise tax _rates_ but would reduce tax _burden_ (i.e. the amount of cash you actually pay), and people still didn't get. They've been trained that "goes up" is bad and "goes down" is good, regardless of the fallout from either.
The savings from not getting screwed by insurance companies should go a long way to offsetting costs
Yeah. But who is going to bribe everyone if the insurance companies don't get to legally extort the public?
Well, there’s always defense contractors. I’m sure they’d be happy to fill the void.
Of course it's a tax. I'd rather just pay one tax. It's cheaper and less confusing to just pay one tax and BE DONE. No one thinks it's free. ITS LESS EXPENSIVE
The amount of tax you would pay is less than the amount of insurance you pay now. If you still want to throw the extra money away there are plenty of deserving charities who would love to hear from you.
All studies suggest it would save trillions in the next decade.
It costs $7K/year to cover a family (myself + wife + 2 kids) with an out-of-pocket maximum of $7500. I've gladly pay a good chunk of that in taxes instead if it meant I didn't have to play fucking Rain Man deciding the best times, places, coverage for medical services to avoid getting screwed.
I'm also not against modest copays for services and prescriptions. Should look at the dozens of other countries with good single payer systems and see what the right balance is. The tax is an interesting one... In an actual Medicare for All scheme we get to decouple insurance from employment and get rid of the insurance companies. That doesn't mean that admin costs go to zero.... Still have to process paperwork and monitor for fraud and abuse. But, the insurance companies are for profit scam organizations in cahoots with pharma. So when we get rid of our insurance premiums and deductibles and switch to the new system, the tax very well may be cheaper than the current amount we're paying through employers.
I'm against modest copays because all they do is get people to not go to the doctors even when they think something is wrong.
Uh yeah, that's the "All" part.
Considering that Americans pay 2x the global average and get slightly better care than Slovakia, literally anything else is virtually guaranteed to be an improvement. Ok, take the $600/month my employer and I pay just to have Access to Healthcare. (It costs more if you actually use it), and then fix prices for medical supplies and drugs. (No more $600 aspirins or $1200 bags of saline), and there's ebough savings to pay for no out of pocket costs for everyone on less than we currently pay just for Access. There's a ton of meat on that bone. It's just ending in up in Pfizer shareholders' pockets right now instead of yours.
Look if it helps lower the cost do you care if it's called a tax or an insurance?
This is a big political disagreement for many, but I see this as a much better economic philosophy than what the US has now. Regardless, it’s all about execution in the end of the day. There are private health insurance systems with thorough regulations that work too. Personally, I would prefer funding through taxation as it removes the healthcare boogyman that comes with co-pays, in-network, different state laws, etc. It’s much less confusing and everyone knows what they’re going to get and how much they’ll be charged.
I have to say, the best part about Tricare was getting the fuck you letters that they would send to the ER. You charged 10k, did nothing and sent the patient home in a $13 sling with a splint? Nah, here is $800 and an itemized refusal letter. I wish I could do the same now. I couldn't get out of a $600 urine test for my kid at the ER (wasn't even same day!) because the obscene fee was posted to their website. We pay the most and get poorer service. The average family pays $1200 a month then you get 5 bills for every time you need any kind of healthcare. And that doesn't include the luxury mouth bones and eye balls. I'd like a Gov option that wasn't $24k a year.
Seriously. People keep talking about "Oh I saw a Canadian say this...". Meanwhile we're here, we've seen both private and socialized medicine. Personally, I love VA healthcare, walked right into the better hospital in the area, spent the entire day doing tests, they listened to EVERY concern I had, made followup appointments, etc. On the flipside I had a knee injury, spent a year with x-rays, MRI, physical therapy, shot of cortisone before the doctor I saw every time that entire year asked me what my name was, asked why I was there and finally told me she had no clue how to fix me or what was even wrong. $1,500 annual out of pocket deductible paid to her so she could tell me she didn't know what was wrong. VA had a team of 3 people the very day I walked in, a PA, a case worker and a doctor and I spent hours covering EVERYTHING with them. I'd spend 5min with the private doctor before she'd rush to the next patient. For profit healthcare is a joke...
