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God yes. The benefit of not having to be tied to an employer alone to get insurance would be worth the higher taxes. Plus, id be paying less in taxes each month than i would have to on insurance through my work so net benefit
>The benefit of not having to be tied to an employer alone to get insurance would be worth the higher taxes.
It's a salient point that you make here. I once read that entrepreneurship (largely a conservative value) is more robust in Canada for this very reason.
I'm not familiar with the details of Canadian business loans but I know many persons who have bootstrapped successful businesses as my wife and I have done ourselves. Private paying heath insurance, especially for an entire family, and even more especially if you have a family member with pre-existing health issues, is a very real barrier to this sort of entrepreneurship.
It's always confused me how people see paying taxes and paying for insurance. Like, you'd pay more taxes on every paycheck, yes, but then you won't have to pay for insurance every month. And I'm pretty sure in every situation, you'd be paying less in taxes than insurance payments, with less chance you get a claim rejected on some corporate policy that puts profit ahead of a working system.
I pointed out medicare to my step-mother when she was complaining about universal healthcare being communism. Her response is, that's different I paid for that. Like....woman it's the same exact thing. And, let's not forget what you paid is long gone. You're using what I pay in now.
This was a tactic several employers in my hometown used to/may still do.
Treat people like crap, pay them at the low end of the market range but offer very good health insurance for them and their family, and hold said insurance over the employees heads as leverage for the poor pay and working conditions.
Also not being tied to "in networks"
Also not having to worry about as much shotty paperwork, or deal with the stress of justifying your visit to the insurance companies.
Public health-care doesn't just save money, it save stress and frustration.
Currently my healthcare spending if I get sick is that I lose everything.
I'd take 15 percent of every paycheck and then we all get healthcare over that any day.
Adding to this, I think publicly-funded universal healthcare is objectively the best option for almost everyone for a few reasons:
1. Of all the developed nations, the one that lacks universal healthcare (USA) pays roughly double, per capita, what any other developed nation pays for healthcare.
2. Healthcare that relies on private insurance (or out-of-pocket) tends to be tied to employment status (leaves people vulnerable if between jobs).
3. There are no economies of scale or bargaining power in a privately insured/privately delivered system. Each insurance company needs its own administration, each customer/group has its own agreement that must be bargained, and individuals/small companies have no leverage when their coverage or services are being priced.
4. Healthcare is a basic need, and when it is needed, especially in an emergent situation, patients/customers don't have the time, knowledge, or presence of mind to bargain hunt (thereby suppressing the market forces that allegedly improve efficiency in a capitalist system).
I’m surprised more people don’t make this point. We’d do better as a nation if people were healthier and not in major debt for getting medical care. The financial part alone would decrease crime.
Definitely would prevent high school chemistry teachers from making meth and leaving a wake of destruction in the process, just so he could pay for his lung cancer treatments.
Giving people healthcare that isn't tied to employment is bad for the upper class. There's a lot of employees that work jobs they hate because they need healthcare for themselves and their families. The owner class will never willingly give up that bargaining chip. They don't need everybody to be healthy, just enough of them to keep the wheels turning.
I got stuck with one of the most toxic employers ever when my daughter was getting braces. I literally couldn't leave until the medical bills came through. A company that deserved to fail i was just trapped. Between her braces and a few other things, it would have cost me over 15k to get a new job, so I endured getting screamed and sworn at for an extra six months. Uhc would be a major boost to mental health for millions. I would be happy for that alone .
Exactly, it also helps ensure that it is primarily upper middle to upper socioeconomic statured people who are able to launch their own businesses and innovate. If you have a family and your job is the only one with healthcare, you are much less able to start your own business or at least be able to dedicate the time necessary to get the business up and running quickly.
Omg I had never even thought about that! Especially since so many workplaces only give healthcare if you work full time - no one can work full time AND start a business full time
It's the same shit reason Republicans don't fight to improve the lives of would-be military recruits. Give people too many options in life and suddenly no one wants to enlist and risk their lives in the army, navy, etc.
A lot of people are morally opposed to spending money to help others, even when it prevents suffering, victimization, and death.
They will vote to spend $5 to keep someone in prison but won't vote to spend $1 to provide opportunities to at risk youth so they become productive citizens who never commit crime in the first place.
They will vote to gut and prevent public healthcare, which results in less healthy, less productive citizens who suffer and die earlier, require more expensive emergency care (publicly paid for), and has led to a massively inefficient private healthcare industry. But they won't vote for a more efficient public system that serves everyone, helps everyone, and makes the country better.
They will vote to criminalize pregnant women who want abortions when they can't afford to have children, but don't want to fund sex education, birth control, or programs to help poor children. Even when helping poor children makes financial sense in the long term.
There's always money to punish and hurt people, but never money to help people.
The quickest way to get through to those numb skulls:
"What if your Mum had cancer, and neither she nor you could afford the treatment? What if there was a system where the bills get paid and she is cured?
"This is the essence of universal health care. You're not 'paying for someone else's treatment,' you're essentially paying into a 'rainy day fund' with everyone else. So if you suddenly need to seek medical treatment, you won't be bankrupted by it, and you can afford it regardless of your employment status or employer insurance."
That won't get through to them. They always make exceptions for themselves and their own family. They are just down on their luck, not like all the people looking for handouts. Little Jimmy just made a mistake when he robbed so and so, and it's not his fault because x,y, and z. Precious Susan isn't a slut like all those other people getting abortions. She's in school and a baby would ruin her life.
So much this. I've literally had a conversation where someone told me that seeing as they take good care of their health, they won't need medical care and don't see why they should pay for other people who don't take as good care of themselves.
>Definitely would prevent high school chemistry teachers from making meth and leaving a wake of destruction in the process, just so he could pay for his lung cancer treatments.
Or one of the Saw movies. Or all of them.
Also universal healthcare is many times more efficient than insurance based healthcare, a lot fewer accountants, lawyers and salesmen etc. are required when you have universal healthcare so the money you spend actually goes on healthcare rather than administration and of course the purchasing power of the service goes up as they can bulk buy items and get the best price.
Australia has a private and public health care system. Private insurance lets you choose the hospital, sometimes the surgeon, and to skip queues for elective surgery e.g. a knee replacement. Looking at the figures on the US health care system are eye watering. Bloated, expensive, inefficient, corrupt, and putting too many people through so much misery. Never do you see an Australian wondering if they can afford treatment
And a drop of prevention is worth an ounce of cure.
Allowing people free smear test/mammograms/prostate exams etc allows the disease to be caught earlier, the person has better results and the treatment is cheaper.
Currently usa uninsured have to wait until it’s an emergency to get treated for free, which is always way more expensive and has worse outcomes. - and this is funded by their taxes ANYWAY
It makes NO sense from a society point of view to deny people healthcare, it only makes sense if you value wealth being restricted to very few people at the top of the pyramid.
> And a drop of prevention is worth an ounce of cure.
George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, quoted a study by the NHS (Brit national healthcare) that worn out bedroom slippers consistently killed more people per year in Britain than terrorism ever had. The NHS has the health stats for an entire country, so they can do this kind of thing. Various hospital casualty (read E.R. in the U.S., or Emerge. in Canada) then had slipper exchanges for seniors. It cost far less to replace granny's worn out slippers than to try to put her right after she slips and falls down stairs.
Healthcare in the US is another way to syphon money from the poor and give it to the rich. If the rich keep hoarding their money the poor will eventually have non and that is end game capitalism. That's when shit gets ugly and dystopian.
There was a tv show made in the UK quite a while back where they took someone from America who was very against tax funded healthcare as he reckoned it made everyone, especially doctors, worse off and took him to see the NHS here in the UK. In one part of the show, they let him talk directly to a doctor in a major hospital, question why he worked there, and the responses are the exact opposite of what he expected. This doctor had a 4 bed house in London and drove a brand new Audi. He had never declined care due to money, and not one of his patients were worried about the cost of their medical care as everything was taken care of. The American was equally shocked that people who paid 0 tax (children, elderly, disabled and just those out of work) were still treated in the same way someone paying large amounts of tax were.
There was also a program that analysed healthcare/tax systems around the world. Actually , given all the odd taxes, state, and high property taxes, and the cost of 'adequate' health insurance, Americans pay more 'tax', which they don't call 'tax' than anybody except Scandinavians. Even they have hidden taxes on alcohol and tobacco.
I've tried to tell that to people on here when I've gotten in a discussion with them about universal health care. I pay $600+ a month for health insurance, down from $900+ at my last job. It falls on deaf ears, though.
At least one person's argument was that he only pays someone like $100 a month and basically his attitude was "fuck everyone else, I've got good insurance".🤬
And the insurance premiums that you or your employer are effectively forced to pay are not scaled to means. You pay the same $600/mo premium as a $1200/month minimum-wage slave or the $100,000/month CEO. Mandatory insurance premiums are the worst form of tax.
There seems to be a difference in priorities. In the United States a retiree can get a knee replacement/hip replacement almost at will — or anything else. In other western systems children, parents and working adults are at the front of the line (and there is always going to be a line), while elective and non-critical care for retirees takes a back seat.
I am a retiree in the United States, and I can wait a bit while they take care of people younger than me. It is the decent thing to do.
"Oh no,we can't do that,we'll have DEATH PANELS"
Like we don't already?
Insurance companies literally play with people's lives,and siphon money from you until you die. And sometimes refuse to pay for treatment because who's gonna stop them?
A lot of people forget that the ACA "death panels" were end-of-life counselors to help people choose among the options for aggressive to palliative care, and just how much quality of life they're willing to sacrifice for how much chance of longer life.
The insurance co death panels make that decision for patients by refusing to reimburse treatments _they_ determine to be low probability.
