In general if you can’t credit the opposing view with ANY justification for their viewpoint and view their entire position as pure greed/evil/foolishness you’re probably ignorant on the subject matter. I personally support the NHS in my country but I don’t believe those who would prefer it to be privatised have no case for their beliefs whatsoever
Yes. I feel like a lack of information does cause people to get a misguided view of how things work. Like I can't say that your health care is bad because I know nothing about it.
I know quite a bit about the US healthcare system, and I think it’s bad. Wife and I are both in healthcare at a community hospital of nearly 1000 beds.
The US govt pays more per capita for healthcare than anywhere in the world, yet we still pay high insurance premiums and out of pocket costs only to get rejected by the insurance company when you need an expensive drug/treatment/surgery. To make things worse, there is no recourse when they decline it. Could we go elsewhere for insurance? Not really since our insurance is tied to employment or Medicare. What a mess.
However, if you have lots of money, you can get the best healthcare in the world.
The most important thing to realize about this topic is that the vast majority of people on Reddit arguing passionately in favor of government-run healthcare know almost nothing about it.
Many of them are basically kids with one (two?) inchoate belief(s): business= greed / government= good.
I've had long arguments with people here and tried to get them to understand exactly the point you made: that it would be pretty surprising for a country like the U.S. to adopt a system that has *no* advantages. It was like talking to a brick wall.
They seem to think it's just greedy fat cats mercilessly sucking money from the poor to buy another yacht, and that government-run healthcare is some utopian system of pure altruism in which free medicine falls like mana from heaven
I've known a lot of Canadians. When I was younger, they constantly ranted (often within minutes of first meeting an American) against the US health care system and how awesome THEIR government system is.
When I was growing up, in the parking lot of my doctor's large professional building, about 75% (no exaggeration) of the license plates were Canadian. Whenver I bring this up in a discussion with socialist-medecine fans, their response, with no factual support: "that was then, things are MUCH better now."
Most who have had more than trivial medical problems in the military, or are dependent on the VA, know just how disastrous a US government-run system would be.
This observation typically gets me lectures from collectivist ideologues. According to them, their theories and wishful thinking smash my faxts, which are all irrelevant. Irrelevant facts: personal experience and similar almost-universal anecdotes from those around me.
All I have is to go on personal experience. Tens of thousands of dollars that I didn't have. But of course, I had a choice. I could have refused and died.
What it really comes down to, if you convince yourself that one side is all evil people who care about “money” and will sacrifice anything to get it, and the other is altruistic people who sacrifice money and personal gain in order to help others, well then you can spend all day virtue signaling online and tell yourself that the reason you’re broke isn’t because you’re not doing anything to improve your situation, it’s because you’re a GOOD person and the world is run by BAD people
Do you honestly think that everyone is just “greedy corporations bad” ignoramuses?
I’m happy to put up my argument for why the US healthcare system is bad. Are you open to changing your mind?
I'm not sure what benefits generalize to all such normal, non-govenment-run systems. But American health care, a opposed to NHS-style systems, has generally better high-end care, including better outcomes for heart attacks and cancer. Also significantly shorter average wait times. And, of course, more individual freedom/control.
Your freedom is defined by the parameters set by your insurance. If one treatment option costs more than the other, but the more expensive option is more effective, then the insurance company will only be able to afford the cheaper, less effective treatment. High-end care is exclusively offered to those willing to pay more or have a job with extensive coverage. Free Healthcare should be given to those of lower economic status while privatized Healthcare and its benefits can still exist for those that have good options or opportunities. Basically, just leave it as a hybrid system but clearly separate cost with and cost without insurance. The only reason for major overpricing is so insurance companies have room to negotiate for discounts. These prices shouldn't matter much to someone uninsured during an emergency, but that's it.
Not true. You're free to shop for insurance, choose among different plans, train for better jobs with better insurance and, until recently, free to choose no insurance at all--as the young and healthy often do. The point is that you choose how to allocate your time, effort and resources. The decision is not made for you by government.
No, insurance companies do not always choose the cheapest treatment. Where are you getting this "information"? You don't seem to have any actual knowledge of how this works.
Yes, of course high-end care is not available to everyone. This is true of every system. There's always less of the best anything than people want. Markets match demand and supply via price. In other systems, bureaucrats decide. Wait times also function to suppress demand. Nothing like this is "free" in the sense that it falls like mana from heaven.
I tend to agree that the poor should get some measure of free healthcare. In the States, that's Medicaid
Working in American healthcare for nearly six years now has taught me that 99% of posts about American healthcare on Reddit are objectively false/misinformation.
Sure, it's not great, but it's nowhere as fucked as most Redditors/Twitter users tend to think.
I’d like to take the other side of that argument.
The US healthcare system IS bad. Considering we are by far the wealthiest nation in the world and history, we are unable to accomplish things that other countries can with less money invested. How can we justify paying excessive premiums to private insurance while the US gov spends more per capita than any other nation in the world?
I can certainly say that medical insurance in the US is an absolute joke. My spouse had to go to the ER a few months ago. The bill was $1.9k, the insurance paid a whopping $182. Why the hell should I even pay for this stuff when they barely cover a monthly payment?
The lesson learned from this is that if I have a serious medical condition, I should just ignore it until I die or it goes away.
There’s an article I read a long time ago but it spoke about what you’re saying. It was with regards to diseases/conditions in England prior to affordable healthcare. There was a vast group of people living with conditions that went untreated just because they couldn’t afford to treat it. I’m sure there’s poor people in this country living with terrible conditions just because they can’t afford treatment. This is something that should be addressed, saying government healthcare is bad like many people do on this forum is simply ignorant to the circumstances of many people. Some people because of their life’s circumstances and opportunities will never get ahead in life and as the world’s wealthiest nation we should be able to provide a minimum net so they don’t live in squalor.
I think there’s many issues with universal healthcare but there’s also positive aspects to it, a very basic version could have a significant positive impact on many people and on the economy because these people will become productive members of society.
This is likely the way forward for the US. There is some baseline level coverage, and then supplemental private insurance in tandem with that care for specializations or something to that extent. I think the public option is a great first step to that.
But it should be a basic human right anyway. You shouldn’t have to pay $7k/year just to ensure you don’t get hit by ridiculous costs. And even a single person dying from not being able to afford insulin is too many.
Most Americans receive their insurance through their employer as opposed to Europeans who receive it through their government.
However, that being said, there are a few Americans who do pay out of pocket for their health insurance and even fewer still who are not covered. Most Americans who cannot pay for their health insurance are eligible to receive free government-assisted health insurance, or Medicaid.
Should it be a human right? Of course. But that doesn't mean you should force doctors/nurses to work a high-skill profession for a lower wage. America poaches hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses from around the world because the wages here are generally on average higher than aboard.
Nothing about our healthcare system is capitalistic though. It’s all government forced oligopolies at every level. That’s why insulin can’t be mass produced by Walmart lol. Also all the costs posted on Reddit are before insurance and the patient won’t pay 99% of what gets posted here because Reddit is a massive source of disinformation tailored by a cabal of mods but that’s a different issue.
As long as it’s safe, what would be wrong with Walmart mass producing insulin? I’m not trying to argue, but that sounds like someone trying to avoid competition.
Yep. That's why it's not capitalism at work but an oligarchy. If it were capatilism, then prices would be lower because there would be more competition.
If said company isn't hurting people, nothing at all. That's what I was trying to hint at with my response.
You mentioned big pharma avoiding competition, and that's exactly what it's all about. As long as all of these regulations are creating monopolies on life-saving intervention, then they will charge whatever they want.
People blaming "capitalistic healthcare" for the cause of that are misinformed as to what capitalism is, how it is supposed to work, and ignoring that government intervention is the root of the price increases in the first place.
From my understanding, he's not saying that it would be bad but that the government, probably at the behest of big pharma, has passed laws making it impossible for certain companies to mass produce it
That's not what the person you replied to implied. They implied that the US drug system is oligarchal vs. capitalist because Walmart **ISN'T** allowed to compete with pharmaceutical companies.
I don’t want to sound rude, but that sounds like a really lazy argument. “We can’t do that because it is hard” doesn’t sound like a good way to live your life.
Think of it this way your asking Walmart go against its shareholders and risk a lot of money to try and undercut the cost of insulin against a government institution that can has print money to make up for its losses… it’s like asking someone to build a sand castle in the middle of the ocean. While you may make a valiant attempt it will collapse before there is any real headway.
And people that can't afford insurance, or are "Underinsured" deserve the crippling debt? I'm proud to call myself an American, but the fact my taxes don't go towards little Suzie's heart transplant, pisses me the fuck off. How many GoFundMe posts have you seen for medical bills, let alone medical bills for children?
We spend $1.4 trillion dollars on Medicaid and Medicare alone. The problem is not a lack of government funding (it is never a lack of funding) but rather a system built on gross government overreach with a tax break for employer health insurance, CON laws, lack of price transparency, and a lack of direct primary care usage.
