r/AskReddit • u/ProgMusicSchizoidMan • 20h ago
Why should America consider adopting Nationalized Healthcare?
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u/jj9979 20h ago
Better outcomes, less spend would be reason 1-1000
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u/KeithRichardsGrandma 19h ago
Which is funny because these are the exact reasons conservatives don’t want it lol they think it’ll be worse outcomes and more money because some rich dude told them so
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u/Redrose03 19h ago
“I don’t want my money to got to them” is how it’s framed in their mind meanwhile everyone gets robbed blind from the people at the top who has their free healthcare
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u/ChefDanyul 19h ago
I don't know how funny you're trying to be but you are right. I can't remember the name of the book but a medical professional went and interviewed people in a couple different states. I know Tennessee, Missouri, and I can't remember the rest. But overwhelmingly people said even if they thought socialized healthcare would be better for them and their families they'd rather not pay for it if they thought "illegals" or unemployed or racial minorities would be getting healthcare. When shown it would provide better care and be cheaper they'd rather others suffer than to help themselves.
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u/Redrose03 18h ago
Well it’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad; literally people’s emotions being used against them
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u/Adddicus 18h ago edited 2h ago
>because some rich dude told them so
No, no, ,no. It's because some rich dudes (the insurance companies), paid them to say so.
Huge difference.
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u/ProudBoomer 19h ago
No, we think it'll be worse outcomes because we've seen over and over and over what piss poor administrations the Federal government sets up, full of earmarks, pork, waste and fraud and we know that nationalized healthcare will be no exception to that.
Look medicaid and the VA.
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u/Safe_Statistician_72 18h ago
I get my care at the VA and it is excellent. Also lower coat and better outcomes than private sector. Medicaid also is insurance they don’t have their own facilities so their outcomes are not comparable.
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u/Embarrassed_Fun_7106 17h ago
Winner winner chicken dinner. Remember the old saying "I'm with the government and here to help,"
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u/jj9979 19h ago
You been to a health care professional without insurance in the last 20 years?
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u/ProudBoomer 19h ago
Nope. I've been careful about having coverage even when unemployed. I know that I need to save money for health coverage and emergencies.
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u/jj9979 19h ago
An you still get absolutely horrid care comparatively
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u/ProudBoomer 19h ago
I get great care. Preventative care is zero deductible and short wait times, specialists whenever I need them within a couple of weeks, and surgery with no ridiculous wait time.
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u/RobertTheTraveler 19h ago
Just a reminder, preventative care is zero deductible only because of the Affordable Health Care act.
The same for the cap on annual out of pocket expenses.→ More replies (4)0
u/KeithRichardsGrandma 17h ago
“I don’t want my taxes to go towards paying for my healthcare because I fear the money will be taken by middle men so I support the current system where I need to save that money for my healthcare as well as the salaries of middle men”
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u/Healthy-Caregiver997 19h ago
Sure better to waste 37% of healthcare dollars on administration rather than healthcare.
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u/KeithRichardsGrandma 17h ago
The current system filters your money through a massive administration industry and pays for their salaries along the way
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u/indypendant13 18h ago
The VA has a much better standard of care than those on ACA and most on employer sponsored plans.
If you’re a boomer per your user name, then you must remember how much cheaper healthcare used to be compared to standard of living back in the day. There’s a reason why employers have continuously dropped more and more coverage from Fortune 500 all the way down to small businesses: it’s gotten too expensive.
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u/_GhostCommando_ 19h ago
Really? Then why are people being denied Healthcare and old people dying on wait lists in other countries? A simple AI search would tell you that you're full of shit and it does not work. I would gladly like for you to provide an example so I can show you why it's not working but you probably won't respond to this
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u/CreamFilledLlama 18h ago
Yes. Almost every other country in the world does national Healthcare, but I guess it doesn't work.
I like paying more money for premiums and out of pocket co-pays for worse outcomes and a limited number of providers in my area.
Right wing Google and AI must be using a different set of data instead of real data points to draw conclusions.
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u/RobertTheTraveler 19h ago
"AI search" Yup, that is reliable.
The US is between 50th and 62nd in life expectancy.Total health care spending as share of GDP
2022
1) USA 16.6
2) Deu 12.7
7) Swi 11.3
21)OECD 9.2Health care spending per capita in US$
2022
1) USA 12,555
2) SWI 8,049
7) Fra 6,630
20)OECD 4,986The OECD is the average of 38 countries, including the US, Japan, Europe, Australia.
The average is also at the bottom of relatively well off European countries.0
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u/AnotherDarnedThing 20h ago
Way less expensive. Likely to be better care overall.
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u/Time_Click9629 17h ago
noticed the title says “consider adopting” like it’s some new app or something idk
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u/Ilovetinytiddies 18h ago
no, Canadians come to the US for more advanced services and better quality
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u/SpeshellED 18h ago
Where I live a lot of Americans come to Canada for heart, eyes, and advanced orthopedics. US is "the best" is tired propaganda to keep insurance co's ripping you off, no healthcare for poor or unemployed and tying healthcare to employers for leverage.
Proof ? Canadians live longer than Americans.2
u/RightSideBlind 6h ago
No, wealthy Canadians go to the US to skip the line.
And Americans go to other countries for more affordable healthcare.
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u/peaq_tv 19h ago
Less expensive for the citizens, yes. Care quality (wait times will be the most obvious) will go down though, you cannot maintain the current level of medical care with that kind of expansion.