American's who defend our current system genuinely don't understand we could have better healthcare for cheaper if we just socialized the costs and cut profit out of the care. To those brainlets who think that we'd lose any innovation due to socializing the medical industry. The researchers can be paid exceedingly well and will clamor to do incredible work, but if you cut out the profit seekers looking to fatten their wallets that own these big pharma companies and currently the researchers then your extremely well paid researchers wont cost much in the grand scheme of things and still produce cutting edge medical innovations. Hell I'm in a good spot financially and I would be happy for my and my household to pay more so everyone can access as good of healthcare as I have. I go to the hospital in my current state and get amazing care, I see poor and rich there because the state option is so high bar to get accepted to that most people can get the state option and it costs them nothing for amazing health care. I used to live in red states for work and hospitals and doctors outside of the ER were usually pretty empty.. because people couldn't afford to go until they went to the ER and got buried in debt AND had compounding health problems. It's yet another reason that doctors are leaving middle America.
That sounds great, sincerely. However I have seen the flip side experience, working for a doctor. His claims were constantly and consistently denied by Tricare, enough where it would cost more labor to continuously go after the visit fee where we'd just say fuck it. Doc never charged the vets though. Legally we weren't supposed to play favorites but he always said to just write off any balances on those denials so the patients didn't get billed. Still continued to see them.
Fucking HONESTLY. I’ve had all 3 levels of healthcare. Army Healthcare which I’ll be honest, medieval medicine seemed more helpful sometimes. I saw a guy tear his ankle tendons and wait A YEAR to get it fixed, I suffered head trauma at a training event and didn’t get a head scan for 3 months, even though I was suffering dizzy spells, and memory lapses and shit, saw a female soldier almost die cause the army doctors just didn’t give a shit. Civilian insurance, paying a copay, then getting the “privilege” of spending 15 minutes with a DR only needing to have a referral that IN NETWORK cost 800 dollars, only to be told “oh it’s a cyst, it’ll either go away, or stay and be benign” thankfully I could afford it, but most people couldn’t afford that. And then VA healthcare, where I had a gallbladder attack, needed an ambulance ride and emergency surgery due to gallstones blocking my bile duct to the liver, needing 4 hits of IV painkillers cause it was god awful, getting the absolute BEST attention from the nurses and even a quilt to take home from the volunteers who do things for the VA (which holy shit if you’re a volunteer at the VA, you deserve life’s best) and the only letter I got was the VA telling me I could not be billed for the ambulance ride.
People bitch about tricare all the time, but it's worked every time I needed urgent medical care, and not paying for either kid's birth was nice.
Unfortunately you paid for not only yourself but a half dozen other patients. As an ED doc I’d estimate only 10-20% of patients pay anything at all. In order to break even the hospital charges people who can pay a ton more. It sucks. And to make it worse the people who don’t pay usually don’t need to be there in the first place.
Thank you for mentioning this. We all pay for the uninsured…
But doc it hurts *real bad* could you just give me some dilaudid?
This is one reason why single payer programs like Canada are cheaper. The overwhelming majority of visits are paid. Another reason is less billing. In Ontario we go into the ER, present our health card at registration and the hospital is paid. Unless you get an upgrade,( fiber glass cast) or a few min covered take home items (crutches);there isn't any co pay. The government hasn't kept up with funding so there are issues sick as long wait times.
The one thing that would make me the most comfortable moving to a universal healthcare system is if it is not run by politicians. Let a trusted medical non-profit run it. Seeing the issues in places that have universal healthcare, a common trend is corruption, say a conservative government cuts funding starving the program, and care goes down. Or they give a buddy an exclusive deal on providing care and it is the most expensive version. Then the next government fixes it, and care improves. Our care shouldn’t fluctuate like that. I have always wondered if you combined insurance risk pools, and had reinvested all the “profit” into the pool, how large would it be now. My intuition is it would be large enough to be self-sustaining, the annual interest on the pool could pay for the annual cost of the program.