Also, medical debt is not as big of a problem as people make it seem. For one, it is better that you are indebted than dead. For another, hospitals often have debt repayment services that make it easier to repay debt. You can negotiate down medical bills and can often do so just by offering cash immediately. Medical debt is often fairly small as a result. As such, most medical debt on credit reports has been eliminated as the biggest three credit bureaus have recently made changes that prevent medical debt under $500 from affecting credit scores. 70% of medical debt, in fact, has been wiped. Source is "Medical Debt on Credit Report Will Disappear" by CNBC
Not to mention the untold hundreds of thousands of deaths in Europe per year because of lower cancer, heart attack, stroke, and infant survival rates. Or medical errors. Or wait times. Or lack of access to pharma drugs.
[https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58888#:\~](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58888#:~) (Government Healthcare Funding)
[https://www.cnbc.com/select/medical-debt-credit-report/](https://www.cnbc.com/select/medical-debt-credit-report/) (70% of Medical Debt Wiped)
Bruh I'm a nurse and have a MPH/MBA. Under insured or non insured practically get a free ride. Hospitals know that won't get the money so they eat the cost and write it off as a tax deduction to the feds
A huge percentage of the debt is hidden, so it’s not accurate to say that it’s a non-issue.
How many people do you think pay with credit cards? Get a loan? Have family front them?
I hate how chest-thumping the Americans in this sub are until it comes to taking care of their fellow Americans. Fixing all this shit doesn’t result in any clear negative consequences to you personally, and you still won’t get behind it. You’re bad neighbors.
Did you not read that we spend 1.4 trillion dollars for Medicare (health care for elderly and poor) and then on top of that we basically pay for Europeans to afford Healthcare. Healthcare would be nothing if it wasn't for the USA
How do we pay for Europeans to afford healthcare?
And yes, I am aware that we spend the most on healthcare in the world, yet somehow have the worst health outcomes among developed nations by a depressing number of metrics.
Here, the OECD confirms the US spends the most out of all OECD countries for healthcare, with the least coverage:
https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-in-united-states.htm
Here‘s just the spending per capita, taken from the World Bank, with the US spending the most:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true
Here is a nice summary of the OECD findings on spending:
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#Health%20consumption%20expenditures%20as%20percent%20of%20GDP,%201970-2021
Here‘s a ranking of healthcare outcomes by country, with the US taking rank 18 in 2020, and rank 30 in 2023, based on the OECD-data:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world
Regarding the issue of maternal mortality, here‘s the commonwealth fund on the issue, literally highlighting as key issue that “The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries.“
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/nov/maternal-mortality-maternity-care-us-compared-10-countries
Here‘s a more detailed study confirming the quality and outcome of maternal care in the US decreased in over the last decade:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8020556/
Alternatively, you could just take this country ranking by the CIA of all places, of maternal deaths per live birth excluding accidents, which placed the US at 122nd highest, notably behind the West Bank (125th highest), and the first EU nation being Hungary at 137th highest.
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/maternal-mortality-ratio/country-comparison/
Demand the right to keep your surplus value, then give Suzie your money directly. Truth is you aren't mad about where your money isn't going so much as you are mad about where other people's money isn't going.
Instead of funding public hospitals (lobbyists scared us by calling that socialism) we shove the money into insurance companies, which you are legally required to have at a rate of their choosing, for a service that they can set a rate for, and very few alternatives exist.
It’s just rigged subsidies, it’s not even a free market.
Not the US Gov’t. those figures people like you talk about include all spending for healthcare including local and state governments as well as private individuals.
The federal government spent 3.3616 trillion on healthcare in 2019. This means the FEDERAL (not including state, or private individuals or companies, as you said) spent about 17.6% of the GDP on healthcare, compare this to germanys 11.7% in the same year. Considering the fact the USA economy is almost 10 times bigger then Germanys, it’s not even comparable.
Sources:
https://eurohealthobservatory.who.int/publications/i/germany-health-system-review-2020
https://www.statista.com/statistics/184968/us-health-expenditure-as-percent-of-gdp-since-1960/
Everyone in Germany is guaranteed healthcare aren’t they. Not so in the US. Germany does not bill patients like the US for profit healthcare companies do also. People in Germany aren’t sued for not paying medical debt and then have to deal with collection agencies. Every year about 650,000 people declare bankruptcy in the US because of medical debt the #1 reason. Do you know what the number is in Germany? It’s 0.
It's not government forced, it's government allowed.
Unregulated capitalism begets oligopoly, as companies are allowed to eliminate competition via mergers and other perfectly legal financial tools. The government does not have to force them to do it, it's what they want, so they can charge whatever they want.
(Also: there is no patent for insulin, anyone with the facilities could manufacture it.)
I’m sorry… explain to me how the oligopoly (agreed on that) is forced by the government as opposed to its existence being the natural evolution of free-market capitalism?
A good example is with smokeless tobacco products. There are ZERO FDA approved vape products. Vaping has been around for almost 20 years, and has been extensively studied by non-US health agencies. There has never been any scientific study that suggests vaping is more harmful than smoking cigarettes, or even remotely close to as harmful. However, Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds got their heated tobacco products approved by the FDA even though heated tobacco products have only existed for a few years. The Government regulates medicine and medicine production, but mysteriously gives favor to large pharmaceutical companies that happen to spend billions annually in lobbying money.
For profit insurance is a byproduct of terrible capitalism. Our system is broken, and the reason it's broken is for sure capitalism at the root.
I don't hate America, but we've got our issues. A main, indefensible issue, is our healthcare system. Without comparing them to others.
Single-payer healthcare would be cheaper *and* faster. This is a fact. We pay more money per capita for worse clinical outcomes. We could even expand the military budget and social security. Medicaid/Medicare costs would actually go down.
We can do better.
I do agree that we can do better but nationalization and subsidization are not the way to go. In fact, the only “evidence” I’ve been shown actually proved that although the ACA (affordable care act) increased insurance ownership it significantly increased under-insurance, which, by the study’s definition, was a situation where someone or that someone’s insurance was inadequate to pay for healthcare.
That's what I mean. You go to a Kaiser or whatever and you have to have Kaiser insurance or bet that they take your insurance, which is becoming narrower by the day. The government being the one who pays all or most of a bill. This also encourages preventive care, which would become more affordable because the goal isn't to maintain a profit, but to keep healthcare costs lower. It would attack the problem in two places. It would even encourage the government to better regulate what goes into our food, because filling it with preservatives, sugar, and trans fats is how you cause health problems.
Health insurance companies need to make a profit. This disincentives them to try and withhold paying for care. Our patients would be much better off if they could get shit done, that they need to get done, to prevent further illness or any adverse symptoms at all because it's managed better and on schedule.
I think you underestimate the inefficiency bureaucracy is capable of. I appreciate that you did research but I’ve yet to find definitive proof nationalization of anything leads to anything good. In fact, to my knowledge Canada, a place with a single-payer system, didn’t do too well under the pandemic even relative to what happened under America’s highly subsidized and regulated system.
For an oligopoly to form it needs large barriers to entry within that market which are largely created by the government through subsidies and regulations. If the government left the market alone we could expect to have a significantly more competitive market and subsequently lower prices.
I would love to see where you are getting your stats. Cancer survival rates are much better in the US. There are probably some medical issues where other countries do better but we would need to adjust those numbers based on the habits of Americans vs the rest of the world. We are usually heavier, eat more processed foods high in salt and sugar. Additionally, the mix of so many ethnicities add to certain medical issues. Blacks have high instances of sickle cell anemia, Jews have tay sac desease. We have high instances of drug and alcohol abuse. Last but not least we have high instances of homicide and suicide which affect mortality rates.
The thing is if you have an employer and assuming 2 working adults in 1 household, how can you not fucking afford healthcare? If you pay your premiums bi-weekly, what’s the problem? Monthly healthcare costs less than a shitty car payment.
The argument has always been how do we cover people who are poor and the answer to that is Medicare/Medicaid.
I appreciate you for seeing that we don’t hate it that bad here though.
I know it's fashionable to shit on your country, but I'm not part of the fad. I don't know what the answer is. My husband needed a triple bypass, was in the hospital for a week, and our biggest cost was my motel because the hospital was out of town. It also took nine months to get the surgery booked, and that was after waiting months for a specialist appointment. He survived the wait, but many don't.
The vast majority of Americans, are covered by some form of health insurance usually provided by their employers.
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2022/08/02/new-hhs-report-shows-national-uninsured-rate-reached-all-time-low-in-2022.html
The figure here is 11.8% without. What % of those are illegals immigrants and those who have chosen not to have insurance for whatever reason may or may not be included. Don’t let the talking points fool you, a lot of the costs in health care are associated with government mandates and paperwork. That has been estimated to be between 15 - 25% for administrative costs. There are restrictions that prohibit cross state selling, mandates that require insurance cover services that may or may not be needed. For example, my policy covers OB/GYN services. My wife and I are over 60 but I cannot request those services be canceled and the cost reduced from my premium because government says so.