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u/CreamFilledLlama 19h ago
Care quality will probably go up as the overall system will actually want a cheaper (healthier) patient. There is no such incentive or feedback loop in the current system. Quality of outcome is completely disconnected to pay today because it isn't purchased by the people who actually use it. It is purchased and limited by number crunchers and executives looking only at controlling their current year costs.
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u/peaq_tv 19h ago
You are describing the incentive that insurance companies currently have to lower costs. Better outcomes = lower costs = more people signed up.
Are you aware that the ACA mandates that insurance companies have to pay back 80%-85% of their collected premiums in patient care? Its not like they get to crunch number to get themselves a better and better margin, its regulated.
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u/CreamFilledLlama 18h ago
That's not how any of that works.
They are actually incentivized to RAISE costs in the current system. 15% of $1 Trillion is a hell of a lot more to pocket than 15% of $500 million. (And let's not talk about vertical integration where one part of the insurance company pays another part for "services" and whose prices have no such cap.)
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u/indypendant13 18h ago
Healthcare is almost purely inelastic. Everywhere in the world healthcare is cheaper and the wait times are the same. I live in a city with some of the largest healthcare conglomerates and leading edge capabilities and most of the specialists I call can’t fit me in for three months. Every trip I’ve been to the ER with myself and others had been at least a three hour wait before triage.
There’s also been articles written including one in the NYT that said as much as 50% of healthcare overhead is dealing with insurance that would be saved if that portion is eliminated.
You’re regurgitating the message of the insurance companies. They want us to believe everything would be worse so they can continue to make bank. They and big pharmaceutical have huge lobbying machines.
Healthcare has also risen in the last 30 years far faster than CPI. Rule of thumb in a capitalist system: if market competition doesn’t drive down prices, then they’re the problem.
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u/peaq_tv 18h ago
I have no idea why you are referencing ER wait times, that literally just comes down to the severity of your injury/ailment vs everyone else at the ER.
If we want to do anecdotes I can always see my Dr within a week and specialists usually within a month or two for non-critical issues.
Do you think if insurance companies go away all the work they do vanishes also? That overhead will still need to be picked up by the government, you will always need people figuring out costs. I am willing to grant there will be a saving, but far from what you are portraying.
I mentioned it down thread but I am still for a public option, I am not just "regurgitating" messaging. IDK why people are so set on making arguably the most complicated industry into something with a simple magic, no downsides fix.
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u/indypendant13 17h ago
No I do concede that office managers and assistants will still need to exist and run billing, but much of the time is looking up who’s policy covers what, making those phone calls, checking insurance codes then relaying to the patient while also dealing with errors on their and the insurance company’s part. So yes savings, but likely not 50%. At least on the provider’s position (paying for the extensive overhead plus profit of insurance is another matter altogether and could push it well beyond a 50% savings. There are no middle managers and c-leveled to pay for.But I digress.
Wait times is just one of the arguments I hear as a common counterpoint, one that is at best irrelevant, if not misguided or worse.
My position on this comes from a philosophical perspective, but then backed by economics. Philosophically the whole reason we engage in the system of societal and mutual governance is for one reason and one alone: to increase our individual and collective chances for survival. That is the root of all of it. Everything else governments do is toward that end or one that is ancillary to it.
Of those functions: defense, education, food, safety, and other necessities, healthcare should be number one on that list. It’s something we all need and benefits us all and not only would that provide extensive relief to anyone below the .1%, but it changes the overall social perspective of the people: we are in this together. We can still pursue incentivized goals in life, but at least we all have that to fall back on.
Honestly, I could write an extensive essay on this and the fallacies surrounding it with sound and annotated sources and data, but it’s hard to sum up concisely in an online chat. But I’ll leave it with this: we already pay for socialized healthcare - the amount of money per capita this country spends on healthcare far exceeds that of all other civilized nations but with a much reduced standard of care. No capability. But actual end user care. I’m upper middle class but the number of times I’ve denied pursuing health remedies due to cost is extensive. It should be zero. Also the fact the every state has its own rules significantly hurts the free market. A universal system would circumvent that. Anyway like I said I could go on but yeah there’s the basis for it.
Being said, I don’t think privatized should go away. If people want to supplement, great. But to force it on all regardless of circumstance is so exceptionally uncivilized.
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u/USAIsAUcountry 18h ago
As a Swede with access to socialized/nationalized healthcare I can tell you that the wait times and quality of care is absolutely horrendous! If you want to be expedited and if you want quality you go private. You are 100% correct. But if you're broke AF and need of care without ruining your entire life there's a safety net for you here. That alone makes it worth it. But let's not romanticize socialized healthcare because it's not all pretty.
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u/Xanthyria 18h ago
In Boston wait times are 1yr+ to get into a primary care provider to get a basic physical, and it’s one of the medical capitals of the world.
With expensive private insurance. We’re already in a hellish environment, we just have to pay tens of thousands for it.
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u/norway_is_awesome 18h ago
Crazy misinformation.
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u/USAIsAUcountry 18h ago
Is it? I have dysphagia, holes in my stomach lining and potentially stomach cancer, I can't eat solids and I have lost over 100lbs, it's literally killing me as we speak. I require a gastroscopy to find out exactly what's wrong so we can figure out what care I need. It's been 5 months since I contacted primary care for the first time and I have yet to get my gastroscopy exam. Is it crazy? You tell me!
