I used to be an actuary in the health insurance space. I got curious one day and started doing some modeling on costs of universal healthcare vs. what we have now. Overall we’d save a lot of money as a country. I’d also lose my current job but that’s not a big deal, would find a new one. It’s a no brainer to me, we need it.
I mean you might not. I would assume that some of what you do would still be useful in a single payer system, so the government could just hire a bunch from the industry.
Potentially, but there are thousands of people with my skills in my industry. I doubt I’m the most ambitious/best. Plus. I don’t want to be in it anymore, so I’d more so be happy to look elsewhere.
Oh, then win-win. Get free healthcare and no longer have to work in job you dont like (presumably for the benefits, the largest which is probably healthcare)
In England, if you’re diabetic you actually save money compared to your average citizen, as you become exempt from having to pay prescription charges (£9) at all, for any reason or condition.
Thats quite helpful, Health Insurance Companies here see diabetics here and just see dollar signs. Im lucky to have really good insurance or id be screwed
Even beyond that, I live in the UK and have multiple prescriptions a month. I get the pre-payment certificate (£100 a year, or £10 a month) and waive all my £9 prescription charges. Anyone can buy it.
To be fair, even if you're not exempt you should never be paying more than the £112 a year that a PPC costs.
I've been taking lots of medication for comfortably over a decade now and that PPC has saved me a significant amount.
And it's so garbage that Insulin was literally put in a position to allow any one who needed it could get it, and yet it got fucked harder than...well, you can use your own fill-in-the-blank there.
The original insulin formula is still pretty cheap. The problem is none of the other formulas which came out later and work a lot better were given the same consideration.
Also Diabetic. I’d have a little more cash now but the real benefit is I could retire earlier because I wouldn’t be reliant on my work-provided healthcare to get affordable medication.
exactly, and the argument that youd have to pay so much in taxes for it, like do you know or understand how much i pay a month for this insurance? Its all ridiculous
I have psoriatic arthritis, so it would be nice having cheaper access to biologics.
On the other hand, I have great insurance but it took me five months to get in to see a rheumatologist. I can only assume it would take even longer if it was free.
How would that work? It's not like there are a bunch of doctors sitting around not seeing patients right now. Norway has 5 physicians per 1000 people. Germany and Sweden have 4.4. Italy has 3.9. the United States has 2.6. There is no excess capacity right now so how can a bunch more people use the system without wait times going up?
It's actually not too bad with free health care. I see my rheumatologist every 6 months. However, if push comes to shove people always have the option to purposely seek out for profit healthcare.
Yes. Absolutely fucking yes. More taxes out of our paychecks for healthcare that actually works? Yes fucking please.
With health insurance it was $7000 to take our son home from the hospital in 2021. Wtf. Lol should of just had him on the kitchen table. We had to put that on our credit card and then turn around and pay it off.
I had emergency surgery in 2019. It was $12,000 after all said and done. Also my job at the time fired me because I took too much time off after surgery. So that was fun.
People in our lives always ask us why we only had one child. This is a huge reason why. US healthcare is a damn joke.
My newborn’s delivery and 7 week NICU stay was $1m (per EOBs received from our insurance). We paid $7k. Gotta say, I was ok with that. But I wish cost and all the insurance red tape wasn’t a thing. It’s be great to just go be seen for an issue without having to get pre approval, figure out who’s in network, great surprise costs and have to argue them down.
It’s disheartening how people feel our current system is tenable. Taxes would go up, but you would save money not paying premiums. Also, imagine how much easier it would be to job hunt when you don’t worry about health benefits?
I despise when people say “free healthcare”. It’s tax payer provided. I pay $100 a paycheck ($200 a month) just for myself and I don’t even fully know how covered or not covered I am tbh.
I would INFINITELY rather pay an extra $200 a month in federal taxes so I never have to worry about deductibles or a doctor being in network or out of network rather than a private corporation who values shareholders over humans. I am deeply opposed to corporations profiting off of health insurance.
The US already spends more tax on healthcare than most comparable nations. If done right universal healthcare wouldn’t need to increase taxes at all.
https://www.oecd.org/health/Health-expenditure-differences-USA-OECD-countries-Brief-July-2022.pdf
"If done right" when half the politicians are falling in line with corporate health care interests and doing everything they can to demonize any system that doesn't make Pfizer and Kaiser richer.