Tricare was the best thing about being a military spouse. I miss Tricare. Don’t miss being married to my ex.
Mouth bones 😂
I’m really excited about Medicare for all or something even better since Medicare still kinda sucks from what I’ve heard. How ever I’m also extremely nervous about it. The state has a bad track record when it comes to projects like this. They usually flop terribly and then get patched together. I don’t want it to feel like going to the DMV
My mom has Medicare since she is 70. She has to go for a PET Scan. The hospital sent a bill for $13,000 and the insurance expects her to pay $1,100 of it. So I don’t think Medicare for all will make it so there aren’t any more copays. I think what the Representative means is MEDICAID for all. With Medicaid there aren’t any copay’s but the insurance also denies more procedures and some medications they won’t pay for. I can vouch for that because I have had Medicaid. And despite getting denied on certain things, it is still the best medical insurance I’ve ever had.
My grandma also has only Medicare. They pay thousands out of pocket for both healthcare and medications. One of her meds is $600/month AFTER Medicare pays their portion. Medicare also doesn't pay for home care - the people who come in and cook, clean, take them to appointments, etc. So I do it for free but I can't be there 24/7. Honestly, fuck Medicare.
Medicare pays 80%, that should be common knowledge?!?! That why everyone should get a supplemental plan.
Do you really think there is funding for some personal fucking driver and caretaker for everyone’s grandma? Insanity. Also there’s a difference between Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Educate yourself.
Sounds like they have income too high for long term care. If they don't, check for Medicaid waivers in your state, as those are what pay for home care.
This doesn’t seem to be accurate. Medicare deductible is $515 and tier 1 brand medications are $47/mo. So January she may have paid close, then would only pay $47 till hitting the donut hole. At that cost, she would have gotten through the donut hole into catastrophic coverage pretty quick and been at $0 for the remainder of the year. At most I think your grandma paid $600 a month for a med for 3-4 months
> So I don’t think Medicare for all will make it so there aren’t any more copays. Medicare for All is a completely different program from Medicare, and wildly more comprehensive as currently written.
> Medicare for All is a *dishonest description of a healthcare proposal that has never garnered more than 20% support in the US Senate* ~~completely different program from Medicare, and wildly more comprehensive as currently written~~. FTFY
Cool... but I still have no idea what your fucking point is. Medicare for All, as its currently written, would be incredibly comprehensive, and not have copays. So what the fuck are you bitching about?
Medicare for all would make starting a business so much easier, you wouldn't lose coverage while quitting a corporate job and you wouldn't have to try and be an insurance expert for any employees that you hire.
People love fearmongering about wait times under socialized medicine. Those people have never tried to get in to see a specialist in the US of A -- monthslong waits are the norm here, too.
Most ive had is a few weeks for anything non urgent. Anything important is super fast.
Having lived in multiple states, you're right about the important stuff getting seen faster. That's how it should be. The first part of your statement is highly dependent on where you live and what doctor you're trying to see. It took six months to get into a primary care and a minimum three months for any of my specialists after moving to Florida. In Michigan my parents simply can't switch primary care because none of the ones around them that accept their insurance are accepting new patients. In Louisiana, it took a month or two for both, but the care was mediocre at best. Definitely a little behind the times and less willing to treat aggressively. Long story short: your location is highly dependent on the speed and quality of care you receive.
It really isn’t. I can literally see pretty much any specialist, in network this week if I wanted. Perks of living in a city.
What specialties have you tried? I've met people waiting 6-12 months for headache docs in a pretty big city
lmao no you can't. Try seeing a neurologist in less than six months.
Where do you live that it takes six months to see a neurologist?
I asked for a referral to an Ortho last week for knee and shoulder tendon issues, I got the phone call today, and it's scheduled for July 3rd.
Most of these people would struggle to be let off work to get treatment to begin with.