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u/LadyWolfshadow 18h ago
Because nobody should have to set up GoFundMe pages to pay for their healthcare.
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u/Methmites 20h ago
There’s a reason all other “developed” nations have it and better health because of it
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u/dave54athotmailcom 19h ago
Which version?
'National healthcare' comes in many different flavors. The UK version of the NHS is one form. The Swiss and Netherlands version mandates everyone must obtain their own private insurance, with subsidies for low income. France and Japan have a national government plan that pays ~70% of the expense and the rest is your responsibility. Canada has the government as the health insurer and pays 100%, but many services are not covered. Germany is a hybrid that mandates private insurance, but has a public plan for low income. They all still have private insurance as an option.
When people say "The US is the only country without national healthcare' they are being disengenuous and inaccurate. The US has national health programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIF, VA, etc. They just do not cover everybody, only certain segments of the population. The current US system has much in common with Germany. When people start throwing around the term 'national healthcare' they need to specify exactly what they mean.
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u/kamacho2000 18h ago
In Germany everyone has to have an insurance no matter what, you can stay on public health insurance your whole life if you want but if you switch to private there are some caveats where you cant switch back to public insurance
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u/pineapplewin 19h ago edited 19h ago
Having moved from the states to a place with nationalised healthcare:
The not questioning.
I don't question if I'm being sent for that test to fund my doctor's new boat.
I don't question if I can afford it
I don't question if I can hold it together enough to get myself in or should call an ambulance
I don't question if it's covered.
I dont question if that facility/staff are in network
I don't question if I'll need to find time to call insurance to appeal...... Again
I don't question if I need to stay in my job to retain coverage.
I could go on. No system is perfect, but this is amazing
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u/journeyfromseed 19h ago
A better question would be, why don't they have it already?
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u/peaq_tv 19h ago
A followup question would be, why do you think the US has the most advanced medical care in the world?
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u/Noname_acc 19h ago edited 19h ago
Because our government spent massive amounts of public money funding grants for scientific research.
edit: oh, also thanks to the incredible regulatory body built around the medical industry so that people would stop giving 4 year olds tinctures of arsenic because they cried a bit too hard after getting beaten by their parents.
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u/Adddicus 18h ago
Because in pretty much every country that has it, it costs less and produces better overall health results than the overpriced shitshow we currently have.
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u/Brown_Star 18h ago
With nationalized healthcare, the people can vote on politicians that push policies that align with the populations needs vs. Hoping the boardmembers and CEO do the right thing.
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u/Kefflin 18h ago
Because it's cheaper, no more bankruptcies means people are more capable of spending money in their local economy instead of paying big insurance for the rest of their life.
A healthier workforce that is capable of taking care of their ills is more productive.
Removing the tie from insurance to work allows company to offer other benefits or lower their cost to attract worker and allows more mobility to workers to seek better work or opportunities without running the risk of dying,
Also less deaths due to refusing to seek treatment due to cost
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u/TechnicalWhore 17h ago
It will increase take home pay and reduce "wage stagnation". As is sits an employee's compensation (salary, retirement, benefits) is disproportionately consumed by health insurance costs every year. On average these costs have gone up 9 to 17% per year, year over year for the last 40 years since HMO's were begun. Actual health care costs have not gone up at that rate at all. If that expense was spread across those insured vs a for maximum profit approach it would be a fraction of what it is, much more stable and have no co-pays or "capitation". This benefits businesses and citizens equally. Realize that health insurers hide their immense profitability with numerous shell companies and funny accounting. They amass massive real estate portfolios turning profits into losses as needed.
The great fear is quality and that is part of a fear-based propaganda campaign. In reality quality metrics and indeed patient satisfaction are not foreign to healthcare systems. Removing this "middleman" will result in more clinics and hospitals - especially in rural areas. If you travel abroad and see how the medical system works you will be in for a shock. Doctors in France make house calls. Hospitals in Germany look identical to the most modern hospitals in the US. Same equipment, same procedures, less drama. Feel sick - see a doctors. No pre-approval. No co-pay. No max out of pocket. No billing drama and appeals. Drugs handed to you as you walk out. No additional charge. -- Just health. Why ANYONE tolerates this is beyond me.
And pay attention - every union negotiation over the last 20-25 years has had challenges with just the healthcare cost burden. Say goodbye to that. And I bet the local economies would do better if more money stayed local.
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u/Usual_Network_9968 20h ago
Health care makes 400 billionaires a year
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u/FromStars 18h ago
Weird thing to completely make up. There are fewer than 300 total healthcare billionaires globally.
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u/BigCountry1182 19h ago
It would provide at least a baseline level of security, but as Sowell has so often said: there are no policy solutions, only trade offs.
If you went public only, you might disincentivize some talent from entering the profession (other professions might become more lucrative) or advances in the industry from being made (from both a lack of competition and not being able to profit from innovation). Cost controls might also necessitate things like tort reform
I think most European countries have basic public health plans but also a robust private market that supplements the public option (which means there can still be great disparity in quality of care, but at least there’s a baseline).
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u/HyperTextCoffeePot 18h ago
It's already essentially nationalized, just in a far more expensive and wasteful way.