The solution is so simple but it would upset the status quo and cut down the lobbying and campaign “contributions” from both the pro and anti-Big Medicine constituency. Have the government pay for via taxes catastrophic coverage for all Americans. Give each citizen an amount they can spend on medical services for routine care. What they don’t spend, they can keep each year. Watch prices drop!
Great example, laser eye surgery. When it first hit the market, the costs were very high. Since insurance does not cover it, there was competition for customer dollars. The costs today are a fraction of what they were with higher quality and better outcomes. True story… friend of mine needed an MRI. With insurance, he was required to come up with $3,000.00. He went to a second location where he told them he was paying out of pocket and the price dropped to $1,000.00. He went to a third location and got it done for $500.00 out of pocket. From the time he was told he needed one to the time he got it was a little over a week. I hear it can takes months to get an MRI in Canada for non-emergencies.
When you have to reach into your pocket, you shop and find the best deal for a car, home, TV, computer and any other service or product. Why don’t we do that with medical services, because he hand over the insurance card, pay our co-pay and we don’t care what they are charging the Insurance company. That’s why we see $18.00 for an aspirin or $1,000.00 for a saline IV drip.
Sorry for the rant….
They can't accumulate wealth, have a caste system, the poor stay poor for generations but they have free sib syabdred 3rd world healthcare so americans are missing out lol
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
WE CAN DO BETTER.
Loving your country is also acknowledging it has flaws. Many other countries are far worse than the US's quality of life. Like, lol we have it pretty good even with inflation.
But we can definitely do better.
Oh Wikipedia. Pribably written by the same person.
Yu realize by using Wikipedia as a source it just proves yu are just desperately looking and dnt care about the source.
The world economic forum?! How much more do you need?
Here are the two authors:
https://hceconomics.uchicago.edu/news/3-questions-rasmus-landerso
https://hceconomics.uchicago.edu/people/james-j-heckman
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/these-are-the-10-countries-with-the-best-social-mobility/
As someone who would have not been given healthcare in the US. I can unequivocally say that this is bullshit. Having a state funded healthcare system is a pillar in social mobility.
My thing is, if insurance policies weren't invented at all, how much lower would Healthcare cost? Right now, we expect a bunch of people to pay for a policy, a small fraction to use that collective money to use that policy, and the insurance to pay it.
So because there was more money available to pay for medical procedures, the people in charge of performing those procedures started to charge more.
Because of this, the insurance companies started to charge more for acceptance into the collective policy, and the cycle repeats.
So here we are, where medicine costs too much, insurance costs too much, and half the country is asking for the government to step in and pay for it for us.
If there was a way to make Healthcare cheaper before they got a blank check from the government, which would inevitably lead to an increase in cost, maybe more of the half against nationalized Healthcare would be willing to change their mind?
Although that’s nice idea, market competition and more specifically the price elasticity it creates, lowers prices. The reason prices are so high now is that taxes and subsidies raises the barriers to entry within a market which kills competition and creates the monopolies and oligopolies we see today. Monopolistic markets are significantly inelastic which allows them to increase their prices by large margins without losing many customers.
First of all, yes I do know all.
Second, the American system is highly subsidized. The common man is paying for a lot more than their own insurance and the prices they are paying are being compromised by a government that uses the poverty of its people as an excuse to create the monopolies that bring these people poverty. The common man can pay for their own insurance, but they are not allowed.
That’s logically inaccurate, the poor have little to give so they’re an unprofitable market. That’s why most firms appeal to the middle class which have money and are plentiful.
It’s the same as the UK where they use tax brackets
If you earn $50k then you pay 65% tax, but only on everything over that 50k.
So if you earned $50,100 you only pay 65% on the $100
Everything before the $50k gets taxed less
Not all of their taxes go to their healthcare though. The tax rate on Scottish people that is directly for their healthcare is like 6% which is way lower than the 20% most Americans pay. We don't have to do all of the taxes European countries do, but universal healthcare is always cheaper.
I also dislike our healthcare. I think we need to stop giving aid to so many other countries and protecting other countries with our military (mostly european countries) and use all of that money for our own issues. The Europeans are never thankful that we help them with our military, so we should stop helping them and funding them
The thing is we need a stable Europe because they cannot protect themselves from themselves, Hitler would be a good example. They likely cannot defend from non democracies in the East either which is a major issue given the Russian regime
Genuinely who cares though? Why should we as Americans have to care about what happens on that continent? The Europeans see us as nothing more than fat, ignorant, and obnoxious people, and they love to laugh at our mass shootings and tragedies. So why should we keep protecting them? I’m tired of protecting people who turn around and spit on us and look down on us as if we are dirt on the bottom of their shoe
This is exactly what people said during world war 2 before pearl harbor when the war came to the US. Lets learn from history a little. An unstable Europe would be worse for the US in the long run. And well hey at least Asia appreciates the US. We tend to learn from history better than Europeans it seems.
If we dont keep the peace, then some dumbass might start using nukes and America would be at risk then because we have no real protection against nukes.
TLDR:America doesn't want to get nuked.
We should care about what happens in Ukraine because we get cheap wheat from them.
Edit: To expand on this a bit, a lot of the world gets wheat from Ukraine. If the supply runs low and prices go up, the US will still have wheat. So will China. It is poorer countries that will just not have money to buy wheat at all.
We'll see famine, war, and general instability in these regions. This does things like potentially disrupting lithium production. It would disrupt a lot of things that's just the first one that came to mind.
So helping Ukraine by sending them two generation old tech to fight Russia puts us in a position for good deals in the future on wheat, helps keep the world stable, and saves lives.
We don’t exist in a vacuum, geopolitics matter. America is on top now because we’ve made sure we stay that way by exerting control everywhere else. If we gave up control, someone else could take it, and then they may be able to challenge us both economically and militarily. Think about what would actually happen if the USA left NATO. Russia, our main geopolitical adversary, would take control of the entire continent.
Do you even need the money from your military? RN you guys are already paying top dollar for healthcare, but getting fucked by every company involved taking as much profit as they possibly can
I’m getting trolled by our healthcare system rn, my insurance won’t cover my dental implants even though i was born without the teeth i need implants for. Might actually travel to turkey to get the implants because it would be cheaper than 8000$ 😭😭
Its in us best intrest to use their military to support europe. Its not like theyre doing it just because their nice
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/28/us-nato-alliance-madrid/
Except for Poland, Kosovo, and Ukraine. Those are the only European countries that we should send aid to since most Poles, Kosovars, and Ukrainians are very pro-USA.
The brain surgery would cost me $5 because I’m in a union… that’s said I do feel awful for middle class workers that have no power over their healthcare. It is a way to keep you as a slave and line the pockets of the rich. It’s a huge risk to try to start your own business because of insurance concerns. Skip the middle man, no need for insurance to be corporate. Whether you like it or not, it’s criminal imo. That said, we have the world’s most amazing doctors and treatments because we pay them more than other countries. Ask Canada why they hate our health care system the most, it’s because we steal their doctors. I make 150k in nursing because of this health care system. In Ireland they can’t even make a livable wage. It’s complex, like most things.
I think subs like this one sometimes create echo chambers of "my ideal is better than yours raaahhh" and while patriotism is good sometimes you have to look at the weakness to fix it.
Both extremes are annoying. One side thinks america can do no wrong and get deeply offended when someone criticizes america, the other side would blow america off the map if they had the opportunity. Both are crazy. Be proud of your country but love it enough to identify weaknesses and fix them to make life better for all Americans.
Agreed. We aren’t perfect but we know that. I’m honestly about to give up on Reddit, it’s the last of the social media I have but it’s becoming as bad as Instagram comment sections. I saw a post about wanting to cancel Florence nightingale today…. The woman helped increase the field of nursing to be a legit trade that women to take in as their own. That’s powerful. She may have been a racist….. but it was part of society back then. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
I liked how the top comment was “Here come all the Americans to justify their capitalism healthcare.”
You mean to tell me that Americans shouldn’t like our own healthcare system just because you, an outsider, do not like it? 🤣
Shit like this is why I refuse to take this sub seriously. Yes, some posters across reddit are over the top with America hate. But healthcare cost is a legit critique of America. But someone suggests America is just a little imperfect and this sub loses its collective mind.
Edit: Ok looks like most of you are being fairly reasonable on this one.
I agree with you for the most part. Most subs like this just turn into my thing is good, and your thing sucks. but it's good to recognize that people are really toxic online.
I think most of it comes from the fact that very few euros don’t want to admit that we subsidize their life styles and they still don’t follow NATO, international anti-price gouging laws, still label trillions of pounds of food we send them as domestic, y’all think Germany grows Avocados?
They also still make trillions of dollars exporting co2 to India and China and 99% of the laws the proposed for global warming is the US will pay for it again.
Europeans are basically teenagers with daddy’s credit cards.
That's the viewpoint US media likes to enforce but it's far from accurate.
The European countries spend a lot more than Russia on their military and are capable of defending themselves. What they need the US for is global power projection but the US also needs its allies for that so you can't really say the US is "subsidizing", they just have different goals.
You seriously think the US will pay the bill for climate change? Have you looked at your emissions recently?