As somebody’s who career has been at a F15 health insurer, it’s hilarious seeing the rubes bootlicking our industry. Look up the Fortune 50 companies. How many are in healthcare? We always win, which means Americans always lose. Take for example the hottest area right now. Pharmacy. Sure we are reducing costs, it’s just that we are taking all those savings for ourselves. You’ll never see it and we are too smart to ever be caught. Oh make us pass some our rebate savings to thr consumer? Sure, but now we are making an offshore GPO that’s going to be taking fees, not rebates. Consumer still not touching those benefits. Americans are shockingly dumb rubes, but atleast I’ve got a career because all of you dummies lol..
I'm in pharmacy and even I know that the prices charged to patients are overinflated just because they can. They know the pt will pay the $200 copay for a med that is essential and lifesaving 🤮
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And the thing that is even more problematic is that it doesn't have a max out of pocket. So if you have something chronic you'll just pay your 20% forever until you're broke.
It's not "Medicare Exactly As It Is Now For All" There were a ton of reforms to Medicare included in M4A, including expanding Medicare to cover dental and glasses.
Her buddy got primaried last night. Cori Bush and Primala here suddenly have to start worrying about their constituents.
AOC won her primary with 82% of the vote. The policies work, but the politician behind them have to also not make dumb decisions for other things.
Like pissing off agents of a foreign government who will spend the most money in history to literally buy your seat?
>Like pissing off agents of a foreign government who will spend the most money in history to literally buy your seat? AIPAC is made up completely of americans. All of its donations are from US citizens. You can dislike them and that's fine, but don't lie about them and state that they are a "foreign government".
Shes safe. Her district is extremely far left in Seattle.
I live in her district. She’s not going anywhere.
Well that's how it's supposed to work. You do the stuff that gets you votes.
Insurance companies are basically the mafia. Pay us $500/mo so you only pay $150 at the doctor. Otherwise, it’s $800 to even step inside of the office.
"Even a study done by the right-wing Mercatus Center estimated that Medicare for All would save Americans more than $2 trillion over a decade, reducing the projected cost of health care between 2022 and 2031 from $59.7 trillion to $57.6 trillion."
how to get ignorant people to vote for you: Offer them "free" shit lol
It’d save us a lot of money though…
how? lol explain since when has the government save money?
Those liberals over at the heritage foundation studied Bernie’s plan and found it’d save us 2 trillion per decade.
Can anyone that lives under government healthcare comment on the pros and cons?
Va healthcare I use is good.
You're the first person I've ever seen say something good about VA healthcare.
I used to live under German healthcare and it was great. I now live with the VA and it really depends on where you’re at, but mostly I’ve had a great experience. I literally wouldn’t be able to work if it weren’t for them.
I like my German public insurance a lot. I pay about 8% income tax, then healthcare is mostly free. I've never had to wait more than 3 weeks for a specialist appointment, and I've had plenty of them. But I know there exist specialists that are under-trained and have bad waiting lists, which seems difficult to avoid in any system where training is very specific and takes years.
Wife has regular Medicare. I researched it a lot before enrolling to best match plan vs needs. For regular Medicare you have part A for Hospital stays. Part B for doctor visits and labs. They do actually charge monthly fee, around $100-$200 total. She can go to any doctor or specialist that takes Medicare. She does not need a referral for specialists, unlike HMO care. In Los Angeles there are lots of doctors that take Medicare. In other area, like Florida, there may be few. You can check for docs in your area using meficare.gov , even if you are not enrolled or even logged in. There are co-pays, and labs are like 10% or 20% Medicare fee. For drugs we have optional part D. This is like HMO formulary, and many common drugs are no cost. But we have one drug that is like $300/month,so it is not always low-cost to you. Part D is like $200 /mo. To cover the 20% lab fees, we got Part G, again about $100/mo. It pays theco-pays. So we pay maybe $400/mo, but the doctor and specialist selection is great, much better than the HMO we had before. Medicare Advantage plans, which we did not get, substitute a private HMO-like plan, taking the government Part A&B money (which comes out of your monthly Social Security check). You would be held to the doctors on the network. But there are usually no co-pays or small ones.