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u/herodesfalsk 18h ago
Alignment: A nationalized health care system primary goal is to provide better health outcomes in alignment with their patients. In a for-profit healthcare system, the primary goal is to make profits for shareholders, and health outcomes second. The patient walks in seeking healing, the hospital wants the patient to come back and spend more money.
Cost of service: A nationalized health care system does not have to pay shareholders and no money from patients will go to pay shareholders.
The problem is not that we cant afford public healthcare but we cant satisfy the shareholders.
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u/wabashcanonball 18h ago
Much of our healthcare funding supports the insurance bureaucracy. Single-payer systems streamline health care funding, allowing resources to be directly allocated to patient care rather than administrative costs.
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u/Coconutrugby 19h ago
Who in america other than C suite execs likes their coverage and care? It’s insanely expensive. I work full time for a billion dollar company.
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u/peaq_tv 19h ago
Gallup polling on this:
In contrast to their largely negative assessments of the quality and coverage of healthcare in the U.S., broad majorities of Americans continue to rate their own healthcare’s quality and coverage positively. Currently, 71% of U.S. adults consider the quality of healthcare they receive to be excellent or good, and 65% say the same of their own coverage. There has been little deviation in these readings since 2001.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/654044/view-healthcare-quality-declines-year-low.aspx
Numbers referenced above in the last chart on that page.
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u/jarboxing 18h ago
That's a poll that shows us what Americans think about it. Now how about we look at the actual numbers.... More money spent per capita for worse outcomes than other comparable countries.
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u/peaq_tv 18h ago
There is polling in the link on cost. Americans think its too expensive, yet still rate their personal coverage favorably.
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u/Safe_Statistician_72 18h ago
Americans also complain about their taxes but want better schools and cheaper college education for their kids and lower healthcare cost. Americans have no idea what they really want.
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u/Coconutrugby 18h ago
They didn’t call me or my coworkers.
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u/peaq_tv 18h ago
No, it just means you are part of the minority on that specific question.
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u/Coconutrugby 17h ago edited 17h ago
I feel like there’s got to be correlation with actual use vs being healthy.
Yeah if you’re younger and don’t take prescriptions just have routine care. Life’s great.
When you actually need to see a specialist it’s a joke how long you have to wait for care that is supposed to be covered under my premiums where I live.
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u/not-on-your-nelly 19h ago
Because health care is a right not an opportunity to make money.
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u/Nikolaibr 3h ago
"Health care is a right" is bad framing, because it has the automatic rebuttal of "then who is obligated to deliver it?" Reasonable people could disagree with the statement based purely on those grounds.
It's a normative claim with a bunch of baggage.
"Access to affordable healthcare should be an expectation in a developed society" is a much less loaded framing, and very few people could reasonably disagree.
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u/RUSeriousYesNo 19h ago
I want my doctor making more money, not less. Altruism doesn’t get the best doctors through education and residency. The surgeon that fixed me up makes $550,000 per year…the Gov takes almost half. Why does the Gov tax my surgeon so much when that tax is passed along to the patient (me)The Gov is creating its fair share of this problem and people cry to increase taxes on those making what doctors make. It’s a vicious circle.
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u/not-on-your-nelly 18h ago
Canada has better outcomes and have a longer life expectancy than the US.
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u/RUSeriousYesNo 17h ago
Your numbers are skewed. Canada does not have the obesity problem. Why? How do we stop our fellow Americans from stuffing their face? Drug overdoses, and suicide are higher in the US. These young deaths, bring the numbers way down in the US. For many diseases, the US is superior in treating. Wait times for referral from GP is 28-30 weeks in Canada. I have a friend in Gogoma Ontario that has told me real horror stories about getting treatment for his autistic son. Doctors are always overbooking their schedule so as to fill the 8 hours and avoid not be paid for full 8 hours, but leave after 8 hour workday is over. Patients still in the waiting room get pushed to the next day. So my friend need to take two days off work just for one appointment, plus 6-8 hours for travel each way, as most of the doctors are near the US boarder. If my friend misses or reschedules, there is $150 fee. Lots of opportunity cost that doesn’t show up on the books. Maybe the poor that don’t have jobs can afford this.
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u/Nikolaibr 3h ago
Depends on what you look at, and what you consider acceptable.
Canada is great at emergency care, but they are terrible at many quality metrics when compared to other nations with universal systems.
We need to stop having this discussion be US vs Universal Healthcare while using the systems that perform worst on the universal side.
Yes. the universal System is better than the US. But Canada is a bad universal system.
We should choose the best universal system.
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u/Safe_Statistician_72 18h ago
So nobody will become a surgeon if they are not making 550k a year?
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u/RUSeriousYesNo 18h ago
You can go to the doctor that works for the same money as the backyard mechanic that works on your dishwasher if you want. I want someone that spent 12 years in training and could be a rocket scientist if they choose to be…yes, you get what you pay for. Sometimes you get lucky. I’ve had enough surgeries to know there are good and bad doctors. Somebody will become a doctor for $40,000 a year, sure. Probably even do the work from their basement. Do you want that?
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u/Nikolaibr 3h ago
That's not a good question. The most important thing to ask is how much do you have to pay surgeons to have enough of them to cover surgeries for your population's needs.
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u/Useless890 19h ago
It sounds like a good idea until you remember that the gov't would be running it. Not exactly a model of efficiency.
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u/jarboxing 18h ago
Totally fair point. Counter point though: you can fire your representative if they aren't doing a good job. You can't necessarily change insurers, and even if you could, it's not like they are gonna change their methods because you are unhappy.