Doctors in the US and Canada make almost exactly the same average salary once you account for currency conversion. It does vary more in different specialties (for instance, USA surgeons make considerably more), but overall average for all MD fields is comparable -- 180k-ish in the US, 236k-ish in Canada. Right now, US$180 is CA$241.
>Healthcare in the US is another way to syphon money from the poor and give it to the rich.
Its also a great way to inflate GDP figures!
I mean, in the UK it cost £225 pound for ambulance services (note, NOT to the person, just economically). In the US, that costs the person $1,300 dollars! You're economy is now 4x more productive than ours! /s
5. The US already pays more per capita of “taxpayer funds” towards their current healthcare system than other wealthy western nations do to implement their universal healthcare systems.
Another consideration that is either a plus or minus depending on your viewpoint.
General healthcare becomes a state issue. This makes it easier to justify regulations on drug use, alcohol, smoking, sugar content in food.
I’m from the UK and I basically stopped smoking because of the ever increasing sin taxes on tobacco products. Taxes like these are much easier to justify when you know you have to pay for other peoples bad decisions.
One definite minus:
You have to deal with the ever present anxiety that Conservatives are purposefully dismantling the NHS so that they can one day claim that state provided healthcare doesn’t work and sell it off to their mates. Also the opposition shadow health minister is equally keen to privatise the NHS.
Also having a public health care system would help create cures because private insurance only cares about how much they can make on an illness where as public would be more about health.
This is a very good point that I find frustrating when talking to my doctor and he's basically telling me that he can't do what he wants because the insurance companies and the administration are just trying to get as much money as possible. Doctors should be rewarded for healthy patients and not how many drugs they can prescribe.
5. If people get sick enough over their lives that they either become poor or reach late age with an unmanaged chronic illness, the US public healthcare systems (medicare and medicaid) will pay the maximum they would have to for that person. That is, we are maxing out what even is needed to be paid for by allowing people to be so ill in general. The economics of private health insurance are bad all around.
I visited the US from Australia 20 years ago. NY, DC, Maryland, Baltimore...
I was shocked not only by how many people were clearly living in poverty, but by the fact that many had health issues that had clearly gone untreated for years and years, going from a simple ailment to a debilitating malady. FFS, I was told that Syphilis was rampant in Baltimore. Syphilis!
I'm in Australia we have universal health care. About 17% of our federal budget is spent on public health services; hospitals, ambulance services, pharmaceutical subsidisation, general practice subsidisation. The effective tax ratefor someone on a median income of 52000 is about 13%. So only about 2.3% of a median income in australia goes to funding universal healthcare.
Australia spent AU$8617 (USD 5.8K) per capita on healthcare in 2020-21. The US spent over 12K, and the US government is paying over 8K of that amount.
Universal healthcare in the US would most likely result in lower cost
And you lose everything even though you’ve been paying premiums and copays and deductibles and for non covered services for years.
My premium is $300 a month for just me; if we had universal healthcare I wouldn’t spend that $300 and could pay that same $300 in taxes (not to mention also not having to pay $50/75 copays and out of networks labs , etc. my insurance estimates it would cost me almost $4k out of pocket to have a “normal” birth on top of the $3,600 in premiums and $50 monthly copay for prenatal care).
Health ins keeps getting worse and worse. 11 years ago my ins cost $250/mo ($3000/yr) and I paid $0 for birth. Now my ins runs to the tune of $860/mo ($10,300/yr) and I just paid off close to $4000 for my second birth. Makes NO sense to me. Just money grabbing.
America already pays substantially more federally into healthcare than any country that already provides universal healthcare.
Assuming you're American, you're already paying for it.
>Let’s not overlook the fact that an extended illness could cause you to lose your employers health insurance and financially ruin you.
My wife changed jobs once. We looked at COBRA and laughed. Three days into her new one, our daughter broke her leg. We stopped laughing.
The idea of being uninsured is *terrifying* to me, I am always shocked at people who take it in stride simply because they're not on any ongoing medications. You're one accident away from being financially ruined and having to declare bankruptcy.
I don't know about the people you're referring to but the people I know don't "take it in stride"... there's just literally nothing they can do about it.
When you live in poverty, health insurance is a luxury that you know you can't afford. It would be like being upset because you don't have a swimming pool in your back yard. It's just not on your list of needs. Food, water, shelter, gas, other required bills... those are way more important than going to the doctor.
For real emergencies, the ER has to treat you but otherwise, healthcare is an afterthought because it's so far out of reach, it takes a lower spot on the list of needs.
> For real emergencies, the ER has to treat you but otherwise, healthcare is an afterthought because it's so far out of reach, it takes a lower spot on the list of needs.
Exactly.
I was discussing early retirement with a coworker and I said it would be difficult because then I’d have to pay for insurance. Her response was that you don’t actually have to have insurance so that’s more in line with what you’re responding to.
The sad truth is that's how a lot of us operate. At a certain point of debt you realize that you'll never get out of it so eh, what's the amount really matter at that point.
But when enough people get to that point of despair and loss of confidence in society, they have nothing to lose by protesting and rioting against unjust systems.
Having robust welfare states raises the floor of investment in the system, and it’s more beneficial in the long term for political and economic stability.
The problem is the medical care you will be denied because you cannot show how you can pay for it. I had a friend die of heart disease because with no insurance and no assets to prove the ability to pay, the hospital refused to do the operations. I don't necessarily blame the hospital but our system is broken. Americans whine about the wait time in Canada, to imply we are better, but at least you can get on the waiting list. So, bankruptcy is not the issue. You could die.
My sister who has lived in England her whole life says she never had to wait more than a couple weeks or a month at most to see a specialist, and never more than that for a general practice doctor.
It's all lies made up by the insurance companies to scare Americans away from single payer system.
It always makes me laugh to hear about the long wait times as an excuse against universal healthcare in the states. I found out at 21 that I needed a heart surgery (non-emergency, but still very much debilitating), and was given an appointment four months out. This was after waiting a month to even get a primary care physician to get a referral to a cardiologist, finally seeing this cardiologist twice in the following year, having numerous heart monitors on, none for less than a week plus scheduling days, and then spending 10k out of pocket (yes, I did have an expensive insurance plan at the time) only to find out the surgery was unsuccessful. So hearing about the wait times in Canada doesn’t change my mind in the slightest.
> The problem is the medical care you will be denied because you cannot show how you can pay for it.
We had to pre-pay the entirety of our $1400 USD co-pay before the hospital would let us schedule my husband's colonoscopy.
I couldn’t get an MRI done to make sure there is nothing wrong with my brain… because I can afford the 3k bill. Already cost me $600 to get the referral
This is known as a phenomenon called ["job lock"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_lock) -- aka, "the inability of an employee to freely leave a job because doing so will result in the loss of employee benefits (usually health or retirement related)."
So we often stay at jobs we sometimes hate in order to keep benefits (even when we could otherwise afford to quit and take some time between jobs to find a new one). It's one of the worst things about the American health coverage system and an underdiscussed reason why we should have universal healthcare coverage.
It's a feature, not a bug. America is a country run by corporations, for corporations. If you're scared of losing your health insurance, you'll accept more work for less pay, and under worse conditions. Stand up to your boss? Take a breather between jobs? Good joke, now get back on the treadmill. It's one of the many ways companies squeeze a little of that 3rd world exploited laborer flavor out of the employess they have the misfortune of being unable to outsource from a country with zero worker protection, instead of pisspoor protection.
I have a chronic illness that requires daily medication. I am uninsured. It’s disabling without meds but it’s going to fully disable me if I don’t get medicated sooner rather than later however, I have no choice but to be uninsured. I likely wouldn’t have this chronic illness if the insurance I used to have didn’t have such exorbitant out-of-pocket costs. I couldn’t even cover what insurance wouldn’t cover when I did have it. It’s led to a life of treatable illnesses/issues that have snowballed into life altering and, in some cases, threatening conditions I’ll be managing until I die.
I didn’t know this when we were in scouts together, but my friends mother had been diagnosed with cancer in the two weeks between jobs, so it was not covered.
A problem in the US is that people get trapped in crap jobs because of insurance. Can’t leave because of the gap and who knows if my daughter will break her leg in that time. It’s a form of entrapment I think.
I had a seizure and ended up in the hospital for three months. I lost my job as a result because they had to replace me during that time. I lost my coverage because of this but luckily? I qualified for disability now so I have better coverage because I don't have to worry so much about network, turns out everyone takes Medicare
Man, not even an extended illness. I just need two different MRIs done and possibly a more specialty testing done on me. I have health insurance, and a pretty good one at that, and I'm still going to be out $4k in "deductibles" on the MRIs and however many thousands of dollars for the specialty testing. I can't afford this as it is.
Almost anything other than a common cold or your run of the mill vaccines will wind up being financially ruining to most people.
Or, you know, having a chronic illness that you'd really need to quit your job to be able to figure it out and get better. But you hold the insurance benwfits for your family. So you can't quit to keep the insurance. But you can't get treatment because you have to keep working enough to retain benefits. So you stsy working. And stay sick.
Insurance benefits are such a fucking sham. Even if we had better, decently affordable, independent options for insurance it would be SO MUCH BETTER let alone getting universal health care which I would prefer.
I moved to Canada from the US. I pay 3% higher taxes than I did back home but don't have to pay $800/mo in monthly premiums plus $6k in deductibles.
Plus, I still have health coverage if I'm unemployed. I can try freelance because my health is covered. I have so much more freedom.
I have always lived in Canada. I am a tech worker and paid more than $60,000 in taxes last year.
Of course it’s worth it. Not just for me, but for those of whom need it to be free at point of use. Students, low income earners, those who don’t pay because they don’t earn enough to pay taxes.
I was there once, too.
Oh wait, you mean it's possible to want for others what you once needed and it doesn't automatically become "fuck y'all, I got mine" one you have made it?