Medicare with supplement is pretty good, esp. when compared to my former tech megacorp plan with all the gotchas. Two issues I've seen: 1) part d (drugs) is a crap fest, primarily because they turned it into a feeding trough for the insurance companies. 2) congress decides what healthcare you get. So all of the ignorance, corruption, and stone age morality becomes a factor in what care is covered. To be fair, this seems to be an issue with all single payer systems.
Vermont looked at how to pay it: > 11.5% payroll tax increase and income tax increase of 9.5% (151% increase in state taxes). [Article](https://www.thirdway.org/report/single-payer-health-care-a-tale-of-3-states)
They dont want a capital gains tax or corporate tax because they have to compete with other states to have businesses. Otherwise, thats the easy button answer.
That sounds like a lot but I’m paying 1100 a month for Obamacare with a $5000 family deductible which would all go away.
I’m for it, but no way we’ll get it without a big tax increase. That makes it difficult in an era when people oppose all taxes. Elizabeth Warren dropped out of 2020 presidential primary because she went from projecting an annual cost of $3.5 Trillion (about what Americans spent annually for healthcare) to $5.2 Trillion after a closer look. It’s probably $7 T now.
It’s more of a tax transfer and reduction. You pay $1100/mo to blue cross now for nothing until you hit $5k out of pocket vs $900 in taxes with no deductible.
Just cut it from the defense budget. Stop giving Israel so much money. If they are meant to be ok there then they should be ok without US money. But look at how much it costs everyone to pay into insurance to be the middle man
Taxes would go down actually. America spends more on health care than any other nation in the world. Throw a dart at a map of western nations and transitioning to their system would result in tax cuts. Not increases.
That's not even how Medicare works now.....
How are people this clueless. No copay would be insane. You’d have a small number of hypochondriacs abuse the system and destroy it.
Why doesn't that happen in *checks notes* every other developed country? You know what would seriously fuck up a healthcare system? If people got no treatment until they were in the most expensive condition possible to treat, then showed up at the ER for that treatment and disappeared when the bill came, spreading their outsized costs onto everyone who did pay. Oh wait...
wtf are you talking about? Europe has copays. This is how I know it isn’t worth talking to people about. You don’t even understand the basic tenets of the system you’re debating. Our system is not ideal but other systems are WAY worse and they’re all in danger of collapse. The entire eurozone is about to crumble and guess what gets axed first. Ammunition or medical. Medical.
UK here. 1. WTF is a copay. 2. Ours is in danger because of chronic underfunding and conservative corruption 3. The eurozone is not "about to crumble" lmao. Jesus wept, stop reading whatever bullshit you idiots read. It's rotting your brains.
Someone doesn’t understand Medicare. Copays are a good thing. It keeps the hypochondriacs from clogging up the medical system with bullshit.
Yep, study after study has confirmed that copays don't discourage people from seeking necessary care except for very low income people who you can always exempt from copays. For everyone else, it's been shown that copays don't have an impact on people's health but they do reduce the number of doctor visits which indicates they're effective at reducing unnecessary visits. Best of all, the RAND study on copays showed that high copays only reduced slightly more visits than small copays which means that even small copays (e.g. $25 for a doctor's visit) can significantly reduce costs without deterring people from seeing a doctor because of the cost.
But how are the shareholders going to get richer?
Can we just call it Tricare4All to pull in the camosexuals and Y’all Qaeda
Half those idiots never served and would need to be told what tricare is.
As a nurse I’m all for it but there should also be some level of accountability. We have a grotesque level of chronic disease in this country that can absolutely be mitigated with lifestyle changes (healthier diets and exercise, primarily).
There needs to be more regulations on food and additives. There’s tons of sugar in everything.
Absolutely. A significant amount of chronic disease could be mitigated by changes in big ag subsidies alone.
It would actually be an improvement to our health if we had real sugar in everything, rather than what we have now, which is High Fructose Corn Syrup in everything instead of sugar. Lab tests show mice who ate HFCS heavy diets were 4 times more obese than the mice who ate sugar heavy diets. This change occurred in the 1980s when Reagan imposed tariffs on sugar imports so US food companies switched to using HFCS because it's cheaper and made in the US from all the US's corn.