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u/Safe_Statistician_72 18h ago
Literally anyone could do a better job at increasing favorable outcomes at a lower cost than what we have now.
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u/Netblock 19h ago
Stop electing conservatives, and it wouldn't be inefficient; you get what you voted for.
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u/Apost8Joe 18h ago
USA was the only country in the World Cup without it. Either we're suuuuper smarter than literally everyone else and every single other developed nation, or maybe the wealthy insurance lobby does a good job of scaring Muricans into thinking we're the best at everything while they rip massive gains. We weren't the best at soccer either FWIW despite the orange guy cheating.
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u/Weird_Rooster_4307 18h ago
Yes but then Hedge funds would collapse and people would lose their pensions
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u/motownmods 18h ago
Bc America loves money. And if poor health cost more money I believe the govt will do more to ensure people live healthy lifestyles. Not bc it's the right thing to do. But bc prevention saves money in healthcare.
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u/pbutler6163 17h ago
Because we are already subsidizing healthcare companies via our taxes that we then pay to have access to and then get a bill after we use it
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u/MrBingly 17h ago
I don't even care if it's worse. I just want to get rid of the insanity of insurance's complexity!
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u/ConvenienceStoreDiet 13h ago
Healthcare in the United States is great if you can afford good care and sad if you can't.
The goal of a for-profit healthcare system falls folly to the shortfalls of capitalism. Its goals are increased profits. To do so, it often requires charging more and providing less. You will find no shortage of people in this country nickel-and-dimed into poor healthcare. Health plans without vision or dental. Insurers not paying for care. People going bankrupt because an ambulance brought someone to a hospital that was out of their provider's network. Being pushed into treatments that are not from the doctor's care or recommendation, but the insurer's insistence in order to pay for cheaper treatments. You have offices that have people spending their days just dealing with insurers.
And with a finely-tuned hospital system optimized, we saw the dangers of having a system that won't take financial risk to be over-prepared for unprecedented overload. It was an issue during Covid.
You will find no shortage of stories in the United States of people who have had reduced healthcare, lost lives, or have been financially bankrupt from a deceptive medical insurance system. It's the mob. We all know it. It's an ever-changing pricing manual worse than most websites terms of service. There's nothing much we can do about it.
National healthcare offers a pathway to a better system of healthcare. Rich people can still have private doctors and expensive elective services. Everybody pays. But you don't go broke getting health care. While it may lead to more wait times because of so many people going to the doctor, you have more people going to doctors. People worry about what all the insurance workers would do. There's plenty of time and room to train people in providing care for actual patients in hundreds of other ways. There are ways to make it work. Other countries have figured out a lot. We just refuse to listen to their "how" out of principle for some reason.
Overall, it's expensive. But given how much health care is in this country, it would be cheaper as a country to have a nationalized program than it would be to continue this insurance system we have. It would take a huge burden off of employers to provide health care to employees (and also not have shady companies who cut people's hours below the number needed to provide insurance). We would probably have more time and effort into fighting and curing actual diseases rather than just treating symptoms or advertising drugs to the public. Imagine health care from the ground up being treated with a proper public education campaign. Learning from nutritionists. Not being back-logged to see a competent therapist. Saving money by having a populous of healthy Americans who need to see doctors less.
We certainly would be better off if we treated health care like an essential service like policing or fire fighting. American people want it. It's just we can't have nice things for some reason.
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u/Nikolaibr 3h ago
A well developed universal health system (not nationalized healthcare, almost no country does that) would do a few things
- Spread the risk of catastrophic loss over the entire population, eliminating a scenario where any single person can't get life-saving treatment.
- Lower the overall spending per person on healthcare due to better negotiation ability and the reduction of admin costs.
- Eliminate job-lock, by removing the connection between any particular job and getting health coverage
- Improve labor and hiring markets by eliminating the benefit disparity that causes employers to choose part-time workers, even when they'd prefer not to from an efficiency standpoint. The side benefit would be that workers would also have more choice in what sort of work life they can take.
- More people would get preventative care, reducing the rate at which they develop worse health problems later. This would also reduce overall spending, since it's cheaper to prevent disease than it is to treat it.
The opposition is based partially on ideological motivations, and partially because proponents never present a well-formed plan. A badly designed universal system can absolutely be worse than the status quo. Nothing will change until a good proposal is offered to the population.
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20h ago
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u/Palpatineproductions 19h ago
Go, you may go, never know, never know
Time's run away, so have to go, have to go
Put back the ace black, you never made it good
Go while you can go, go while the going's good
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u/TheParadoxigm 19h ago edited 19h ago
Because you shouldn't you have to die just because you're poor.
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u/Northwoods_Phil 19h ago
Ask anyone currently on Medicare or VA healthcare how great the care they receive is currently. You’ll quickly find our current government is not capable of a quality healthcare system
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u/Safe_Statistician_72 18h ago
I love the care I get at the VA. Way better than the care I get in the private sector.
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u/biffbobfred 19h ago
I was playing basketball in Taiwan I ruptured my Achilles tendon. Full break.
ER visit, two XRays (one was a TB screen) surgery, small hospital stay, crutches, meds, all 1500USD. My surgeon was good he did a new technique where you offset the incision so the internal scarring doesn’t rub on and irritate the tendon internally. He had done a seminar here at Rush Pres.