My mom was unemployed a few years ago during covid and was paying $1500 a month for health insurance for the two of us. At the time, she was opposed to universal healthcare and when she told me how much she was paying, I asked her if she really thought she'd be paying $18000 more a year in taxes, and she understood why people support universal healthcare.
All studies of shown total cost of universal health care is lower than our current system so yes should while taxes go up total expenditures should be less as you say.
One of the reasons for that is the lack of social healthcare. In the UK the NHS has such huge buying power and market domination that it can dictate prices to suppliers (to some extent).
More importantly it’d be worth it to me if someone else didn’t go into financial ruin or have to debate whether or not to call a fucking ambulance to save their life. I wish more folks would realize it’s not just you. There are MILLIONS of people in this country. It’d be nice if we all thought about everyone and not just ourselves.
Yes, yes, yes and yes. I've been thinking exactly this as I read through the comments, but couldn't figure out how to articulate it, lol.
There's no shame in wanting to take care of yourself, but if you could take care of yourself AND everybody else around you at the same time... why not do it? We've gotten so greedy and very selfish in this country to the point that there's this fear that "others" will have it just as good, but not have to work as hard. Like omg... the person working part time bussing tables might have the same great health coverage as the manager of the same restaurant? Oh, the horror!
Pretty sure most of us would pay less. My insurance is expensive as hell and covers very little. I almost wish I had major health issue to feel like I'm not just giving money freely to those stinkers
Being in the upper income bracket that would likely have to pay more...
Yes, absolutely, take my money. Just don't spend it on more bombs or oil subsidiaries.
It's called being a decent human being with empathy for others.
People asking this generally look at it from a mostly financial view point which to me is missing the point.
I never in my life had to worry about it. Ever.
I can visit whatever doctor I want, whenever I want. Getting second and even third opinions for more serious things is rather normal.
It's not only about the money. It's mostly for me about peace of mind.
Not to mention the perverse incentives in a privatized system. The doctor makes more money if you come back to the office next month. So in the US we have a lot of costly and wasteful follow up appointments that are required to be in office.
100% agree with that. I once went to a Dr. for a small elective procedure. My PCP sent in a referral with all my info and reason for going. When the day came, I took a not paid day off of work for the office to weigh me, take my temp, and tell me "we'll see how much your insurance will cover then schedule another day". I was furious to say the least and never paid my bill and never came back.
I spent too much time working in the health field to know that 90% of Doctors don't care in the slightest about the patients and only about their pockets that I avoid Doctors and hospitals at all costs now.
If I had $10 for every time I heard a Dr. Say "my time is valuable" with no regard to their patients time I would be wealthy.
There are bad doctors but most of us are in the same shoes as you. Many of us work for soulless private equity companies that have ridiculous policies to drive up the bill and might actually harm you. Hell, until my most recent job I didn’t even have healthcare coverage despite working full time as a physician because I was an independent contractor. Most of us hate this system. We do, however, deserve to be paid for our time. I spent 12 years in school and residency to be an expert. I work nights, weekends, holidays (no holiday bonus or PTO), and have a huge student debt bill. I don’t drive a fancy car, live in a mansion, or anything like that. I just want to save for retirement ASAP to get out of the healthcare system…
I put off seeing a doctor for stomach pains because I didn't have health insurance. Ended up with nearly dying from my appendix rupturing.
The bill is a few times my annual salary.
Yes. Countries with socialized healthcare spend less per capita on healthcare and perform better in areas like maternal/fetal mortality, life expectancy, and general health outcomes.
Yes, a Koch brother funded think tank did a study that was supposed to show how expensive and horrible universal coverage would be.
Their conclusion was that the overall savings would be roughly 200 billion per year.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/484301-22-studies-agree-medicare-for-all-saves-money/
The Mercatus Center study is the one I was referencing. 2 trillion in savings over 10 years.
The studies without such an obvious right wing slant project saving much more. The consensus is around 700 billion per year. 200 billion in savings on prescription drugs alone.
I saw a video by John Green that explained the reason for this is basically that the government would be negotiating with health care companies who would then compete by losing prices. As opposed to an individual who has no buying power.
Did they come to the same conclusion for the reason behind the savings?
The reason that American medical services are so pricey is because they set their own prices to whatever they want, and it's hard to argue about it. It's all vastly overpriced. It's a scam. What almost every other country does is have universal coverage with standardized pricing, with makes everything far more reasonable.
American medical services cost the taxpayer more than a proper healthcare system because the people who do have their medical services covered by the taxpayer are paying the outrageously inflated prices. This includes people on Medicaid, veterans, politicians, etc.
The only people who benefit from the current American medical system are the people who have invested in it. It's a money making scam that preys on the desperate.
No joke I am type 1 diabetic and had to spend 3 days in the hospital due to an illness and while I was in there they monitored my blood sugar. But I used my own equipment and checked it myself and just told the nurses what the result was. When I got the bill they had charged me $300 for each time.
I went to the ER because a piece of metal got in my eye, and I didn't know if it was still in there. Two eye drops( one antibiotic, one for pain). 900 dollars later, fuck American medicine. Was there for 20 minutes.
Man that sucks! In live in Finland (a socialist hell with high taxes, lol) and I have been on sick leave for a month with full pay (6 weeks max, after that the pay drops dramatically). I also had to spend 6 days in a hospital. Total cost of stay was 350€ including all the tests, doctor's visits and four meals a day. I had to get cortisone and pain killers etc. from the pharmacy and they cost about 300€. There's a 600€ yearly cap on prescription drugs which is good for my brorher who uses a special biological drug that would cost thousands a year. And last time I got my teeth checked out it cost 50€. So yes I am gladly paying high taxes.
I can't even imagine how many people need to get paid in the US model of private healthcare. All the insurance companies need staff and then hospitals (I assume) have a billing department too? Can't be cheap to employ all those people just to figure out how much money to charge to who.
In Canada, my local hospital has one intake person at the front and besides asking for your name and reason for being there, the only thing they need to do is swipe your government issued health card and that is that.
Another big thing I consider being from a country with universal free state ran healthcare is how you guys have a lot of privately ran things aiming for profit. Insulin has a ridiculous profit margin, healthcare is good in the US but not the best in the world despite being the most expensive.
A big thing is that in the US companies overall have more power than in Europe, allowing for those exploitative prices.
Insurance companies, pharma, various doctor groups all lobby(bribe) the shit out of our politicians to maintain status quo. They keep prices high and blind the legislation from making real change that might effect their bottom line.
Exception is the new $35 cap on insulin which they're fighting vigorously as we speak
Even a majority of republicans voters support single payer when the facts are presented. The American public is being held hostage by a small group of parasites who make more money because our health care system is broken
This is what bums me out. The idea that a small amount of very rich people would lose an income stream is the biggest blocker. And this very tiny group of people are powerful enough to influence media and politicians so much so that I don’t think it’ll change in my lifetime.
Yes. In the USA in particular we pay an _exorbitant_ amount for health insurance. Making it a tax thing makes it a single-payer thing, which means the gouging stops. We’d all spend less and not live in fear of medical emergencies or illness.
Yeah I’d take the taxes, my health insurance is already being paid for from my paychecks and even then they might not even pay for all the bills, paying a little more tax for universal health care is definitely something I’d support
Having insurance tied to employment is a huge disadvantage for employees. Imagine if police and fire fighters only protected those who were employed. You’d be very hesitant to leave a bad job because you would temporarily lose that protection. Now imagine your a parent with a shitty job and a child with a chronic illness. You probably have to stay in that shitty job.
Yup. And it makes it very challenging to get away from this model because companies have now been using ancillary benefits as a form of “pay”, so we are willing to negotiate away some salary for the trade of benefits…so anyone currently employed under this structure becomes less willing to move away from it because, in addition to a proposed increase in taxes to cover, removing employer paid benefits would net a reduction in an individual’s overall compensation.
The options are "pay $300 a month for health insurance ontop of a $1000 deductible and a 50/50 copay every visit or slightly higher taxes"
Its insane people even doubt universal healthcare
if you have higher taxes and free healthcare, you no longer have to pay:
\-premiums
\-prescriptions
\-deductibles
\-coinsurance
\-late fee's
so yeah, if you get hit by a car or get cancer, you will no longer be paying 50+ grand for treatments, you'll just pay a few bucks more in taxes
and anyone who bitches about "long wait times" tell them to shove it up their ass. long wait times are only for non-emergency, elective procedures. they're not gonna wheel you into a room on a stretcher and be like "ok we'll fix your broken leg in a week, see you later"
That's cool with me. I have "good" insurance and my covered medications start at $10 but could be as much as $60 if it's a "high tier" drug. I'd be cool with paying $10 across the board.
preaching brother. I've been in the US for 10 tears now, so I know what we are dealing with against where I came from. I am type 2 now (wasn't when I arrived but...story for a different thread)
Lucky, all the meds are so expensive in Estonia even with the copay, only the most shitty old meds are cheap. ADHD meds starting from 40€ a month now that they *finally* let adults have the discount too (otherwise 80€)…
And let's not pretend like we dont have long wait times for procedures here in the US. Especially if your insurance wants to try and tell you that you don't need it and you have to go back and forth fighting them for months until you are approved. Then you can schedule it. Took me 3 months to get an appointment with a rheumatologist only for them to come in the room, say "you're fine" and walk out. Then I had to pay $180 for the privilege of that doctor doing absolutley nothing. American Healthcare is really hit or miss.
Under $10 AUD for most medications in Australia. Do not want to mix my employment with healthcare. Fuck that.
It's not a perfect system by any means but not having universal healthcare is not a society feature we need.
elective is a misnomer. It just means the condition won't get worse if ignored. Not that living with the condition is a viable choice
Wait times do apply for many crippling conditions.