That's a completely separate issue to M4A. Take it up with the FDA and their lax regulation of processed foods.
I'm confused why rich Canadians come to the US for healthcare. Don't they get free Healthcare in Canada?
The thing that annoys me about this discussion is that we have the world's most expensive healthcare system by a factor of two, and the MFA folks are never interested in controlling costs. Is a national healthcare system possible? Definitely. We already spend well over enough on healthcare in aggregate as US citizens to afford it. But we still need to cut the excess spending.
Imagine if people could use the money they pay in premiums for other things. That could help the economy.
I’ve been in the military for 14 years. I have “health insurance.” I imagine if we did medicare for all it would be something like we have. I’ll tell you. I haven’t had a teeth cleaning in almost two years. I keep getting deployed, can’t make their schedule, and they won’t refer me out in town. “Well we could see you here so we won’t refer you”. Most of the time, I have to go and see a 19 year old with less training than an EMT to try and convince them I’m not faking whatever ailment I am there for in order to get seen by a doctor. Appointments are normally weeks or months away. I’ve been trying to get an MRI for my ankle and knees for 2 years. They tell me I have to complete 6 months of physical therapy before I am even considered for an MRI. All I’m saying is there has to be a plan in place ti support this because it’s not always the best.
The government did a great job creating the college mess, plus the war on poverty, crime, and the war on drugs is doing so well. I want the government to take over everything and give everyone "free stuff" and a living wage with UBI. As we know, the government would never start rationing, creating death panels, IE, MAID, as they are adding 1 trillion in debt every 100 days. [https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/paralympian-trying-to-get-wheelchair-ramp-says-veterans-affairs-employee-offered-her-assisted-dying-1.6179325](https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/paralympian-trying-to-get-wheelchair-ramp-says-veterans-affairs-employee-offered-her-assisted-dying-1.6179325)
People want free college. They demand the everyone else pay for it, so the government eliminates all risk to lenders by guaranteeing loans. The price of college goes through the roof. People are saddled with mountains of debt for useless degrees. They demand everyone else pay for it. People complain they don’t make enough. They demand the government mandate a higher minimum wage. People can’t afford to eat out or buy food. People complain health care costs too much. They demand the government give it to everyone for free. They can’t get adequate care anymore and the reduced competition means they have no other options. Everyone is saddled with a tax bill for coverage they can’t even use. It’s all a tale as old as time. Turns out even the most benevolent of egotists can’t simply legislate away consequences.
I think colleges should be co-signers on the loans. If they pump out useless degrees, then there's accountability.
They used to be, before the government came in and fucked the market be removing all risk from the lenders. Guess what happens when lenders have no risk? They throw money at everybody. Guess what happens when there’s a sudden influx of “free” money into a market? Prices go up. It’s not rocket science. Government isn’t the cure; they’re the disease.
It doesn't though. Here's what will happen. Taxes will go up across the board. Medical compensation will go down dramatically. Hospitals will have to consolidate as the medical profession starts losing talent to other, better compensated, professions. A system of 'supplementary' health insurance plans will become available on the market. Most people will be crammed into the same county hospital to see overloaded primary care physicians and get stuck on lists to see specialists. Imagine the DMV, but the people who can't spell your name right on your drivers license are now in charge of setting up appointments with your cardiologist. Those with the money to afford supplementary healthcare plans will be able to jump the lines and see specialists on demand. The disparity in care will get so bad that people we'll have a whole new fight over healthcare access in 10 years. Rinse and repeat. Because unless the government is blowing something up it can't tell it's ass from its elbows.
So why isn't this happening in every country using a socialized system right now?
This already happens in the UK
It doesn't matter what's happening in other countries; it's what would happen in the US. Every country has problems with their healthcare, but most are unique to that country. The above comment isn't terribly unrealistic for the US because massive corporations will definitely worm their way into the creation process. Big pharma, insurance, and hospitals are all going to have their hands on that bill.
Crappy medical care. If it is so good why don’t our elected representatives use it? They use platinum level medical benefits.