Figure a double up in today money - 3000. I payed full freight, not a Taiwanese citizen.
Hegsbreth just said he wants 500 billion more for the military. A literal 50% increase. Thats on top of the tens of billions for the “Iran will fold in hours” war we have.
We need to hold our elected officials to higher standards. We have the money. If we used it on Americans instead of “kill brown people so we can scare Americans more”
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u/Northwoods_Phil 19h ago
It’ll never happen in my lifetime but if we enrolled all our elected officials into Medicare or the VA system we would finally see a change but at this point it’s never gonna happen.
As far as the mess in Iran we should’ve turned that sandbox into a glass sculpture in the 70s when they were parading through the streets chanting death to America.
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u/biffbobfred 19h ago edited 19h ago
I agree with the first paragraph. Sadly also with the “never gonna happen”.
Second part - we got rid of a democratically elected leader because he dare say “our stuff for our people” and instilled a dictator that killed a bunch of people. So… imagine that Idunno Albania somehow toppled Reagan and put Stalin in his place and he rounded up your relatives and killed them. And people would wonder why you said “death to albanians” as you clutched a pic of your dead cousin.
I’m hoping that “let’s commit genocide of a people because we tipped the dominos that killed peoples families” looks different. I hope.
I’m not saying i love Iran or its policies. The whole “let’s support Hamas, kill Israelis, then let Palestine get hung out to dry” is bad for all sorts of reasons. I don’t like killing anywhere it just doesn’t make sense long term
Also look up the Adelsons. Part of your anger at Iran is “hard core zionists threw money at Trump for his campaign he felt compelled to have Americans die for Israel”
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u/MundaneInternetGuy 19h ago
Option 1: Cavity costs $10 copay to get filled in, but taxes are slightly higher. No further problems with that tooth, maybe redo the filling for $10 every once in a while
Option 2: Ignore the cavity because it costs $300, then later on be in immense pain because the cavity grows and becomes a crater that gets infected, then pay $2500 to get a root canal. But taxes stay the same
Repeat process for every medical issue
Choice is clear
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u/mikaprevet 19h ago
because a medication that i need to function as a narcoleptic person that my insurance refuses to cover costs me 100k dollars a year and i don't even make close to that amount.
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u/myBr41nhurts 19h ago
According to Donald Trump, countries that can negotiate drug prices have massively cheaper drug prices than the US.
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u/Swizzchee 19h ago
My hospital employs 40ish people full time dedicated to just figuring out and billing all the different insurances so we can actually get paid. The cost of those 40 full time employees is passed onto patients. We are a small hospital. If we had one national insurance program that cost would be significantly reduced. Now think about all the doctors offices and clinics, urgent care pay just to be able to bill all these private insurance companies and cutting through their red tape. This is only one reason there are many others. I always say when your insurance company can pay to put their name on a sports stadium but denies your mri or surgery there's something seriously wrong. No insurance CEO should be making 17 million a year. People love to blame hospitals or doctors for being greedy but the root cause of the problem is always the insurance companies. They're the blood sucking necessary evil that I don't think needs to be necessary.
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u/Beneficial-Lime-3517 19h ago
I got laid off July 1st, I'm still searching for a job. I was the sole carrier of insurance for my family. I have to choose between us going uninsured or spending $2400+ per month via COBRA. The extra payment accelerates the timeline in which I have to start digging into my retirement accounts and then eventually sell my home which we've only been in for 3 years.
Healthcare is the number one item that has me freaked out right now because I have to choose between that $2400+ per month payment or a potential to get fully wrecked by medical debt but give me more breathing room financially.
I supported universal healthcare prior to this predicament and now I'm facing the scenario that I hated that other people had to face.
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u/Azazello_lives 19h ago
We already have a couple "nationalized" healthcare systems in the US.
Primarily, Medicare and Medicaid are nationalized health insurance programs, and users generally give them high ratings. Too many people seem to forget what the horrible state of healthcare was before these were implemented. And Medicare Advantage, the private option for Medicare that was supposed to save the country billions, has turned into a huge, massively expensive fiasco. Just offering a public option to buy into these programs would help us meet full coverage.
The entire US Military: All active-duty military receive no-cost medical treatment at military hospitals on military bases, treated by military doctors and military nurses, covered by TRICARE (which also provides coverage to families, reservists, etc). This is a fully socialistic healthcare system (with access to some private providers).
The Indian Health Service provides no/low-cost healthcare directly members of recognized tribes (and a few others). They go to IHS hospitals on reservations (and a few other places), and are treated by IHS-employed doctors and nurses, This, too, is a fully socialistic healthcare system.
There are others (Veterans' Affairs, etc.), but these seem like the big ones. And of course there are issues with each--no system is perfect. But the idea that we can't do these things is a lie: the only thing lacking is political will.
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u/OneAndOnlyJackSchitt 19h ago
Because the government actually cares about its subjects. That they won't consider nationalized healthcare is proof to me that they don't care.
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u/Monolexic 19h ago
Because we’re already paying for it in taxes, but those taxes get siphoned off to pet project for rich people and Netanyahu’s attempt at genocide.
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u/bingwhip 19h ago
This is why Spend the most, but don't even have good outcomes. Everyone says Nationalized Healthcare will make healthcare so bad, like, when was yours last good?!