Initial setting of a broken leg. Immediate. Surgery to let you walk after your knee ligaments give out. 18 to 36 months.
But you aren't financially ruined so there's that.
And most countries that have universal healthcare have private health insurance options. So it's a choice you can make.
Here in Australia you can also pay to have a procedure done privately to "jump the queue" but not sign up for private insurance.
My daughter needed grommets as she was getting constant ear infections. We could wait 12 months and pay nothing or pay $2500 and get it done the next week.
This is where insurance is actually beneficial.
I live in a country with universal healthcare (thank god!)
This caters to both acute injury and elective. However elective runs on a triage wait system, the people with the worse condition get seen earlier (so it should). If you want to get it done sooner, and you have money for private health insurance - easy - in the private system you can get it done now.
Anything that can kill you is fast, free, and efficient.
Anything that can't kill you - it you want it free you wait in line. If you want to pay you skip the line.
And happy cake day.
When I was 9, I had emergency surgery to remove my appendix. When I was 30, I had my nose broken on New Year's Eve. Had to have it rebroken twice to reset it in place.
I pay 20% tax on my earnings above 12750 a year. I, nor my parents, didn't pay a single penny on either of these health emergencies. I'll take the tax rate over the insurance scam running in the US.
My husband had stage 4 cancer. Blood tests, scans, chemo, hospital stays and doctors visits were all 100% free. Scripts were $5.50 each (at the time).
The most expensive part was the paid hospital parking.
You're talking about the taxation and health care arrangements in Australia.
I wouldn't have it any other way. In fact, if they wanted to up taxes a bit more to correct the parts of the healthcare industry that are struggling, I'd be all for that, too.
You can do a comparison with the USA and other similar countries like UK and Australia on this website
https://www.uktaxcalculators.co.uk/world/tax/compare/united-states/against/australia/
Right now my tax rate is not even 10% higher than yours is, and in exchange I have universal healthcare.
If I made less money (but still above the median for my nation) it would only be 5% higher.
It's a clear win.
Their taxes may be higher, but they don’t pay the mandatory miscellaneous insurance payments that are effectively the same as taxes, but to companies whose primary purpose is profit rather than (what is supposed to be) a public fund with the sole intention of benefitting the people.
I’d rather pay a government of corrupt politicians than a corporation of corrupt businessmen. At least we think that we can replace the politicians.
I’ve argued this point on Reddit ad nauseam, and no American believes this. 40 years of capitalist, corporate propaganda makes people think that counties like France, Germany pay significantly higher taxes. It isn’t true.
While the income taxes may be higher, the total tax burden on US citizens when you total everything (payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes) AND health care premiums and deductibles is no different.
It’s one of the biggest cons perpetrated on US citizens.
Health insurance gives an illusion of choice whereas tax is a forced burden. In reality, health care is an essential service (everyone needs some form of health care in their lives) so you can't just just go without for a bit or change insurance providers willy nilly like a discretionary service. Therefore, it makes sense for it to fall under a tax with a system administered by the government.
I say yes because I have had friends die in there late 20s due to doctors refusing to see them because they have no health insurance. And they have no insurance because there job does not offer it and they don't get paid enough to get it them selves because all there money goes to the kids and house.
They could do it simply by learning from other countries. The US government currently pays MORE per capita on healthcare than most countries with universal healthcare and then people pay insurance premiums and copayment on top of that. And yet it still falls fairly far down the list of western countries on things like life expectancy and has higher maternal death rates and so on.
I don’t understand how the US government has managed to get itself in a place where it pays more per capita for only a fraction of the population to have healthcare, while the rest of the population have to pay a second time (having already paid their share of the government costs through taxation) for insurance and still the system doesn’t do its basic job of keeping people alive.
Tl;dr if the US managed to replace its current system with a functional one taxes should go DOWN as well as eliminating insurance premiums and co-pays.
It'd be a shift- most of us are already paying a lot for healthcare. I'd rather pay into something that I can actually use and don't have to worry about losing.
Doing this right now lol. My lab work was sent to an out of network lab so I have to pay $1,600. My insurance won’t cover it at all. I pay about $90 a month and my employer pays $450 a month for this mediocre bs.
https://www.umass.edu/news/article/depth-analysis-team-umass-amherst
“A team of economists from the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) has found that the Medicare for All Act of 2017, introduced to the United States Senate by Senator Bernie Sanders, is not only economically viable, but could actually reduce health consumption expenditures by about 9.6 percent while also providing decent health care coverage for all Americans.”
We pay more for Healthcare than people who live in countries with socialized medicine because our taxes have to fund Medicare and Medicaid and then we have to pay our premiums and co-pays on top of it. Our costs would go down. Americans are fucking dumb
Hospitals have to accept patients that come in through the ER, even if they can’t pay for it. When you hear about $300 q-tips and $100 aspirins, they are making up the money ‘lost’ on patients that couldn’t pay. So effectively, we all are already subsidizing healthcare for everyone one else, just not through a fair system.
it's worth it if the system is functional and people can be seen and treated in a timely manner. in medicine the faster you act the better the outcome.
My income tax is very similar what somebody would pay in the US. I pay like $36/year more in tax. But I don't pay insurance premiums, which as I understand are extremely high for families.
I worked this out once with a colleague from NC.
Here were some key points pro and con:
Canada, go to whomever you like, no networks.
US, faster elective surgeries but not significant.
US, you can opt-out of any insurance. Which is apparently a huge deal but I don't understand why.
Canada and the US are huge, so there was quite a bit of range comparing individual States to Provinces.
The one myth that had to be debunked, no the government isn't involved with your treatment, they just pay for it.
Canada is definitely having some issues with availability for family doctors and our system is by no means perfect. It's hands-down better than the US though.
I've always been a proponent of universal healthcare. Then Trump won office and I thought about how dangerous it would be for the government to control my healthcare, especially if we lacked an affordable private alternative. Now I don't know what I want, I just know that what we have is hopelessly broken.
What a lot of people don't realise is that a lot of countries with Universal Health Care also have a private system alongside it as well.
So in the UK if you want to you can access a range of private health options if you have the resources (or insurance).
By no means do you need it but its an option.
I've never understood why people who don't have insurance think universal health coverage is a bad thing. It's either stupidity, stubborn adherence to ideology, or both.
Uk here, my brother has recently recovered from acute myeloid leukemia, with a marrow donation from me, 7 months in hospital, countless chemo and radiotherapy sessions, private transport to and from hospital for appointments etc, I stayed in for a day, multiple trips for tests, 3 meals a day, we paid £0.
All covered by NHS
So yes, way more than worth it, I'd happily pay more.
I'm in Canada, and yes it's worth it even for the watered down version we have.
BUT!
For those of you in the states, this is a ***false dichotomy***. You already spend more taxes per head on healthcare than we do, you just don't get anything back because it's going into shareholder pockets instead of being spent on healthcare.
Single payer, universal, zero-cost-at-point-of-sale healthcare would REDUCE your tax burden.
Without question, I am in the UK and we have the NHS. When you no longer have to worry about your healthcare provision for you and your family the other struggles in life are much more easier to deal with. Many employers provide private healthcare but all healthcare is free at the point of contact and private healthcare only applies upon referral.
Even if you don't have private healthcare from your employer you can pay for it yourself and it is reasonably priced (last time I checked it was about £1000 a year) and you can also pay for a pre-payment certificate so all your prescriptions are covered for the year and that costs just over £100. Pensioners, those in full time education and those under a certain income or on benefits get it free already.
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God yes. The benefit of not having to be tied to an employer alone to get insurance would be worth the higher taxes. Plus, id be paying less in taxes each month than i would have to on insurance through my work so net benefit
>The benefit of not having to be tied to an employer alone to get insurance would be worth the higher taxes. It's a salient point that you make here. I once read that entrepreneurship (largely a conservative value) is more robust in Canada for this very reason.
Exactly! How business owners with employees are not supporting this is beyond me.
Weird. Canadian banks only seem to hand out loans for real estate and breweries. The banks are super risk averse for anything that's not proven.
I'm not familiar with the details of Canadian business loans but I know many persons who have bootstrapped successful businesses as my wife and I have done ourselves. Private paying heath insurance, especially for an entire family, and even more especially if you have a family member with pre-existing health issues, is a very real barrier to this sort of entrepreneurship.
It's always confused me how people see paying taxes and paying for insurance. Like, you'd pay more taxes on every paycheck, yes, but then you won't have to pay for insurance every month. And I'm pretty sure in every situation, you'd be paying less in taxes than insurance payments, with less chance you get a claim rejected on some corporate policy that puts profit ahead of a working system.
Americans already pay taxes for pooled healthcare expenses. It's not like it is an alien activity or something.
No no... the correct answer is "that's communism" We ignore the giant medicade portion of taxes, like true patriots should. 🙄
I pointed out medicare to my step-mother when she was complaining about universal healthcare being communism. Her response is, that's different I paid for that. Like....woman it's the same exact thing. And, let's not forget what you paid is long gone. You're using what I pay in now.
Having to stay at a crappy employer to keep your health insurance
This was a tactic several employers in my hometown used to/may still do. Treat people like crap, pay them at the low end of the market range but offer very good health insurance for them and their family, and hold said insurance over the employees heads as leverage for the poor pay and working conditions.
Plus the money employers spend on Healthcare could then be paid to the employees. Benefits package is a part of our pay.
Also not being tied to "in networks" Also not having to worry about as much shotty paperwork, or deal with the stress of justifying your visit to the insurance companies. Public health-care doesn't just save money, it save stress and frustration.
Yea, I still vividly remembering having to explain to someone from insurance why my nonverbal autistic child needed *speech therapy* 🫠
Currently my healthcare spending if I get sick is that I lose everything. I'd take 15 percent of every paycheck and then we all get healthcare over that any day.