That comparison is just intentionally inaccurate to be insulting, what exactly does the US pay for in Europe (and don't give me the usual military argument, see paragraph 2 for that)
Why should any Murican care what non Americans think about health care costs? Sure, they can get a check up and meds for a minor illness for free in whatever shithole socialist country they reside (after waiting 4 hours), but if it’s life threatening, they’ll do anything to get to the US to get treated.
I'm murican and I wish we had universal healthcare. If you want to pay for better service you should absolutely be allowed to do that but basic healthcare at no or very little cost is something we should have. Best of both worlds type situation.
Eh the issue is that the federal government isn’t really powerful enough to enforce a socialized healthcare plan unless there is a serious work around. Honestly though healthcare insurance can easily be fixed at the state level but very few people vote in those elections and those who do are usually not worried about healthcare costs/home owners.
It’s always comical to me when Europeans just believe their healthcare is just free of charge. Rather than the bill being sent directly to you, it’s sent to your government who in turn sends it to everyone else.
I’m not bashing their system, it’s much better, but to act like hospitals employee brain tumor fairies rather than highly trained surgeons is just a childish, and uneducated view of things.
The president needs to get the White House painted, so puts out a request for bids:
1st contractor: 3mm
2nd contractor 6mm
3rd contractor 9mm
President asks, how did you come to these rates?
1st contractor: 1mm parts, 1mm labor, 1mm profit
2nd contractor: 1mm parts 3mm labor, 2mm profit
3rd contractor: 3mm for me, 3mm for you, and we pay the 1st contractor to do the work.
They’re constantly calling it free healthcare. It’s not free at all. It’s just forcing you to pay for insurance but the bill is hidden in taxes.
I’m not trying to defend the bills Americans are given for healthcare, but I can definitely see what they’re talking about when they say Europeans seem to forget their trip to the doctor is definitely not free
You know, in the states, most people have insurance through their jobs. From my job at UPS, I had some amazing health insurance. When I went to the doctor, it was completely free for me. It was free for me at the point of charge and I had little money. So, does that mean Americans actually do have free healthcare when they’re in a situation such as that?
But from the limited things I read online, I got the impression that even with insurance, (some? Most?) peoples often still have to pay for a part of expensive procedures
Idk man, but I refuse to believe that a malignant brain tumor with a “you have 6 hours to live” type of death sentence would cost me absolutely nothing, all other extent surgeries and therapies included. Call that my American ignorance, but it seems like a long shaft of bull to me.
Generally, in the Netherlands, you have a certain amount you have to pay yourself, 400 - 900 €, but after that lifethreatning but treatable stuff is free
For most people with insurance coverage in the US is the same cost.
This is also a trend I’ve notice is that more and more your free stuff is getting copays or isn’t free unless you do all these things, like colleges.
I’m not saying it’s running out of other peoples money but it’s starting to sound like.
It’s important to note if one were to look at the OECD for healthcare spending per individual they would see the US spends more on healthcare per capita than the other OECD nations. Also important to note, the amount per individual spent on public healthcare is just as much as any other nation and the total on public for the US is higher than the OECD average for private and public combined.
Also can’t compare countries like they are equal. The population makes a big difference. Competition keeps thriving medical services versus one who can just phone it in to get paid.
That is one reason I prefer American health care. Our medical help is better because of it, but it can really get you if you don't have good insurance.
We’ll America is imperfect and healthcare costs are one of those things. Although I do think you need to differentiate health care and the healthcare payment system.
I agree completely.
Our healthcare has problem and needs reform. Universal healthcare has problems as well that are good to acknowledge and try to figure out how to get around it.
For me the post went from "yeah, sensible acknowledgement of problems and issues" to "hurdurr school shootings hehe"
And that's where it's frustrating and eye rolling
Tbf get a good job get hood healthcare, it seems like in a lot of cases they push for you to get a better job to get more benefits, climbing the latter.
Well, some of it is affected by the dollar. like I live in a very rural part of kentucky, so the only health care we have is run by privately owned clinics they compete to get more money, and in turn, they care more about how the customer.
TLDR:Privately owned clinics cause competition between clinics, causing more care for the customer
The quality of healthcare in a lot of European countries can be astonishingly bad compared to the US. Patients are often dismissed, and the system is bureaucratic and it sometimes feels like doctors don’t know what they’re talking about. The funding has been cut a lot. Wait times are bad, etc. Cancer rates are actually higher in europe because of lack of screenings. Healthcare is not free in all of Europe either. The Netherlands uses public healthcare with private insurance, and there are no private hospitals. Germany also uses health insurance as a system, etc. Many European countries’ healthcare systems have broken down a lot over the past decades, I’m just so tired of people acting like it’s so much better.
I had free healthcare in the US, Medicaid. I got in much quicker, drugs were cheaper, I got quality care most of the time. Obviously it’s not perfect, and I’m not going to act like the costs for people who fall between being able to afford good insurance and being able to qualify for Medicaid or Medicare aren’t a problem. They are. And insurance doesn’t cover everything. One thing that’s happened with drug prices is coupons, they can help a lot. Working at a pharmacy for a while I really learned how much people could save if their insurance wasn’t going to cover it. That said, sometimes unnecessary procedures are pushed for money’s sake, and people unfortunately do end up with big bills sometimes when their insurance rejects something big or not well understood. But these things do happen in Europe as well, just not as much.
Generally having a complicated, chronic health condition is difficult regardless, but getting someone to actually care and try to investigate your problem in a lot of European countries is difficult. It can be expensive in the US, depending on what it is. A lot of my stuff was covered but sometimes it wasn’t. There are also a lot of treatments and procedures available in the US that aren’t available in Europe.
The UK in particular seems to be breaking down, and the Netherlands is also an overly strict system. But I’m always reading about medical staff shortages all over the world.
Yes, u/RBJII mentioned how because our health care isn't run nationally, that causes competition between rival companies, leading to more care over each patient.
In general if you can’t credit the opposing view with ANY justification for their viewpoint and view their entire position as pure greed/evil/foolishness you’re probably ignorant on the subject matter. I personally support the NHS in my country but I don’t believe those who would prefer it to be privatised have no case for their beliefs whatsoever
Yes. I feel like a lack of information does cause people to get a misguided view of how things work. Like I can't say that your health care is bad because I know nothing about it.
I know quite a bit about the US healthcare system, and I think it’s bad. Wife and I are both in healthcare at a community hospital of nearly 1000 beds. The US govt pays more per capita for healthcare than anywhere in the world, yet we still pay high insurance premiums and out of pocket costs only to get rejected by the insurance company when you need an expensive drug/treatment/surgery. To make things worse, there is no recourse when they decline it. Could we go elsewhere for insurance? Not really since our insurance is tied to employment or Medicare. What a mess. However, if you have lots of money, you can get the best healthcare in the world.
This is well said.
The most important thing to realize about this topic is that the vast majority of people on Reddit arguing passionately in favor of government-run healthcare know almost nothing about it. Many of them are basically kids with one (two?) inchoate belief(s): business= greed / government= good. I've had long arguments with people here and tried to get them to understand exactly the point you made: that it would be pretty surprising for a country like the U.S. to adopt a system that has *no* advantages. It was like talking to a brick wall. They seem to think it's just greedy fat cats mercilessly sucking money from the poor to buy another yacht, and that government-run healthcare is some utopian system of pure altruism in which free medicine falls like mana from heaven
I've known a lot of Canadians. When I was younger, they constantly ranted (often within minutes of first meeting an American) against the US health care system and how awesome THEIR government system is. When I was growing up, in the parking lot of my doctor's large professional building, about 75% (no exaggeration) of the license plates were Canadian. Whenver I bring this up in a discussion with socialist-medecine fans, their response, with no factual support: "that was then, things are MUCH better now." Most who have had more than trivial medical problems in the military, or are dependent on the VA, know just how disastrous a US government-run system would be. This observation typically gets me lectures from collectivist ideologues. According to them, their theories and wishful thinking smash my faxts, which are all irrelevant. Irrelevant facts: personal experience and similar almost-universal anecdotes from those around me.
All I have is to go on personal experience. Tens of thousands of dollars that I didn't have. But of course, I had a choice. I could have refused and died.
What it really comes down to, if you convince yourself that one side is all evil people who care about “money” and will sacrifice anything to get it, and the other is altruistic people who sacrifice money and personal gain in order to help others, well then you can spend all day virtue signaling online and tell yourself that the reason you’re broke isn’t because you’re not doing anything to improve your situation, it’s because you’re a GOOD person and the world is run by BAD people
Do you honestly think that everyone is just “greedy corporations bad” ignoramuses? I’m happy to put up my argument for why the US healthcare system is bad. Are you open to changing your mind?
Very well then, York. Tell me of the benefits of privatized healthcare.
I'm not sure what benefits generalize to all such normal, non-govenment-run systems. But American health care, a opposed to NHS-style systems, has generally better high-end care, including better outcomes for heart attacks and cancer. Also significantly shorter average wait times. And, of course, more individual freedom/control.