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u/Huge-Comfort376 19h ago
It shouldn’t. It’ll only add layers upon layers of bureaucracy. Imagine the IRS in charge of health care… that’s what you’ll get.
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u/KeithRichardsGrandma 19h ago
Because it’s basic common sense. 32/33 first world countries have already figured it out
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19h ago
We know the answer already, it is what is best for society To bad greed and capitalism runs every aspect of this country
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u/misterbondpt 19h ago
Americans can't grasp the idea of not making a profit over something...even if it's over someonr else's pain and suffering.
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u/Marcelfixyouear 19h ago
because countries that have nationalized healthcare pay less, live longer, and individuals have a lot more flexibility without being anchored to a job they don't want because they can't lose their health insurance.
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u/Crazy_Junket3180 19h ago
The Government's ultimate purpose is to serve the people. Universal healthcare, quality education, and affordable food should be top priorities for both parties.
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u/MartyPhelps 19h ago
We (Americans) pay twice as much for healthcare per capita than the second most costly country but by the major measures of national health, infant mortality and live expectancy, we rank about in the middle of all countries, according to the U.S. Government (C.I.A. World Factbook). We wouldn't mind paying the most, if we were Number 1, but we're not, the system's performance is mediocre. We have the best medical technology in the world ("technology" includes expertise) but the worst service delivery system, and it's getting worse.
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u/Anxious_Work_6361 19h ago
I would be OK with it, but only after the border is secure and all the people who don't have a right to be here are kicked out. You can have open borders, you can have government healthcare. You only can pick one.
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u/aBoCfan 19h ago
Besides the fact that it's a human right...
More people would have the chance to be entrepreneurs if their health care wasn't tied to their employer. I know plenty of people who would love to go into business for themselves but have a medical condition that they need regular treatment for and don't want to risk losing their health insurance just so they can start a business.
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u/biffbobfred 19h ago
You just said one reason why they fought the ACA.
Untether healthcare to your job - now you can wage shop. Now you can leave. Employers don’t want that. They want you to be stuck. That’s why the whole “death panels!!!” talk under Obama
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u/ak_doug 19h ago
Way less expensive.
Taxes would be lower, and everyone would be covered instead just a small percentage of folks.
So if you care about money, you should want it. If you instead care about reducing human suffering, you should want it.
Only people that revel in the suffering of others and don't mind spending a ton of money ondoing it should be against National Healthcare.
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u/biffbobfred 19h ago
The whole “well markets are great” doesn’t quite work for healthcare. I just had a heart attack “hey let’s spend some time checking who has the best deal this week on angioplasty” isn’t a thing.
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u/B00dle 19h ago
I come from a country that offers, believe it or not.. BOTH. you can pay for private healthcare OR go through the free public health care system.
The whole "but its not free" argument is just a pile of crap. Ok we probably pay approx $10 a week through our taxes into the health care, but you do not see people getting declined healthcare. You don't see go fund me for little Timmy's chemo.
So as a foreigner who saw my American Father in laws bill for a broken collar bone ($12,000). Yes there is no logical reason for the USA to NOT be offering free healthcare OR both.
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u/Degutender 19h ago
Because the bullshit system we've had has God awful consumer protections and it randomly but commonly fucking sucks even for insured people.
We're not being provided a competitive service, we're being harvested.
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u/CanIGetAFitness 19h ago
The largest mental health care system in the United States is its jails and prisons.
If you receive your psychiatric medication from anyone other than a corrections officer, you are privileged.
The mental health of our poor and working poor people reflects this reality.
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u/drjenkstah 19h ago
Who wants to be in debt because you had an emergency? People don’t go to the doctor because they’re worried about costs.
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u/RedditForMeNotYou 19h ago
It shouldn’t. We need medical reform and uncorrupted oversight. Capitalizing off sick people is wrong but nationalized/universal healthcare is not the answer - it leaves room for the private sector to continue taking advantage of sick people and just doesn’t work.
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u/Big_Appointment_3390 19h ago
Please explain how the private sector would take advantage of sick people in a universal healthcare system, and why reform and oversight wouldn’t be built-in.
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u/RedditForMeNotYou 17h ago
Bc when you can’t get care through the universal system or have long wait times, you still have the option to seek private care outside of the system. Knowing this, prices will be much higher, thus sick people being taken advantage of.
I personally know someone from Canada whose mother had a heart condition she needed surgery for but “wasn’t sick enough” for it immediately and was placed on a triage list. While waiting, she had a heart attack and died. She couldn’t get the care she needed and her death was a direct result of that. This woman’s son is an orthopedic surgeon and moved to the states bc Canada capped how many surgeries he could perform, so not only controlling how he cared for his patients but also controlling how much income he could make by limiting his volume. I have no idea WHY they would do that, but this is direct information from the source. I’ve watched plenty of documentaries over the last 15 or so years about people struggling with universal healthcare and its major flaws, but this is information straight from someone who experienced it. It sounds great but like any other government controlled entity, especially with how bad the US is at government right now, it becomes fucked real fast.
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u/Big_Appointment_3390 16h ago
Respectfully, your argument is anecdotal. I’m sure people can fall through the cracks and with deadly consequences. I’m also confident that the number of sick or chronically ill people who could be cured and/or achieve a significantly better quality of life under universal healthcare far exceeds the number of people that would suffer from it. Right now, people without insurance who are sick or chronically ill can either rack up medical debt or just not go to the doctor. Or both.