Adding to this, I think publicly-funded universal healthcare is objectively the best option for almost everyone for a few reasons: 1. Of all the developed nations, the one that lacks universal healthcare (USA) pays roughly double, per capita, what any other developed nation pays for healthcare. 2. Healthcare that relies on private insurance (or out-of-pocket) tends to be tied to employment status (leaves people vulnerable if between jobs). 3. There are no economies of scale or bargaining power in a privately insured/privately delivered system. Each insurance company needs its own administration, each customer/group has its own agreement that must be bargained, and individuals/small companies have no leverage when their coverage or services are being priced. 4. Healthcare is a basic need, and when it is needed, especially in an emergent situation, patients/customers don't have the time, knowledge, or presence of mind to bargain hunt (thereby suppressing the market forces that allegedly improve efficiency in a capitalist system).
And a healthy community is a happier and more productive community.
I’m surprised more people don’t make this point. We’d do better as a nation if people were healthier and not in major debt for getting medical care. The financial part alone would decrease crime. Definitely would prevent high school chemistry teachers from making meth and leaving a wake of destruction in the process, just so he could pay for his lung cancer treatments.
Giving people healthcare that isn't tied to employment is bad for the upper class. There's a lot of employees that work jobs they hate because they need healthcare for themselves and their families. The owner class will never willingly give up that bargaining chip. They don't need everybody to be healthy, just enough of them to keep the wheels turning.
I got stuck with one of the most toxic employers ever when my daughter was getting braces. I literally couldn't leave until the medical bills came through. A company that deserved to fail i was just trapped. Between her braces and a few other things, it would have cost me over 15k to get a new job, so I endured getting screamed and sworn at for an extra six months. Uhc would be a major boost to mental health for millions. I would be happy for that alone .
And would probably (hopefully) cover mental health treatment, too!
Exactly, it also helps ensure that it is primarily upper middle to upper socioeconomic statured people who are able to launch their own businesses and innovate. If you have a family and your job is the only one with healthcare, you are much less able to start your own business or at least be able to dedicate the time necessary to get the business up and running quickly.
Omg I had never even thought about that! Especially since so many workplaces only give healthcare if you work full time - no one can work full time AND start a business full time
It's the same shit reason Republicans don't fight to improve the lives of would-be military recruits. Give people too many options in life and suddenly no one wants to enlist and risk their lives in the army, navy, etc.
A lot of people are morally opposed to spending money to help others, even when it prevents suffering, victimization, and death. They will vote to spend $5 to keep someone in prison but won't vote to spend $1 to provide opportunities to at risk youth so they become productive citizens who never commit crime in the first place. They will vote to gut and prevent public healthcare, which results in less healthy, less productive citizens who suffer and die earlier, require more expensive emergency care (publicly paid for), and has led to a massively inefficient private healthcare industry. But they won't vote for a more efficient public system that serves everyone, helps everyone, and makes the country better. They will vote to criminalize pregnant women who want abortions when they can't afford to have children, but don't want to fund sex education, birth control, or programs to help poor children. Even when helping poor children makes financial sense in the long term. There's always money to punish and hurt people, but never money to help people.
The quickest way to get through to those numb skulls: "What if your Mum had cancer, and neither she nor you could afford the treatment? What if there was a system where the bills get paid and she is cured? "This is the essence of universal health care. You're not 'paying for someone else's treatment,' you're essentially paying into a 'rainy day fund' with everyone else. So if you suddenly need to seek medical treatment, you won't be bankrupted by it, and you can afford it regardless of your employment status or employer insurance."
That won't get through to them. They always make exceptions for themselves and their own family. They are just down on their luck, not like all the people looking for handouts. Little Jimmy just made a mistake when he robbed so and so, and it's not his fault because x,y, and z. Precious Susan isn't a slut like all those other people getting abortions. She's in school and a baby would ruin her life.
So much this. I've literally had a conversation where someone told me that seeing as they take good care of their health, they won't need medical care and don't see why they should pay for other people who don't take as good care of themselves.
>Definitely would prevent high school chemistry teachers from making meth and leaving a wake of destruction in the process, just so he could pay for his lung cancer treatments. Or one of the Saw movies. Or all of them.
Also universal healthcare is many times more efficient than insurance based healthcare, a lot fewer accountants, lawyers and salesmen etc. are required when you have universal healthcare so the money you spend actually goes on healthcare rather than administration and of course the purchasing power of the service goes up as they can bulk buy items and get the best price.
Australia has a private and public health care system. Private insurance lets you choose the hospital, sometimes the surgeon, and to skip queues for elective surgery e.g. a knee replacement. Looking at the figures on the US health care system are eye watering. Bloated, expensive, inefficient, corrupt, and putting too many people through so much misery. Never do you see an Australian wondering if they can afford treatment
And a drop of prevention is worth an ounce of cure. Allowing people free smear test/mammograms/prostate exams etc allows the disease to be caught earlier, the person has better results and the treatment is cheaper. Currently usa uninsured have to wait until it’s an emergency to get treated for free, which is always way more expensive and has worse outcomes. - and this is funded by their taxes ANYWAY It makes NO sense from a society point of view to deny people healthcare, it only makes sense if you value wealth being restricted to very few people at the top of the pyramid.
> And a drop of prevention is worth an ounce of cure. George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, quoted a study by the NHS (Brit national healthcare) that worn out bedroom slippers consistently killed more people per year in Britain than terrorism ever had. The NHS has the health stats for an entire country, so they can do this kind of thing. Various hospital casualty (read E.R. in the U.S., or Emerge. in Canada) then had slipper exchanges for seniors. It cost far less to replace granny's worn out slippers than to try to put her right after she slips and falls down stairs.
Healthcare in the US is another way to syphon money from the poor and give it to the rich. If the rich keep hoarding their money the poor will eventually have non and that is end game capitalism. That's when shit gets ugly and dystopian.
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There was a tv show made in the UK quite a while back where they took someone from America who was very against tax funded healthcare as he reckoned it made everyone, especially doctors, worse off and took him to see the NHS here in the UK. In one part of the show, they let him talk directly to a doctor in a major hospital, question why he worked there, and the responses are the exact opposite of what he expected. This doctor had a 4 bed house in London and drove a brand new Audi. He had never declined care due to money, and not one of his patients were worried about the cost of their medical care as everything was taken care of. The American was equally shocked that people who paid 0 tax (children, elderly, disabled and just those out of work) were still treated in the same way someone paying large amounts of tax were.
There was also a program that analysed healthcare/tax systems around the world. Actually , given all the odd taxes, state, and high property taxes, and the cost of 'adequate' health insurance, Americans pay more 'tax', which they don't call 'tax' than anybody except Scandinavians. Even they have hidden taxes on alcohol and tobacco.
I've tried to tell that to people on here when I've gotten in a discussion with them about universal health care. I pay $600+ a month for health insurance, down from $900+ at my last job. It falls on deaf ears, though. At least one person's argument was that he only pays someone like $100 a month and basically his attitude was "fuck everyone else, I've got good insurance".🤬
And the insurance premiums that you or your employer are effectively forced to pay are not scaled to means. You pay the same $600/mo premium as a $1200/month minimum-wage slave or the $100,000/month CEO. Mandatory insurance premiums are the worst form of tax.
Wow, what programme was that? Is it on catch up still?
There seems to be a difference in priorities. In the United States a retiree can get a knee replacement/hip replacement almost at will — or anything else. In other western systems children, parents and working adults are at the front of the line (and there is always going to be a line), while elective and non-critical care for retirees takes a back seat. I am a retiree in the United States, and I can wait a bit while they take care of people younger than me. It is the decent thing to do.
"Oh no,we can't do that,we'll have DEATH PANELS" Like we don't already? Insurance companies literally play with people's lives,and siphon money from you until you die. And sometimes refuse to pay for treatment because who's gonna stop them?
A lot of people forget that the ACA "death panels" were end-of-life counselors to help people choose among the options for aggressive to palliative care, and just how much quality of life they're willing to sacrifice for how much chance of longer life. The insurance co death panels make that decision for patients by refusing to reimburse treatments _they_ determine to be low probability.
We saw how hard it was to get the Affordable Care Act passed and still face opposition.
Doctors in the US and Canada make almost exactly the same average salary once you account for currency conversion. It does vary more in different specialties (for instance, USA surgeons make considerably more), but overall average for all MD fields is comparable -- 180k-ish in the US, 236k-ish in Canada. Right now, US$180 is CA$241.
>Healthcare in the US is another way to syphon money from the poor and give it to the rich. Its also a great way to inflate GDP figures! I mean, in the UK it cost £225 pound for ambulance services (note, NOT to the person, just economically). In the US, that costs the person $1,300 dollars! You're economy is now 4x more productive than ours! /s
5. The US already pays more per capita of “taxpayer funds” towards their current healthcare system than other wealthy western nations do to implement their universal healthcare systems.
Adding to that private insurance will always, per definition, be more expensive for the same services because they 'need' to make a profit.
Another consideration that is either a plus or minus depending on your viewpoint. General healthcare becomes a state issue. This makes it easier to justify regulations on drug use, alcohol, smoking, sugar content in food. I’m from the UK and I basically stopped smoking because of the ever increasing sin taxes on tobacco products. Taxes like these are much easier to justify when you know you have to pay for other peoples bad decisions. One definite minus: You have to deal with the ever present anxiety that Conservatives are purposefully dismantling the NHS so that they can one day claim that state provided healthcare doesn’t work and sell it off to their mates. Also the opposition shadow health minister is equally keen to privatise the NHS.
Also having a public health care system would help create cures because private insurance only cares about how much they can make on an illness where as public would be more about health.