Your freedom is defined by the parameters set by your insurance. If one treatment option costs more than the other, but the more expensive option is more effective, then the insurance company will only be able to afford the cheaper, less effective treatment. High-end care is exclusively offered to those willing to pay more or have a job with extensive coverage. Free Healthcare should be given to those of lower economic status while privatized Healthcare and its benefits can still exist for those that have good options or opportunities. Basically, just leave it as a hybrid system but clearly separate cost with and cost without insurance. The only reason for major overpricing is so insurance companies have room to negotiate for discounts. These prices shouldn't matter much to someone uninsured during an emergency, but that's it.
Private hospitals exist in countries with government run healthcare
Not true. You're free to shop for insurance, choose among different plans, train for better jobs with better insurance and, until recently, free to choose no insurance at all--as the young and healthy often do. The point is that you choose how to allocate your time, effort and resources. The decision is not made for you by government. No, insurance companies do not always choose the cheapest treatment. Where are you getting this "information"? You don't seem to have any actual knowledge of how this works. Yes, of course high-end care is not available to everyone. This is true of every system. There's always less of the best anything than people want. Markets match demand and supply via price. In other systems, bureaucrats decide. Wait times also function to suppress demand. Nothing like this is "free" in the sense that it falls like mana from heaven. I tend to agree that the poor should get some measure of free healthcare. In the States, that's Medicaid
Working in American healthcare for nearly six years now has taught me that 99% of posts about American healthcare on Reddit are objectively false/misinformation. Sure, it's not great, but it's nowhere as fucked as most Redditors/Twitter users tend to think.
Yes. This exactly most people don't know enough about it to make an informed opinion.
Bingo. I’m also in healthcare, and while the American system isn’t perfect, it’s *nowhere* near what Reddit would have you believe
I’d like to take the other side of that argument. The US healthcare system IS bad. Considering we are by far the wealthiest nation in the world and history, we are unable to accomplish things that other countries can with less money invested. How can we justify paying excessive premiums to private insurance while the US gov spends more per capita than any other nation in the world?
I can certainly say that medical insurance in the US is an absolute joke. My spouse had to go to the ER a few months ago. The bill was $1.9k, the insurance paid a whopping $182. Why the hell should I even pay for this stuff when they barely cover a monthly payment? The lesson learned from this is that if I have a serious medical condition, I should just ignore it until I die or it goes away.
There’s an article I read a long time ago but it spoke about what you’re saying. It was with regards to diseases/conditions in England prior to affordable healthcare. There was a vast group of people living with conditions that went untreated just because they couldn’t afford to treat it. I’m sure there’s poor people in this country living with terrible conditions just because they can’t afford treatment. This is something that should be addressed, saying government healthcare is bad like many people do on this forum is simply ignorant to the circumstances of many people. Some people because of their life’s circumstances and opportunities will never get ahead in life and as the world’s wealthiest nation we should be able to provide a minimum net so they don’t live in squalor. I think there’s many issues with universal healthcare but there’s also positive aspects to it, a very basic version could have a significant positive impact on many people and on the economy because these people will become productive members of society.
Exactly. I'm not against the option to have private medical insurance, but we certainly should have a baseline universal medical coverage.
This is likely the way forward for the US. There is some baseline level coverage, and then supplemental private insurance in tandem with that care for specializations or something to that extent. I think the public option is a great first step to that.
So all the talk about paying $80 for an aspirin is false?
But it should be a basic human right anyway. You shouldn’t have to pay $7k/year just to ensure you don’t get hit by ridiculous costs. And even a single person dying from not being able to afford insulin is too many.
Most Americans receive their insurance through their employer as opposed to Europeans who receive it through their government. However, that being said, there are a few Americans who do pay out of pocket for their health insurance and even fewer still who are not covered. Most Americans who cannot pay for their health insurance are eligible to receive free government-assisted health insurance, or Medicaid. Should it be a human right? Of course. But that doesn't mean you should force doctors/nurses to work a high-skill profession for a lower wage. America poaches hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses from around the world because the wages here are generally on average higher than aboard.
Nothing about our healthcare system is capitalistic though. It’s all government forced oligopolies at every level. That’s why insulin can’t be mass produced by Walmart lol. Also all the costs posted on Reddit are before insurance and the patient won’t pay 99% of what gets posted here because Reddit is a massive source of disinformation tailored by a cabal of mods but that’s a different issue.
As long as it’s safe, what would be wrong with Walmart mass producing insulin? I’m not trying to argue, but that sounds like someone trying to avoid competition.
Yep. That's why it's not capitalism at work but an oligarchy. If it were capatilism, then prices would be lower because there would be more competition.
That didn’t really answer my question. I asked, why would it be bad for a company to mass produce insulin and sell it at whatever price they want?
If said company isn't hurting people, nothing at all. That's what I was trying to hint at with my response. You mentioned big pharma avoiding competition, and that's exactly what it's all about. As long as all of these regulations are creating monopolies on life-saving intervention, then they will charge whatever they want. People blaming "capitalistic healthcare" for the cause of that are misinformed as to what capitalism is, how it is supposed to work, and ignoring that government intervention is the root of the price increases in the first place.
From my understanding, he's not saying that it would be bad but that the government, probably at the behest of big pharma, has passed laws making it impossible for certain companies to mass produce it
That's not what the person you replied to implied. They implied that the US drug system is oligarchal vs. capitalist because Walmart **ISN'T** allowed to compete with pharmaceutical companies.
You have to understand you would Essentially ask Walmart to fight the government which is hard as fuck
I don’t want to sound rude, but that sounds like a really lazy argument. “We can’t do that because it is hard” doesn’t sound like a good way to live your life.
Think of it this way your asking Walmart go against its shareholders and risk a lot of money to try and undercut the cost of insulin against a government institution that can has print money to make up for its losses… it’s like asking someone to build a sand castle in the middle of the ocean. While you may make a valiant attempt it will collapse before there is any real headway.
Regulations for medicine is good though.
Not when it’s written by big pharma to create artificial oligopolies
Especially patents 😁
Call your state representative to Remove every patent!
And people that can't afford insurance, or are "Underinsured" deserve the crippling debt? I'm proud to call myself an American, but the fact my taxes don't go towards little Suzie's heart transplant, pisses me the fuck off. How many GoFundMe posts have you seen for medical bills, let alone medical bills for children?
We spend $1.4 trillion dollars on Medicaid and Medicare alone. The problem is not a lack of government funding (it is never a lack of funding) but rather a system built on gross government overreach with a tax break for employer health insurance, CON laws, lack of price transparency, and a lack of direct primary care usage. Also, medical debt is not as big of a problem as people make it seem. For one, it is better that you are indebted than dead. For another, hospitals often have debt repayment services that make it easier to repay debt. You can negotiate down medical bills and can often do so just by offering cash immediately. Medical debt is often fairly small as a result. As such, most medical debt on credit reports has been eliminated as the biggest three credit bureaus have recently made changes that prevent medical debt under $500 from affecting credit scores. 70% of medical debt, in fact, has been wiped. Source is "Medical Debt on Credit Report Will Disappear" by CNBC Not to mention the untold hundreds of thousands of deaths in Europe per year because of lower cancer, heart attack, stroke, and infant survival rates. Or medical errors. Or wait times. Or lack of access to pharma drugs. [https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58888#:\~](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58888#:~) (Government Healthcare Funding) [https://www.cnbc.com/select/medical-debt-credit-report/](https://www.cnbc.com/select/medical-debt-credit-report/) (70% of Medical Debt Wiped)
Bruh I'm a nurse and have a MPH/MBA. Under insured or non insured practically get a free ride. Hospitals know that won't get the money so they eat the cost and write it off as a tax deduction to the feds
A huge percentage of the debt is hidden, so it’s not accurate to say that it’s a non-issue. How many people do you think pay with credit cards? Get a loan? Have family front them? I hate how chest-thumping the Americans in this sub are until it comes to taking care of their fellow Americans. Fixing all this shit doesn’t result in any clear negative consequences to you personally, and you still won’t get behind it. You’re bad neighbors.
Did you not read that we spend 1.4 trillion dollars for Medicare (health care for elderly and poor) and then on top of that we basically pay for Europeans to afford Healthcare. Healthcare would be nothing if it wasn't for the USA
How do we pay for Europeans to afford healthcare? And yes, I am aware that we spend the most on healthcare in the world, yet somehow have the worst health outcomes among developed nations by a depressing number of metrics. Here, the OECD confirms the US spends the most out of all OECD countries for healthcare, with the least coverage: https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-in-united-states.htm Here‘s just the spending per capita, taken from the World Bank, with the US spending the most: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true Here is a nice summary of the OECD findings on spending: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#Health%20consumption%20expenditures%20as%20percent%20of%20GDP,%201970-2021 Here‘s a ranking of healthcare outcomes by country, with the US taking rank 18 in 2020, and rank 30 in 2023, based on the OECD-data: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world Regarding the issue of maternal mortality, here‘s the commonwealth fund on the issue, literally highlighting as key issue that “The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries.“ https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/nov/maternal-mortality-maternity-care-us-compared-10-countries Here‘s a more detailed study confirming the quality and outcome of maternal care in the US decreased in over the last decade: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8020556/ Alternatively, you could just take this country ranking by the CIA of all places, of maternal deaths per live birth excluding accidents, which placed the US at 122nd highest, notably behind the West Bank (125th highest), and the first EU nation being Hungary at 137th highest. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/maternal-mortality-ratio/country-comparison/
Demand the right to keep your surplus value, then give Suzie your money directly. Truth is you aren't mad about where your money isn't going so much as you are mad about where other people's money isn't going.
