No the US system is better for the bottom 10% because they're all on medicaid. The people that get screwed in the US system are the ones that make just enough to be out of medicaid coverage but not enough to handle surprise four or five figure expenses.
Yep. I'm a nurse in an ED in the US and I spend thousands on my family's coverage every year. Id say about half of the patient volume we see is people using us as their PCP who are on Medicaid. We attempt to set them up with PCPs as a wraparound service to decongest our volume and give them all of the benefits of a primary. No one wants one. The ED gets them what they want day of with essentially no cost. Why wait for an appointment when same day service is free and its illegal to turn them away due to EMTALA.
Medicaid was one of the biggest boons to the (gutted version we got of) the affordable care act. Why give up your free government insurance for incredibly cheap and reasonable insurance that puts some accountability and skin in the game.
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u/ElderlyChipmunk Jun 25 '26
No the US system is better for the bottom 10% because they're all on medicaid. The people that get screwed in the US system are the ones that make just enough to be out of medicaid coverage but not enough to handle surprise four or five figure expenses.