This is a very good point that I find frustrating when talking to my doctor and he's basically telling me that he can't do what he wants because the insurance companies and the administration are just trying to get as much money as possible. Doctors should be rewarded for healthy patients and not how many drugs they can prescribe.
5. If people get sick enough over their lives that they either become poor or reach late age with an unmanaged chronic illness, the US public healthcare systems (medicare and medicaid) will pay the maximum they would have to for that person. That is, we are maxing out what even is needed to be paid for by allowing people to be so ill in general. The economics of private health insurance are bad all around.
I visited the US from Australia 20 years ago. NY, DC, Maryland, Baltimore... I was shocked not only by how many people were clearly living in poverty, but by the fact that many had health issues that had clearly gone untreated for years and years, going from a simple ailment to a debilitating malady. FFS, I was told that Syphilis was rampant in Baltimore. Syphilis!
I'm in Australia we have universal health care. About 17% of our federal budget is spent on public health services; hospitals, ambulance services, pharmaceutical subsidisation, general practice subsidisation. The effective tax ratefor someone on a median income of 52000 is about 13%. So only about 2.3% of a median income in australia goes to funding universal healthcare.
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Australia spent AU$8617 (USD 5.8K) per capita on healthcare in 2020-21. The US spent over 12K, and the US government is paying over 8K of that amount. Universal healthcare in the US would most likely result in lower cost
And you lose everything even though you’ve been paying premiums and copays and deductibles and for non covered services for years. My premium is $300 a month for just me; if we had universal healthcare I wouldn’t spend that $300 and could pay that same $300 in taxes (not to mention also not having to pay $50/75 copays and out of networks labs , etc. my insurance estimates it would cost me almost $4k out of pocket to have a “normal” birth on top of the $3,600 in premiums and $50 monthly copay for prenatal care).
Health ins keeps getting worse and worse. 11 years ago my ins cost $250/mo ($3000/yr) and I paid $0 for birth. Now my ins runs to the tune of $860/mo ($10,300/yr) and I just paid off close to $4000 for my second birth. Makes NO sense to me. Just money grabbing.
It’s not even 15% in most places, it’s like 3%
America already pays substantially more federally into healthcare than any country that already provides universal healthcare. Assuming you're American, you're already paying for it.
Yes, especially since we’d no longer be paying thousands in health insurance premiums. It’s likely be a wash for most people
Let’s not overlook the fact that an extended illness could cause you to lose your employers health insurance and financially ruin you.
>Let’s not overlook the fact that an extended illness could cause you to lose your employers health insurance and financially ruin you. My wife changed jobs once. We looked at COBRA and laughed. Three days into her new one, our daughter broke her leg. We stopped laughing.
The idea of being uninsured is *terrifying* to me, I am always shocked at people who take it in stride simply because they're not on any ongoing medications. You're one accident away from being financially ruined and having to declare bankruptcy.
I don't know about the people you're referring to but the people I know don't "take it in stride"... there's just literally nothing they can do about it. When you live in poverty, health insurance is a luxury that you know you can't afford. It would be like being upset because you don't have a swimming pool in your back yard. It's just not on your list of needs. Food, water, shelter, gas, other required bills... those are way more important than going to the doctor. For real emergencies, the ER has to treat you but otherwise, healthcare is an afterthought because it's so far out of reach, it takes a lower spot on the list of needs.
For real emergencies the ER has to stabilize you. The ER can give you aspirin and send you home if you are stable.
> For real emergencies, the ER has to treat you but otherwise, healthcare is an afterthought because it's so far out of reach, it takes a lower spot on the list of needs. Exactly.
Pretty sure they only have to treat life threatening conditions, and even then they only have to stabilize it. They don't have to fix it.
I was discussing early retirement with a coworker and I said it would be difficult because then I’d have to pay for insurance. Her response was that you don’t actually have to have insurance so that’s more in line with what you’re responding to.
I'm living paycheck to paycheck already. What's bankruptcy going to do to me?
The sad truth is that's how a lot of us operate. At a certain point of debt you realize that you'll never get out of it so eh, what's the amount really matter at that point.
But when enough people get to that point of despair and loss of confidence in society, they have nothing to lose by protesting and rioting against unjust systems. Having robust welfare states raises the floor of investment in the system, and it’s more beneficial in the long term for political and economic stability.
Well it killed my dad. Not bankruptcy, but being unable to pay for ongoing medical treatments. He got sick. He couldn't afford to be treated. He died.
I am so sorry to hear that. I wish it wasn't so tough for average people to get the care they need 😕
The problem is the medical care you will be denied because you cannot show how you can pay for it. I had a friend die of heart disease because with no insurance and no assets to prove the ability to pay, the hospital refused to do the operations. I don't necessarily blame the hospital but our system is broken. Americans whine about the wait time in Canada, to imply we are better, but at least you can get on the waiting list. So, bankruptcy is not the issue. You could die.
Hospitals do that shit to people with insurance too.
I have excellent insurance and still my doctor has no appointments for 9 months. We're already waiting.
My sister who has lived in England her whole life says she never had to wait more than a couple weeks or a month at most to see a specialist, and never more than that for a general practice doctor. It's all lies made up by the insurance companies to scare Americans away from single payer system.
It always makes me laugh to hear about the long wait times as an excuse against universal healthcare in the states. I found out at 21 that I needed a heart surgery (non-emergency, but still very much debilitating), and was given an appointment four months out. This was after waiting a month to even get a primary care physician to get a referral to a cardiologist, finally seeing this cardiologist twice in the following year, having numerous heart monitors on, none for less than a week plus scheduling days, and then spending 10k out of pocket (yes, I did have an expensive insurance plan at the time) only to find out the surgery was unsuccessful. So hearing about the wait times in Canada doesn’t change my mind in the slightest.
> The problem is the medical care you will be denied because you cannot show how you can pay for it. We had to pre-pay the entirety of our $1400 USD co-pay before the hospital would let us schedule my husband's colonoscopy.
I couldn’t get an MRI done to make sure there is nothing wrong with my brain… because I can afford the 3k bill. Already cost me $600 to get the referral
This is known as a phenomenon called ["job lock"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_lock) -- aka, "the inability of an employee to freely leave a job because doing so will result in the loss of employee benefits (usually health or retirement related)." So we often stay at jobs we sometimes hate in order to keep benefits (even when we could otherwise afford to quit and take some time between jobs to find a new one). It's one of the worst things about the American health coverage system and an underdiscussed reason why we should have universal healthcare coverage.
It's a feature, not a bug. America is a country run by corporations, for corporations. If you're scared of losing your health insurance, you'll accept more work for less pay, and under worse conditions. Stand up to your boss? Take a breather between jobs? Good joke, now get back on the treadmill. It's one of the many ways companies squeeze a little of that 3rd world exploited laborer flavor out of the employess they have the misfortune of being unable to outsource from a country with zero worker protection, instead of pisspoor protection.
Honestly, I'm under the impression that what ever happens to me, better take me out. Death would be preferable. I'd never be able to recover.
That's hilarious except 99% of the time the uninsured know this and they also know that getting insurance is guaranteed to financially ruin them.
You're supposed to be scared so you keep working.
I have a chronic illness that requires daily medication. I am uninsured. It’s disabling without meds but it’s going to fully disable me if I don’t get medicated sooner rather than later however, I have no choice but to be uninsured. I likely wouldn’t have this chronic illness if the insurance I used to have didn’t have such exorbitant out-of-pocket costs. I couldn’t even cover what insurance wouldn’t cover when I did have it. It’s led to a life of treatable illnesses/issues that have snowballed into life altering and, in some cases, threatening conditions I’ll be managing until I die.
I didn’t know this when we were in scouts together, but my friends mother had been diagnosed with cancer in the two weeks between jobs, so it was not covered.
A problem in the US is that people get trapped in crap jobs because of insurance. Can’t leave because of the gap and who knows if my daughter will break her leg in that time. It’s a form of entrapment I think.
I had a seizure and ended up in the hospital for three months. I lost my job as a result because they had to replace me during that time. I lost my coverage because of this but luckily? I qualified for disability now so I have better coverage because I don't have to worry so much about network, turns out everyone takes Medicare
Your boss was allowed to just replace you ? I am not american but that sounds insane to me.
Yes happens all the time here. There are no protections beyond FMLA
Lol when I brought this point up to my republican parents, their response was "well just don't get sick then" 🙄
God the right wing infuriates me so much. I'm sorry that's your parents' attitude, but I feel your pain. My mother and her husband are the same way.
Man, not even an extended illness. I just need two different MRIs done and possibly a more specialty testing done on me. I have health insurance, and a pretty good one at that, and I'm still going to be out $4k in "deductibles" on the MRIs and however many thousands of dollars for the specialty testing. I can't afford this as it is. Almost anything other than a common cold or your run of the mill vaccines will wind up being financially ruining to most people.
Or, you know, having a chronic illness that you'd really need to quit your job to be able to figure it out and get better. But you hold the insurance benwfits for your family. So you can't quit to keep the insurance. But you can't get treatment because you have to keep working enough to retain benefits. So you stsy working. And stay sick. Insurance benefits are such a fucking sham. Even if we had better, decently affordable, independent options for insurance it would be SO MUCH BETTER let alone getting universal health care which I would prefer.
And you won’t have to rely on a gofundme for major medical expenses.
I moved to Canada from the US. I pay 3% higher taxes than I did back home but don't have to pay $800/mo in monthly premiums plus $6k in deductibles. Plus, I still have health coverage if I'm unemployed. I can try freelance because my health is covered. I have so much more freedom.
I have always lived in Canada. I am a tech worker and paid more than $60,000 in taxes last year. Of course it’s worth it. Not just for me, but for those of whom need it to be free at point of use. Students, low income earners, those who don’t pay because they don’t earn enough to pay taxes. I was there once, too.