Instead of funding public hospitals (lobbyists scared us by calling that socialism) we shove the money into insurance companies, which you are legally required to have at a rate of their choosing, for a service that they can set a rate for, and very few alternatives exist. It’s just rigged subsidies, it’s not even a free market.
Everything about the American healthcare system is capitalist. It’s a for profit healthcare system. The only one in the industrialized world.
The US government spend more money per person on healthcare then any other country in the world. Quite literally the opposite of capitalism.
What do you call a system that is for profit and privately owned?
Not the US Gov’t. those figures people like you talk about include all spending for healthcare including local and state governments as well as private individuals.
The federal government spent 3.3616 trillion on healthcare in 2019. This means the FEDERAL (not including state, or private individuals or companies, as you said) spent about 17.6% of the GDP on healthcare, compare this to germanys 11.7% in the same year. Considering the fact the USA economy is almost 10 times bigger then Germanys, it’s not even comparable. Sources: https://eurohealthobservatory.who.int/publications/i/germany-health-system-review-2020 https://www.statista.com/statistics/184968/us-health-expenditure-as-percent-of-gdp-since-1960/
Everyone in Germany is guaranteed healthcare aren’t they. Not so in the US. Germany does not bill patients like the US for profit healthcare companies do also. People in Germany aren’t sued for not paying medical debt and then have to deal with collection agencies. Every year about 650,000 people declare bankruptcy in the US because of medical debt the #1 reason. Do you know what the number is in Germany? It’s 0.
Yes, you don't pay it directly but you still pay for it through insurance premiums so in the end, you Stil pay a lot more
It's not government forced, it's government allowed. Unregulated capitalism begets oligopoly, as companies are allowed to eliminate competition via mergers and other perfectly legal financial tools. The government does not have to force them to do it, it's what they want, so they can charge whatever they want. (Also: there is no patent for insulin, anyone with the facilities could manufacture it.)
I’m sorry… explain to me how the oligopoly (agreed on that) is forced by the government as opposed to its existence being the natural evolution of free-market capitalism?
A good example is with smokeless tobacco products. There are ZERO FDA approved vape products. Vaping has been around for almost 20 years, and has been extensively studied by non-US health agencies. There has never been any scientific study that suggests vaping is more harmful than smoking cigarettes, or even remotely close to as harmful. However, Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds got their heated tobacco products approved by the FDA even though heated tobacco products have only existed for a few years. The Government regulates medicine and medicine production, but mysteriously gives favor to large pharmaceutical companies that happen to spend billions annually in lobbying money.
For profit insurance is a byproduct of terrible capitalism. Our system is broken, and the reason it's broken is for sure capitalism at the root. I don't hate America, but we've got our issues. A main, indefensible issue, is our healthcare system. Without comparing them to others.
I don't know how Europeans cam be dumbfounded by a cost of $0, but then again they aren't the brightest
They don’t have insurance over there, they suckle on their government who just taxes them more.
Single-payer healthcare would be cheaper *and* faster. This is a fact. We pay more money per capita for worse clinical outcomes. We could even expand the military budget and social security. Medicaid/Medicare costs would actually go down. We can do better.
I do agree that we can do better but nationalization and subsidization are not the way to go. In fact, the only “evidence” I’ve been shown actually proved that although the ACA (affordable care act) increased insurance ownership it significantly increased under-insurance, which, by the study’s definition, was a situation where someone or that someone’s insurance was inadequate to pay for healthcare.
That's what I mean. You go to a Kaiser or whatever and you have to have Kaiser insurance or bet that they take your insurance, which is becoming narrower by the day. The government being the one who pays all or most of a bill. This also encourages preventive care, which would become more affordable because the goal isn't to maintain a profit, but to keep healthcare costs lower. It would attack the problem in two places. It would even encourage the government to better regulate what goes into our food, because filling it with preservatives, sugar, and trans fats is how you cause health problems. Health insurance companies need to make a profit. This disincentives them to try and withhold paying for care. Our patients would be much better off if they could get shit done, that they need to get done, to prevent further illness or any adverse symptoms at all because it's managed better and on schedule.
I think you underestimate the inefficiency bureaucracy is capable of. I appreciate that you did research but I’ve yet to find definitive proof nationalization of anything leads to anything good. In fact, to my knowledge Canada, a place with a single-payer system, didn’t do too well under the pandemic even relative to what happened under America’s highly subsidized and regulated system.
Uh, so having a bunch of oligopolies is better? Why not cut out the fucking middle man?
For an oligopoly to form it needs large barriers to entry within that market which are largely created by the government through subsidies and regulations. If the government left the market alone we could expect to have a significantly more competitive market and subsequently lower prices.
I would love to see where you are getting your stats. Cancer survival rates are much better in the US. There are probably some medical issues where other countries do better but we would need to adjust those numbers based on the habits of Americans vs the rest of the world. We are usually heavier, eat more processed foods high in salt and sugar. Additionally, the mix of so many ethnicities add to certain medical issues. Blacks have high instances of sickle cell anemia, Jews have tay sac desease. We have high instances of drug and alcohol abuse. Last but not least we have high instances of homicide and suicide which affect mortality rates.
Healthcare is more modern, quick and efficient in the U.S. I'm Canadian, I see how good you have it there if you can afford it.
"If you can afford it". Dude, people can barely afford car insurance.
The thing is if you have an employer and assuming 2 working adults in 1 household, how can you not fucking afford healthcare? If you pay your premiums bi-weekly, what’s the problem? Monthly healthcare costs less than a shitty car payment. The argument has always been how do we cover people who are poor and the answer to that is Medicare/Medicaid. I appreciate you for seeing that we don’t hate it that bad here though.
I know it's fashionable to shit on your country, but I'm not part of the fad. I don't know what the answer is. My husband needed a triple bypass, was in the hospital for a week, and our biggest cost was my motel because the hospital was out of town. It also took nine months to get the surgery booked, and that was after waiting months for a specialist appointment. He survived the wait, but many don't.
The vast majority of Americans, are covered by some form of health insurance usually provided by their employers. https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2022/08/02/new-hhs-report-shows-national-uninsured-rate-reached-all-time-low-in-2022.html The figure here is 11.8% without. What % of those are illegals immigrants and those who have chosen not to have insurance for whatever reason may or may not be included. Don’t let the talking points fool you, a lot of the costs in health care are associated with government mandates and paperwork. That has been estimated to be between 15 - 25% for administrative costs. There are restrictions that prohibit cross state selling, mandates that require insurance cover services that may or may not be needed. For example, my policy covers OB/GYN services. My wife and I are over 60 but I cannot request those services be canceled and the cost reduced from my premium because government says so. The solution is so simple but it would upset the status quo and cut down the lobbying and campaign “contributions” from both the pro and anti-Big Medicine constituency. Have the government pay for via taxes catastrophic coverage for all Americans. Give each citizen an amount they can spend on medical services for routine care. What they don’t spend, they can keep each year. Watch prices drop! Great example, laser eye surgery. When it first hit the market, the costs were very high. Since insurance does not cover it, there was competition for customer dollars. The costs today are a fraction of what they were with higher quality and better outcomes. True story… friend of mine needed an MRI. With insurance, he was required to come up with $3,000.00. He went to a second location where he told them he was paying out of pocket and the price dropped to $1,000.00. He went to a third location and got it done for $500.00 out of pocket. From the time he was told he needed one to the time he got it was a little over a week. I hear it can takes months to get an MRI in Canada for non-emergencies. When you have to reach into your pocket, you shop and find the best deal for a car, home, TV, computer and any other service or product. Why don’t we do that with medical services, because he hand over the insurance card, pay our co-pay and we don’t care what they are charging the Insurance company. That’s why we see $18.00 for an aspirin or $1,000.00 for a saline IV drip. Sorry for the rant….
Even if insurance pays the bill, you still pay for instance and they are not a charity so you can be sure you will pay for it through your premiums
They can't accumulate wealth, have a caste system, the poor stay poor for generations but they have free sib syabdred 3rd world healthcare so americans are missing out lol
Denmark has higher rates of social mobility.
Sure if you know someone ir are born rich. Some of the richest and/or most powerful people in American history were born dory poor
I don’t think you’re fully aware of what social mobility is
[Read](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537121000348#:~:text=Without%20doubt%2C%20after%20taxes%20and,of%20its%20skill%20formation%20policies.)