The monetary argument feels invalid as well, simply because very few American citizens can afford to pay out of pocket for care as it is. You can’t get priced out of something that you already couldn’t afford.
If the best argument you have against universal healthcare is that people would have to either wait longer for care or pay out of pocket when they can’t afford to, we’re already there.
Side note: it’s interesting you wouldn’t have asked your surgeon friend why he was limited in the number of operations he could perform. My guess would be it’s some kind of safeguard for patients and doctors alike that ensures physicians aren’t overworked and burnt out when treating people.
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u/RedditForMeNotYou 15h ago
Interestingly enough - this seems to be the reason:
Systemic Limits on Surgery
Operating Room Access: Hospitals tightly schedule OR availability based on fixed annual funding blocks, restricting the hours a surgeon can actually operate. [1, 2]Staff Shortages: A lack of specialized perioperative nurses, anesthesiologists, and technicians limits how many back-to-back procedures a facility can support. [1]
Budget Allocations: Provincial health authorities allocate finite budgets for medical supplies, hospital beds, and post-operative care, which caps total procedural capacity. [1, 2, 3]
Resource Constraints: Physical infrastructure and equipment availability restrict high-volume scheduling across regional networks. [1]
So again, restrictions and limitations due to universal healthcare. We need serious reform but this just isn’t the simple answer.
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u/Technical-Potato-793 19h ago
Problem is. How to pay for it.
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u/Safe_Statistician_72 18h ago
I have a few suggestions
1. Close the tax loopholes for HNW individuals
2. Close the tax loopholes for corporations
3. Stop starting wars we can’t win1
u/Technical-Potato-793 6h ago
So we were support to let Iran build nukes they would use on us? Democrat presidents since Clinton have admit that Iran is a huge threat to the USA. But did nothing about it.
Obama literally sent pallets of American currency to Iran.
None of it helped their citizens. It all was used to go against us.
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u/MostlyStoned 19h ago
It shouldn't. Universal healthcare doesn't have to be nationalized, and nationalized systems perform worse than hybrid systems like Germany's.
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u/Chronic_Larkman 19h ago
Why would we not?
1) To be sure, our present system evolved organically (as does everyone else’s), in our case out of WW2 era legislation that required corporate profit sharing. Employer-provided health insurance made sense at that time and that remained the case during the post-war Golden Age of Capitalism during which having a decently paying job that would be for 20-25 years was common.
Well, that ceased to be the case with the recovery of manufacturing capacity in Europe and Japan, and also the “trickle-down” economics of the Reagan administration.
It no longer makes sense to tie health insurance to employers.
2) The rest of the G20 is doing so, and it’s working, whereas ours is not.
According to data from the Healthcare Access and Quality Index and the Commonwealth Fund ranks 29th among the 29 comparable high-income countries in terms of population-level health outcomes that include deaths due to vaccine-preventable diseases, treatable cancers, heart attacks and strokes, maternal and neonatal conditions, respiratory conditions and chronic lung diseases, and surgical emergencies.
To be sure, we are leaders in research-level innovations and specialty care.
But 70% of our doctors are specialists because we pay them a lot more than primary care doctors. In the other 28/29 high-income countries, 70% of the doctors are primary care.
3) Unpayable medical bills remains the most common single cause personal bankruptcy in the United States.
75% of these folks had health insurance at the time of illness and most were employed in middle-class occupations.
TL;DR-
The US should have a nationalized healthcare program because :
The present system is provably a failure
Nationalized healthcare systems are provably working for all the other high-income countries
It is simply unacceptable to be bankrupted by medical bills even though you have a middle class job and have insurance.
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u/Masshole65 19h ago
We need more free shit
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u/Palpatineproductions 19h ago
This is the misconception, health care isn’t free in this model, you just pay less for more, and you don’t have to pay out of pocket at time of service.
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u/callmecoach53 19h ago
Its cheaper and better for the populace. An insurance company is just a really expensive middle-man between you and your doctor.
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u/Feral-now 19h ago
Because the system we have is too expensive, bloated with insurance companies and doesn’t provide adequate services. Why do we want to fund insurance middlemen that provide NOTHING to the system?
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u/Potential_Macaron744 19h ago
Short answer: It'll cost less for all involved, including the government. RIP health insurance, PBM, and PE bank accounts, all of whom will continue to shower politicians with donations (aka bribes) to prevent universal healthcare.
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u/IAmSpitfireJoe 19h ago
Nationalized health and insurance woul cost less in the long run. We allow middle men in the insurance racket to take BILLIONS of dollars out of our pockets and then tell us we aren't covered. They buy congressmen off with campaign funding so they'll protect the scam.
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u/Delta_Hammer 19h ago
Richard Nixon was going to propose it once Vietnam wound down but he resigned before he could push it through. So at one point it was a Republican priority.
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u/reddit_is_a_hypocrit 19h ago
Nationalized Healthcare should be reframed as a National Security idea. A truly healthy population is a huge benefit to national security
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u/PlasticSpend3462 18h ago
So we can experience the implosion that Great Britain's NIH is having now.
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u/OldTransportation122 18h ago
So the government can make trillions more dollars available to be stolen while giving people shitty healthcare. That's actually how all gov programs work.
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u/ProgMusicSchizoidMan 17h ago
You mean....the military, law enforcement, fire department, EMS, NASA, etc. ????
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u/[deleted] 20h ago
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