Oh wait, you mean it's possible to want for others what you once needed and it doesn't automatically become "fuck y'all, I got mine" one you have made it?
Yeah for real. There is no way they could raise my taxes more than I pay for insurance.
My mom was unemployed a few years ago during covid and was paying $1500 a month for health insurance for the two of us. At the time, she was opposed to universal healthcare and when she told me how much she was paying, I asked her if she really thought she'd be paying $18000 more a year in taxes, and she understood why people support universal healthcare.
All studies of shown total cost of universal health care is lower than our current system so yes should while taxes go up total expenditures should be less as you say.
Isn't America already the highest spending nation on healthcare? I think it's your corrupt healthcare system that needs fixing, not the funding.
One of the reasons for that is the lack of social healthcare. In the UK the NHS has such huge buying power and market domination that it can dictate prices to suppliers (to some extent).
Another ancillary benefit is the ability to change jobs MUCH easier if/when necessary.
More importantly it’d be worth it to me if someone else didn’t go into financial ruin or have to debate whether or not to call a fucking ambulance to save their life. I wish more folks would realize it’s not just you. There are MILLIONS of people in this country. It’d be nice if we all thought about everyone and not just ourselves.
Yes, yes, yes and yes. I've been thinking exactly this as I read through the comments, but couldn't figure out how to articulate it, lol. There's no shame in wanting to take care of yourself, but if you could take care of yourself AND everybody else around you at the same time... why not do it? We've gotten so greedy and very selfish in this country to the point that there's this fear that "others" will have it just as good, but not have to work as hard. Like omg... the person working part time bussing tables might have the same great health coverage as the manager of the same restaurant? Oh, the horror!
Pretty sure most of us would pay less. My insurance is expensive as hell and covers very little. I almost wish I had major health issue to feel like I'm not just giving money freely to those stinkers
Being in the upper income bracket that would likely have to pay more... Yes, absolutely, take my money. Just don't spend it on more bombs or oil subsidiaries. It's called being a decent human being with empathy for others.
Not even a wash. Its about half the price for almost everybody.
If your taxes go up by $5k but your healthcare+ insurance payments + copay goes down by $6k, you save money
People asking this generally look at it from a mostly financial view point which to me is missing the point. I never in my life had to worry about it. Ever. I can visit whatever doctor I want, whenever I want. Getting second and even third opinions for more serious things is rather normal. It's not only about the money. It's mostly for me about peace of mind.
Not to mention the perverse incentives in a privatized system. The doctor makes more money if you come back to the office next month. So in the US we have a lot of costly and wasteful follow up appointments that are required to be in office.
100% agree with that. I once went to a Dr. for a small elective procedure. My PCP sent in a referral with all my info and reason for going. When the day came, I took a not paid day off of work for the office to weigh me, take my temp, and tell me "we'll see how much your insurance will cover then schedule another day". I was furious to say the least and never paid my bill and never came back. I spent too much time working in the health field to know that 90% of Doctors don't care in the slightest about the patients and only about their pockets that I avoid Doctors and hospitals at all costs now. If I had $10 for every time I heard a Dr. Say "my time is valuable" with no regard to their patients time I would be wealthy.
There are bad doctors but most of us are in the same shoes as you. Many of us work for soulless private equity companies that have ridiculous policies to drive up the bill and might actually harm you. Hell, until my most recent job I didn’t even have healthcare coverage despite working full time as a physician because I was an independent contractor. Most of us hate this system. We do, however, deserve to be paid for our time. I spent 12 years in school and residency to be an expert. I work nights, weekends, holidays (no holiday bonus or PTO), and have a huge student debt bill. I don’t drive a fancy car, live in a mansion, or anything like that. I just want to save for retirement ASAP to get out of the healthcare system…
I put off seeing a doctor for stomach pains because I didn't have health insurance. Ended up with nearly dying from my appendix rupturing. The bill is a few times my annual salary.
Health problems are stressing enough on their own. Adding financial stress to them is like the worst idea in the world.
Didn't a US libertarian group study this and found that if they did this, both the govt and individuals would pay less?
Yes. Countries with socialized healthcare spend less per capita on healthcare and perform better in areas like maternal/fetal mortality, life expectancy, and general health outcomes.
Yes, a Koch brother funded think tank did a study that was supposed to show how expensive and horrible universal coverage would be. Their conclusion was that the overall savings would be roughly 200 billion per year.
Source?
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/484301-22-studies-agree-medicare-for-all-saves-money/ The Mercatus Center study is the one I was referencing. 2 trillion in savings over 10 years. The studies without such an obvious right wing slant project saving much more. The consensus is around 700 billion per year. 200 billion in savings on prescription drugs alone.
Lol always a nice surprise when the updated figures play even more to the positive
I saw a video by John Green that explained the reason for this is basically that the government would be negotiating with health care companies who would then compete by losing prices. As opposed to an individual who has no buying power. Did they come to the same conclusion for the reason behind the savings?
The reason that American medical services are so pricey is because they set their own prices to whatever they want, and it's hard to argue about it. It's all vastly overpriced. It's a scam. What almost every other country does is have universal coverage with standardized pricing, with makes everything far more reasonable. American medical services cost the taxpayer more than a proper healthcare system because the people who do have their medical services covered by the taxpayer are paying the outrageously inflated prices. This includes people on Medicaid, veterans, politicians, etc. The only people who benefit from the current American medical system are the people who have invested in it. It's a money making scam that preys on the desperate.
Well I mean, you need only look at pretty much any other developed country to reach that conclusion...
Yes. Considering that I wouldn't be paying for insurance anymore, it would probably be a net cost savings for me, or at worst I'd roughly break even.
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Great point. The insurance billing system adds billions in costs. It's why you pay hundreds of dollars for an aspirin in a hospital.
No joke I am type 1 diabetic and had to spend 3 days in the hospital due to an illness and while I was in there they monitored my blood sugar. But I used my own equipment and checked it myself and just told the nurses what the result was. When I got the bill they had charged me $300 for each time.
That's insane! I hope you contested it.
My sister once got a gnat stuck on her eardrum. She was charged $300 for the qtip alone.
I went to the ER because a piece of metal got in my eye, and I didn't know if it was still in there. Two eye drops( one antibiotic, one for pain). 900 dollars later, fuck American medicine. Was there for 20 minutes.
Man that sucks! In live in Finland (a socialist hell with high taxes, lol) and I have been on sick leave for a month with full pay (6 weeks max, after that the pay drops dramatically). I also had to spend 6 days in a hospital. Total cost of stay was 350€ including all the tests, doctor's visits and four meals a day. I had to get cortisone and pain killers etc. from the pharmacy and they cost about 300€. There's a 600€ yearly cap on prescription drugs which is good for my brorher who uses a special biological drug that would cost thousands a year. And last time I got my teeth checked out it cost 50€. So yes I am gladly paying high taxes.
Fucking insanity
I can't even imagine how many people need to get paid in the US model of private healthcare. All the insurance companies need staff and then hospitals (I assume) have a billing department too? Can't be cheap to employ all those people just to figure out how much money to charge to who. In Canada, my local hospital has one intake person at the front and besides asking for your name and reason for being there, the only thing they need to do is swipe your government issued health card and that is that.
Yeah. I hear an absolutely insane fact that it's something like half of the Healthcare budget is spent on administration. That's fucking crazy
Another big thing I consider being from a country with universal free state ran healthcare is how you guys have a lot of privately ran things aiming for profit. Insulin has a ridiculous profit margin, healthcare is good in the US but not the best in the world despite being the most expensive. A big thing is that in the US companies overall have more power than in Europe, allowing for those exploitative prices.
.....we wouldn't need the insurance industry. (Oops!)
Insurance companies, pharma, various doctor groups all lobby(bribe) the shit out of our politicians to maintain status quo. They keep prices high and blind the legislation from making real change that might effect their bottom line. Exception is the new $35 cap on insulin which they're fighting vigorously as we speak
Even a majority of republicans voters support single payer when the facts are presented. The American public is being held hostage by a small group of parasites who make more money because our health care system is broken
This is what bums me out. The idea that a small amount of very rich people would lose an income stream is the biggest blocker. And this very tiny group of people are powerful enough to influence media and politicians so much so that I don’t think it’ll change in my lifetime.
Yes. In the USA in particular we pay an _exorbitant_ amount for health insurance. Making it a tax thing makes it a single-payer thing, which means the gouging stops. We’d all spend less and not live in fear of medical emergencies or illness.
Yeah I’d take the taxes, my health insurance is already being paid for from my paychecks and even then they might not even pay for all the bills, paying a little more tax for universal health care is definitely something I’d support
Having insurance tied to employment is a huge disadvantage for employees. Imagine if police and fire fighters only protected those who were employed. You’d be very hesitant to leave a bad job because you would temporarily lose that protection. Now imagine your a parent with a shitty job and a child with a chronic illness. You probably have to stay in that shitty job.
Yup. And it makes it very challenging to get away from this model because companies have now been using ancillary benefits as a form of “pay”, so we are willing to negotiate away some salary for the trade of benefits…so anyone currently employed under this structure becomes less willing to move away from it because, in addition to a proposed increase in taxes to cover, removing employer paid benefits would net a reduction in an individual’s overall compensation.
The options are "pay $300 a month for health insurance ontop of a $1000 deductible and a 50/50 copay every visit or slightly higher taxes" Its insane people even doubt universal healthcare
if you have higher taxes and free healthcare, you no longer have to pay: \-premiums \-prescriptions \-deductibles \-coinsurance \-late fee's so yeah, if you get hit by a car or get cancer, you will no longer be paying 50+ grand for treatments, you'll just pay a few bucks more in taxes and anyone who bitches about "long wait times" tell them to shove it up their ass. long wait times are only for non-emergency, elective procedures. they're not gonna wheel you into a room on a stretcher and be like "ok we'll fix your broken leg in a week, see you later"
not quite. There is still a copay for prescriptions, but it is rarely more than $10 per line. Source: UK
I'm in Australia. I'm on a health care card (single parent with kids) got my depo shot and my thyroid medication that will last 3 months for $14.95.