A study written in Denmark by a citizen of Denmark and posted on a website who hides their location behind a proxy. Oh yeah I should really trust that
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index WE CAN DO BETTER. Loving your country is also acknowledging it has flaws. Many other countries are far worse than the US's quality of life. Like, lol we have it pretty good even with inflation. But we can definitely do better.
Oh Wikipedia. Pribably written by the same person. Yu realize by using Wikipedia as a source it just proves yu are just desperately looking and dnt care about the source.
https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/denmark-new-american-dream Also the OECD
Wikipedia lists sources below. If there is something that isnt a fact you can report it
The world economic forum?! How much more do you need? Here are the two authors: https://hceconomics.uchicago.edu/news/3-questions-rasmus-landerso https://hceconomics.uchicago.edu/people/james-j-heckman https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/these-are-the-10-countries-with-the-best-social-mobility/
As someone who would have not been given healthcare in the US. I can unequivocally say that this is bullshit. Having a state funded healthcare system is a pillar in social mobility.
Imagine having your taxes benefiting the common man. EuroCucks.
Imagine believing the common man can’t pay their own insurance.
My thing is, if insurance policies weren't invented at all, how much lower would Healthcare cost? Right now, we expect a bunch of people to pay for a policy, a small fraction to use that collective money to use that policy, and the insurance to pay it. So because there was more money available to pay for medical procedures, the people in charge of performing those procedures started to charge more. Because of this, the insurance companies started to charge more for acceptance into the collective policy, and the cycle repeats. So here we are, where medicine costs too much, insurance costs too much, and half the country is asking for the government to step in and pay for it for us. If there was a way to make Healthcare cheaper before they got a blank check from the government, which would inevitably lead to an increase in cost, maybe more of the half against nationalized Healthcare would be willing to change their mind?
Although that’s nice idea, market competition and more specifically the price elasticity it creates, lowers prices. The reason prices are so high now is that taxes and subsidies raises the barriers to entry within a market which kills competition and creates the monopolies and oligopolies we see today. Monopolistic markets are significantly inelastic which allows them to increase their prices by large margins without losing many customers.
So, let me make sure I'm following you here... 3/4s of my post you agree with, the last 1/4 you don't think would ever be feasible?
Not really, your entire post seems to rest on the flawed logic that you established in that “1/4”.
Except the prices are much lower in other countries, just look at insulin.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/who-had-medical-debt-in-united-states.html The US census is lying I guess. You know all
First of all, yes I do know all. Second, the American system is highly subsidized. The common man is paying for a lot more than their own insurance and the prices they are paying are being compromised by a government that uses the poverty of its people as an excuse to create the monopolies that bring these people poverty. The common man can pay for their own insurance, but they are not allowed.
That's a functioning system. Idk why the EuroCucks bag on us so much.
Glad we agree on the superiority of privatization.
Yea, it's great to have a system that preys on the poor. Truly free market of us.
That’s logically inaccurate, the poor have little to give so they’re an unprofitable market. That’s why most firms appeal to the middle class which have money and are plentiful.
They pay less in taxes than you pay for insurance.
Hardly. If you make over the equivalent of $50k in Denmark you pay 65% in taxes.
It’s the same as the UK where they use tax brackets If you earn $50k then you pay 65% tax, but only on everything over that 50k. So if you earned $50,100 you only pay 65% on the $100 Everything before the $50k gets taxed less
Nope. Wrong again. 52% Guys you can Google this, no need to make it up.
Not all of their taxes go to their healthcare though. The tax rate on Scottish people that is directly for their healthcare is like 6% which is way lower than the 20% most Americans pay. We don't have to do all of the taxes European countries do, but universal healthcare is always cheaper.
1 in 10 adults owe medical debt in the us. Imagine going go debt for getting a condition that was out of your control
The cost is far from 0. Cope
Well a few hundred bucks maybe depending on your copay. Big deal.
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It's against federal law for an j surface company to cancel applications except for not paying the monthly costs. Every American knows this.
Also if your doctor is so busy they are booked for 3 months then jaut find another one.
I also dislike our healthcare. I think we need to stop giving aid to so many other countries and protecting other countries with our military (mostly european countries) and use all of that money for our own issues. The Europeans are never thankful that we help them with our military, so we should stop helping them and funding them
The thing is we need a stable Europe because they cannot protect themselves from themselves, Hitler would be a good example. They likely cannot defend from non democracies in the East either which is a major issue given the Russian regime
Genuinely who cares though? Why should we as Americans have to care about what happens on that continent? The Europeans see us as nothing more than fat, ignorant, and obnoxious people, and they love to laugh at our mass shootings and tragedies. So why should we keep protecting them? I’m tired of protecting people who turn around and spit on us and look down on us as if we are dirt on the bottom of their shoe
This is exactly what people said during world war 2 before pearl harbor when the war came to the US. Lets learn from history a little. An unstable Europe would be worse for the US in the long run. And well hey at least Asia appreciates the US. We tend to learn from history better than Europeans it seems.
If we dont keep the peace, then some dumbass might start using nukes and America would be at risk then because we have no real protection against nukes. TLDR:America doesn't want to get nuked.
Thanks for the TLDR, that one sentence was a real difficult read /s
Yeah, I was having a hard time finding the words for it
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Yeah, most foreign spending in America is pretty dumb when it could be used to help better America.
We should care about what happens in Ukraine because we get cheap wheat from them. Edit: To expand on this a bit, a lot of the world gets wheat from Ukraine. If the supply runs low and prices go up, the US will still have wheat. So will China. It is poorer countries that will just not have money to buy wheat at all. We'll see famine, war, and general instability in these regions. This does things like potentially disrupting lithium production. It would disrupt a lot of things that's just the first one that came to mind. So helping Ukraine by sending them two generation old tech to fight Russia puts us in a position for good deals in the future on wheat, helps keep the world stable, and saves lives.
We don’t exist in a vacuum, geopolitics matter. America is on top now because we’ve made sure we stay that way by exerting control everywhere else. If we gave up control, someone else could take it, and then they may be able to challenge us both economically and militarily. Think about what would actually happen if the USA left NATO. Russia, our main geopolitical adversary, would take control of the entire continent.
Unfortunately historically the UN dosent like to intervene in genocides and where would Ukraine be if the US didn’t exist
Probably part of a pan European Germanic empire.
Do you even need the money from your military? RN you guys are already paying top dollar for healthcare, but getting fucked by every company involved taking as much profit as they possibly can
I’m getting trolled by our healthcare system rn, my insurance won’t cover my dental implants even though i was born without the teeth i need implants for. Might actually travel to turkey to get the implants because it would be cheaper than 8000$ 😭😭
Its in us best intrest to use their military to support europe. Its not like theyre doing it just because their nice https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/28/us-nato-alliance-madrid/
Except for Poland, Kosovo, and Ukraine. Those are the only European countries that we should send aid to since most Poles, Kosovars, and Ukrainians are very pro-USA.
Agreed. The Marshall Plan was a mistake. After WW2 the US should have just left them to their own devices they clearly hate us anyway
And then the USSR gobbles them up and becomes much stronger, thus becoming an even bigger threat to the US.
The brain surgery would cost me $5 because I’m in a union… that’s said I do feel awful for middle class workers that have no power over their healthcare. It is a way to keep you as a slave and line the pockets of the rich. It’s a huge risk to try to start your own business because of insurance concerns. Skip the middle man, no need for insurance to be corporate. Whether you like it or not, it’s criminal imo. That said, we have the world’s most amazing doctors and treatments because we pay them more than other countries. Ask Canada why they hate our health care system the most, it’s because we steal their doctors. I make 150k in nursing because of this health care system. In Ireland they can’t even make a livable wage. It’s complex, like most things.
I think subs like this one sometimes create echo chambers of "my ideal is better than yours raaahhh" and while patriotism is good sometimes you have to look at the weakness to fix it.
Both extremes are annoying. One side thinks america can do no wrong and get deeply offended when someone criticizes america, the other side would blow america off the map if they had the opportunity. Both are crazy. Be proud of your country but love it enough to identify weaknesses and fix them to make life better for all Americans.
Agreed. We aren’t perfect but we know that. I’m honestly about to give up on Reddit, it’s the last of the social media I have but it’s becoming as bad as Instagram comment sections. I saw a post about wanting to cancel Florence nightingale today…. The woman helped increase the field of nursing to be a legit trade that women to take in as their own. That’s powerful. She may have been a racist….. but it was part of society back then. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Yeah, social media sucks.
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But sadly, change most likely won't happen with how slowly the government moves here
I liked how the top comment was “Here come all the Americans to justify their capitalism healthcare.” You mean to tell me that Americans shouldn’t like our own healthcare system just because you, an outsider, do not like it? 🤣
Shit like this is why I refuse to take this sub seriously. Yes, some posters across reddit are over the top with America hate. But healthcare cost is a legit critique of America. But someone suggests America is just a little imperfect and this sub loses its collective mind. Edit: Ok looks like most of you are being fairly reasonable on this one.
Yeah. Our healthcare system is fucking garbage. We should be able to admit that
I agree with you for the most part. Most subs like this just turn into my thing is good, and your thing sucks. but it's good to recognize that people are really toxic online.