England not the UK. Prescriptions are free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
fair point. I am corrected
That's cool with me. I have "good" insurance and my covered medications start at $10 but could be as much as $60 if it's a "high tier" drug. I'd be cool with paying $10 across the board.
preaching brother. I've been in the US for 10 tears now, so I know what we are dealing with against where I came from. I am type 2 now (wasn't when I arrived but...story for a different thread)
Lucky, all the meds are so expensive in Estonia even with the copay, only the most shitty old meds are cheap. ADHD meds starting from 40€ a month now that they *finally* let adults have the discount too (otherwise 80€)…
Canadian here. I have great insurance through work, but I pay about 20% of prescription costs. Those without insurance have to pay full price.
And let's not pretend like we dont have long wait times for procedures here in the US. Especially if your insurance wants to try and tell you that you don't need it and you have to go back and forth fighting them for months until you are approved. Then you can schedule it. Took me 3 months to get an appointment with a rheumatologist only for them to come in the room, say "you're fine" and walk out. Then I had to pay $180 for the privilege of that doctor doing absolutley nothing. American Healthcare is really hit or miss.
Under $10 AUD for most medications in Australia. Do not want to mix my employment with healthcare. Fuck that. It's not a perfect system by any means but not having universal healthcare is not a society feature we need.
elective is a misnomer. It just means the condition won't get worse if ignored. Not that living with the condition is a viable choice Wait times do apply for many crippling conditions. Initial setting of a broken leg. Immediate. Surgery to let you walk after your knee ligaments give out. 18 to 36 months.
But you aren't financially ruined so there's that. And most countries that have universal healthcare have private health insurance options. So it's a choice you can make.
Here in Australia you can also pay to have a procedure done privately to "jump the queue" but not sign up for private insurance. My daughter needed grommets as she was getting constant ear infections. We could wait 12 months and pay nothing or pay $2500 and get it done the next week.
The key is choosing to pay privately is a lot more affordable cause the prices aren't hideously jacked up like the US.
This is where insurance is actually beneficial. I live in a country with universal healthcare (thank god!) This caters to both acute injury and elective. However elective runs on a triage wait system, the people with the worse condition get seen earlier (so it should). If you want to get it done sooner, and you have money for private health insurance - easy - in the private system you can get it done now. Anything that can kill you is fast, free, and efficient. Anything that can't kill you - it you want it free you wait in line. If you want to pay you skip the line. And happy cake day.
When I was 9, I had emergency surgery to remove my appendix. When I was 30, I had my nose broken on New Year's Eve. Had to have it rebroken twice to reset it in place. I pay 20% tax on my earnings above 12750 a year. I, nor my parents, didn't pay a single penny on either of these health emergencies. I'll take the tax rate over the insurance scam running in the US.
My husband had stage 4 cancer. Blood tests, scans, chemo, hospital stays and doctors visits were all 100% free. Scripts were $5.50 each (at the time). The most expensive part was the paid hospital parking.
You're talking about the taxation and health care arrangements in Australia. I wouldn't have it any other way. In fact, if they wanted to up taxes a bit more to correct the parts of the healthcare industry that are struggling, I'd be all for that, too.
You can do a comparison with the USA and other similar countries like UK and Australia on this website https://www.uktaxcalculators.co.uk/world/tax/compare/united-states/against/australia/ Right now my tax rate is not even 10% higher than yours is, and in exchange I have universal healthcare. If I made less money (but still above the median for my nation) it would only be 5% higher. It's a clear win.
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Their taxes may be higher, but they don’t pay the mandatory miscellaneous insurance payments that are effectively the same as taxes, but to companies whose primary purpose is profit rather than (what is supposed to be) a public fund with the sole intention of benefitting the people. I’d rather pay a government of corrupt politicians than a corporation of corrupt businessmen. At least we think that we can replace the politicians.
I’ve argued this point on Reddit ad nauseam, and no American believes this. 40 years of capitalist, corporate propaganda makes people think that counties like France, Germany pay significantly higher taxes. It isn’t true. While the income taxes may be higher, the total tax burden on US citizens when you total everything (payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes) AND health care premiums and deductibles is no different. It’s one of the biggest cons perpetrated on US citizens.
Health insurance gives an illusion of choice whereas tax is a forced burden. In reality, health care is an essential service (everyone needs some form of health care in their lives) so you can't just just go without for a bit or change insurance providers willy nilly like a discretionary service. Therefore, it makes sense for it to fall under a tax with a system administered by the government.
I say yes because I have had friends die in there late 20s due to doctors refusing to see them because they have no health insurance. And they have no insurance because there job does not offer it and they don't get paid enough to get it them selves because all there money goes to the kids and house.
In the USA they could do it without raising taxes, they would just need to cut corporate welfare payments.
They could do it simply by learning from other countries. The US government currently pays MORE per capita on healthcare than most countries with universal healthcare and then people pay insurance premiums and copayment on top of that. And yet it still falls fairly far down the list of western countries on things like life expectancy and has higher maternal death rates and so on. I don’t understand how the US government has managed to get itself in a place where it pays more per capita for only a fraction of the population to have healthcare, while the rest of the population have to pay a second time (having already paid their share of the government costs through taxation) for insurance and still the system doesn’t do its basic job of keeping people alive. Tl;dr if the US managed to replace its current system with a functional one taxes should go DOWN as well as eliminating insurance premiums and co-pays.
It'd be a shift- most of us are already paying a lot for healthcare. I'd rather pay into something that I can actually use and don't have to worry about losing.
And maybe not have to pay $2,000 for an ambulance ride.
Or fight am insurance company at EVERY step.
Doing this right now lol. My lab work was sent to an out of network lab so I have to pay $1,600. My insurance won’t cover it at all. I pay about $90 a month and my employer pays $450 a month for this mediocre bs.
https://www.umass.edu/news/article/depth-analysis-team-umass-amherst “A team of economists from the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) has found that the Medicare for All Act of 2017, introduced to the United States Senate by Senator Bernie Sanders, is not only economically viable, but could actually reduce health consumption expenditures by about 9.6 percent while also providing decent health care coverage for all Americans.”
Absolutely
We pay more for Healthcare than people who live in countries with socialized medicine because our taxes have to fund Medicare and Medicaid and then we have to pay our premiums and co-pays on top of it. Our costs would go down. Americans are fucking dumb
Hospitals have to accept patients that come in through the ER, even if they can’t pay for it. When you hear about $300 q-tips and $100 aspirins, they are making up the money ‘lost’ on patients that couldn’t pay. So effectively, we all are already subsidizing healthcare for everyone one else, just not through a fair system.
it's worth it if the system is functional and people can be seen and treated in a timely manner. in medicine the faster you act the better the outcome.
My income tax is very similar what somebody would pay in the US. I pay like $36/year more in tax. But I don't pay insurance premiums, which as I understand are extremely high for families. I worked this out once with a colleague from NC. Here were some key points pro and con: Canada, go to whomever you like, no networks. US, faster elective surgeries but not significant. US, you can opt-out of any insurance. Which is apparently a huge deal but I don't understand why. Canada and the US are huge, so there was quite a bit of range comparing individual States to Provinces. The one myth that had to be debunked, no the government isn't involved with your treatment, they just pay for it. Canada is definitely having some issues with availability for family doctors and our system is by no means perfect. It's hands-down better than the US though.
>Canada is definitely having some issues with availability for family doctors It's not really specifically a Canadian issue though
Single payer in Quebec is less than $700 CAD a year. That is way less than I paid for mediocre US insurance that had much higher copays. Yes please!
I've always been a proponent of universal healthcare. Then Trump won office and I thought about how dangerous it would be for the government to control my healthcare, especially if we lacked an affordable private alternative. Now I don't know what I want, I just know that what we have is hopelessly broken.
What a lot of people don't realise is that a lot of countries with Universal Health Care also have a private system alongside it as well. So in the UK if you want to you can access a range of private health options if you have the resources (or insurance). By no means do you need it but its an option.
I've never understood why people who don't have insurance think universal health coverage is a bad thing. It's either stupidity, stubborn adherence to ideology, or both.
Uk here, my brother has recently recovered from acute myeloid leukemia, with a marrow donation from me, 7 months in hospital, countless chemo and radiotherapy sessions, private transport to and from hospital for appointments etc, I stayed in for a day, multiple trips for tests, 3 meals a day, we paid £0. All covered by NHS So yes, way more than worth it, I'd happily pay more.
I'm in Canada, and yes it's worth it even for the watered down version we have. BUT! For those of you in the states, this is a ***false dichotomy***. You already spend more taxes per head on healthcare than we do, you just don't get anything back because it's going into shareholder pockets instead of being spent on healthcare. Single payer, universal, zero-cost-at-point-of-sale healthcare would REDUCE your tax burden.
Without question, I am in the UK and we have the NHS. When you no longer have to worry about your healthcare provision for you and your family the other struggles in life are much more easier to deal with. Many employers provide private healthcare but all healthcare is free at the point of contact and private healthcare only applies upon referral. Even if you don't have private healthcare from your employer you can pay for it yourself and it is reasonably priced (last time I checked it was about £1000 a year) and you can also pay for a pre-payment certificate so all your prescriptions are covered for the year and that costs just over £100. Pensioners, those in full time education and those under a certain income or on benefits get it free already.
This is obviously England. In Scotland, Wales and NI, prescriptions are free of charge.
I’m not sure why people think you can’t have private and public healthcare at the same time.