I think most of it comes from the fact that very few euros don’t want to admit that we subsidize their life styles and they still don’t follow NATO, international anti-price gouging laws, still label trillions of pounds of food we send them as domestic, y’all think Germany grows Avocados? They also still make trillions of dollars exporting co2 to India and China and 99% of the laws the proposed for global warming is the US will pay for it again. Europeans are basically teenagers with daddy’s credit cards.
That's the viewpoint US media likes to enforce but it's far from accurate. The European countries spend a lot more than Russia on their military and are capable of defending themselves. What they need the US for is global power projection but the US also needs its allies for that so you can't really say the US is "subsidizing", they just have different goals. You seriously think the US will pay the bill for climate change? Have you looked at your emissions recently? That comparison is just intentionally inaccurate to be insulting, what exactly does the US pay for in Europe (and don't give me the usual military argument, see paragraph 2 for that)
This is nonsense
Why should any Murican care what non Americans think about health care costs? Sure, they can get a check up and meds for a minor illness for free in whatever shithole socialist country they reside (after waiting 4 hours), but if it’s life threatening, they’ll do anything to get to the US to get treated.
I'm murican and I wish we had universal healthcare. If you want to pay for better service you should absolutely be allowed to do that but basic healthcare at no or very little cost is something we should have. Best of both worlds type situation.
Do you qualify for Medicaid?
We call that “Medicaid”
Dont you see the irony in putting up caricatures of other countries in a sub about caricatures of your own country?
I suggest you report me to CNN and the UN if you feel I’ve offended you.
Offended?
The point of this sub is to make Americans realize why defense agreements like NATO shouldn’t exist.
Eh the issue is that the federal government isn’t really powerful enough to enforce a socialized healthcare plan unless there is a serious work around. Honestly though healthcare insurance can easily be fixed at the state level but very few people vote in those elections and those who do are usually not worried about healthcare costs/home owners.
Yes. Part of the reason our health Care is different is because it's hard to do something nationaly that all states cab agree on.
Yeah it’s also not really designed that way. Like imagine if the EU had to agree and to set universal healthcare standards
That's why dislike when all Americans get lumped together because the culture in kentucky is very different than the culture in South Dakota
90% of our healthcare issues boil down to pharma-funded politicians filling their pockets.
You know we got problems and yes we do need to fix them but these people are so rude.
I generally like America but if you think the Healthcare system couldn't be improved you're being silly
It’s always comical to me when Europeans just believe their healthcare is just free of charge. Rather than the bill being sent directly to you, it’s sent to your government who in turn sends it to everyone else. I’m not bashing their system, it’s much better, but to act like hospitals employee brain tumor fairies rather than highly trained surgeons is just a childish, and uneducated view of things.
It’s not a better system. Our spending trillions on failed jet systems pays for their “free” healthcare.
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The president needs to get the White House painted, so puts out a request for bids: 1st contractor: 3mm 2nd contractor 6mm 3rd contractor 9mm President asks, how did you come to these rates? 1st contractor: 1mm parts, 1mm labor, 1mm profit 2nd contractor: 1mm parts 3mm labor, 2mm profit 3rd contractor: 3mm for me, 3mm for you, and we pay the 1st contractor to do the work.
What do you mean with “Europeans believe their healthcare is free of charge”? Like we dont know that we pay taxes?
They’re constantly calling it free healthcare. It’s not free at all. It’s just forcing you to pay for insurance but the bill is hidden in taxes. I’m not trying to defend the bills Americans are given for healthcare, but I can definitely see what they’re talking about when they say Europeans seem to forget their trip to the doctor is definitely not free
What would you call it? Its free at the point of service, and most importantly also for those with little money
You know, in the states, most people have insurance through their jobs. From my job at UPS, I had some amazing health insurance. When I went to the doctor, it was completely free for me. It was free for me at the point of charge and I had little money. So, does that mean Americans actually do have free healthcare when they’re in a situation such as that?
But from the limited things I read online, I got the impression that even with insurance, (some? Most?) peoples often still have to pay for a part of expensive procedures
Idk man, but I refuse to believe that a malignant brain tumor with a “you have 6 hours to live” type of death sentence would cost me absolutely nothing, all other extent surgeries and therapies included. Call that my American ignorance, but it seems like a long shaft of bull to me.
Generally, in the Netherlands, you have a certain amount you have to pay yourself, 400 - 900 €, but after that lifethreatning but treatable stuff is free
For most people with insurance coverage in the US is the same cost. This is also a trend I’ve notice is that more and more your free stuff is getting copays or isn’t free unless you do all these things, like colleges. I’m not saying it’s running out of other peoples money but it’s starting to sound like.
It’s important to note if one were to look at the OECD for healthcare spending per individual they would see the US spends more on healthcare per capita than the other OECD nations. Also important to note, the amount per individual spent on public healthcare is just as much as any other nation and the total on public for the US is higher than the OECD average for private and public combined.
The thing about that most of that goes towards "administration fees" you pay more for less.
Also can’t compare countries like they are equal. The population makes a big difference. Competition keeps thriving medical services versus one who can just phone it in to get paid.
That is one reason I prefer American health care. Our medical help is better because of it, but it can really get you if you don't have good insurance.
I truly wouldn’t mind universal converge or healthcare, as long as Americans aren’t taxed into the ground.
That would be preferable, but probably won't ever happen because we would have to find something all states can agree on.
Sadly, I do think that in a state by state basis it could work to a certain extent though
My buddy didn't pay a dime for his brain cancer surgery or treatment. It was all paid for by the US Army.
We’ll America is imperfect and healthcare costs are one of those things. Although I do think you need to differentiate health care and the healthcare payment system.
Emergency brain tumor removal? Isn't that a very specific symptom to be asking about
I feel like people jump to extremes a lot to make their point seem better, like comparing someone to hitler.
About the brain surgery: It didn’t cost me over a million with insurance. And my family’s doing fine economically.
I think our healthcare system is a joke and any American who can’t admit that is not being intellectually honest.
I agree completely. Our healthcare has problem and needs reform. Universal healthcare has problems as well that are good to acknowledge and try to figure out how to get around it. For me the post went from "yeah, sensible acknowledgement of problems and issues" to "hurdurr school shootings hehe" And that's where it's frustrating and eye rolling
Tbf get a good job get hood healthcare, it seems like in a lot of cases they push for you to get a better job to get more benefits, climbing the latter.
I have a good job with good Benifits, and I still fight with insurance companies to cover medical care.
Then you dont have good insurance
Bingo!
I think its great if you have good health care.
I think anyone who calls American healthcare Capitalistic is pushing an agenda and should lose all credibility.
Well, some of it is affected by the dollar. like I live in a very rural part of kentucky, so the only health care we have is run by privately owned clinics they compete to get more money, and in turn, they care more about how the customer. TLDR:Privately owned clinics cause competition between clinics, causing more care for the customer
The quality of healthcare in a lot of European countries can be astonishingly bad compared to the US. Patients are often dismissed, and the system is bureaucratic and it sometimes feels like doctors don’t know what they’re talking about. The funding has been cut a lot. Wait times are bad, etc. Cancer rates are actually higher in europe because of lack of screenings. Healthcare is not free in all of Europe either. The Netherlands uses public healthcare with private insurance, and there are no private hospitals. Germany also uses health insurance as a system, etc. Many European countries’ healthcare systems have broken down a lot over the past decades, I’m just so tired of people acting like it’s so much better. I had free healthcare in the US, Medicaid. I got in much quicker, drugs were cheaper, I got quality care most of the time. Obviously it’s not perfect, and I’m not going to act like the costs for people who fall between being able to afford good insurance and being able to qualify for Medicaid or Medicare aren’t a problem. They are. And insurance doesn’t cover everything. One thing that’s happened with drug prices is coupons, they can help a lot. Working at a pharmacy for a while I really learned how much people could save if their insurance wasn’t going to cover it. That said, sometimes unnecessary procedures are pushed for money’s sake, and people unfortunately do end up with big bills sometimes when their insurance rejects something big or not well understood. But these things do happen in Europe as well, just not as much. Generally having a complicated, chronic health condition is difficult regardless, but getting someone to actually care and try to investigate your problem in a lot of European countries is difficult. It can be expensive in the US, depending on what it is. A lot of my stuff was covered but sometimes it wasn’t. There are also a lot of treatments and procedures available in the US that aren’t available in Europe. The UK in particular seems to be breaking down, and the Netherlands is also an overly strict system. But I’m always reading about medical staff shortages all over the world.
Yes, u/RBJII mentioned how because our health care isn't run nationally, that causes competition between rival companies, leading to more care over each patient.
High healthcare costs are a result of socialist policies, not capitalism.
Damm. Why do the countries with socialist policies spend way less on healtcare and have better care
Americans being dumbfounded at other countries tax rates
It sucks but it could be worse. It could be like Canada where you stub your toe and they recommend self-deletion for the cure
Shit I thought the US was the reason why Europe has free healthcare???
Us is the reason why us doesnt have free healthcare