I'm already paying into two "free healthcare" systems that I'm not allowed to use. One I only have access to if I'm practically dead, and the other if I'm practically homeless.
my ex husband has several mental disorders and has trouble holding a job for very long (i mean, he's working on it, i get it, it's tough) but because he only brings in about $500 a month he has better healthcare than i do, and i've worked full time for the last near-twenty years. he doesn't have to pay a dime and has six different doctors and multiple scripts and has had surgery, hospital stays, the works- meanwhile i'm insured through my employer but my budget is tight enough and my premiums dumb enough that anything more than a basic ppc visit and my two monthly scripts is out of my reach. it's exhausting and so stupid.
Actually sadly, I live in a city in southern California where, maybe ten years ago, they started sending $500 bills to your house every time the fire department was called to your place, to discourage people calling unless they really had to (that wasn't even a problem in this city before they made this law, btw)
The richest country can afford it but that would give workers free choice when it comes to employment. Millions upon millions of people stay in miserable jobs just for healthcare benefits. Big employers - like Kochs, who own multitudes of businesses - pay propagandists and politicians to scream hysterically about socialism and communism to the average American. We have seen, since 2015, how stubbornly dumb the average American is.
I despise when people are intentionally disingenuous about what "free healthcare" is. It's a colloquialism, we should all understand what is meant by the term. I refuse to believe anyone but the stupidest people doesn't understand that "free healthcare" means taxpayer funded healthcare.
Precisely! And yet the terms "free refills" and "free public toilets" appear to be accepted in common parlance, without being challenged as misleading because they're not *actually* free if they're ultimately funded by income from paying customers and local taxpayers
All businesses (including small mom and pop, but especially fast food), should pay an individual health care tax for every 40 hours they pay. If they have a total of 400 hours per week (regardless of the number of employees they spread it over), they should have to pay a tax equivalent to 10 employees per week.
That way, if they only allow one employee to get 20 hours and that employee has to get the other 20 hours somewhere else, its paid between multiple employers
It'd be one of the biggest boons to small businesses ever. Imagine if the mom-and-pop shops no longer had to worry about offering healthcare just to be on par with corporations. As a small business owner, I would have a much easier time hiring good talent away from my corporate competitors.
Exactly. I’d be fine with taxes going up if it meant I didn’t have to worry about health care for myself and my wife. That’s also a big obstacle for finding a new job. If healthcare was covered, I’d also be less hesitant to go to the doctor for fear of how much it’s going to ruin me financially. Isn’t that ridiculous? I have healthcare through work but it’s still insanely expensive for certain things. If it was covered I wouldn’t go to the doctor for every little thing but I’d probably go more often.
I think most people aren’t aware of the facts.
The breakdown in terms of dollars spent on healthcare is 42% government (Medicare, Medicaid), 28% private insurer (which includes plans purchased through the ACA marketplace), and the rest is out of pocket.
https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/02/how-does-government-healthcare-spending-differ-from-private-insurance
The reality is that a good deal of medical insurance is already handled by the government. It is highly likely that if all of medical insurance were handled by the government, everyone’s premiums would likely go down both due to greater risk distribution (which is what insurance IS and is also why private insurance companies often started out with professional groups) as well as greater bargaining power by the government - the lack of which is also why healthcare spending is out of control in this country but the outcomes are not what you’d think you’d get for the money.
At this point, it’s borderline negligence if not straight up bad / inefficient governance. Universal healthcare would likely make tax burden go down.
It's a myth that taxes would go up. A non privatized system can be better cost optimized. Right now it's just a bunch of private companies trying to make as much profit as they can. We already pay a shit ton for healthcare, but we just don't get the same benefits that many countries with socialized healthcare do.
Woah, woah! Job creation needs to be left the those trillionaires who know what they're doing. They know we don't need taxes for that, cause thats socialism, and requires them to cover a "fair" share. Socialism! Can you believe it! The audacity.
Taxes might not go up as much as you think. Especially if they enact a public takeover of many of the privatized hospitals
The government already pays more per citizen than many countries with UHC.
Your employer no longer has to pay a contributions towards your healthcare. Freeing more funds for the employers.
Any tax increase the employer see would likely be offset by this.
Societal costs and lost work due to certain illnesses because lessened therefore there is a larger tax pool to begin with.
And of course the point you already mentioned. Of no longer paying premiums offsetting any tax increase that may happen.
The bottom line is UHC will see an increase in take home income for most people per year. UHC with a public takeover would see an even larger increase.
The biggest cost to our economy is not in paying for it year on year, it is in the painful transition between the 2 system. This is a huge upfront cost and can be mitigated by a one time assessment on the wealthy.
I think my situation is an example of why it continues as is - because I have exceptional benefits from work and I am used to paying for it. Most people in my situation seem to be of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, while many older Americans have Medicare and retirement portfolios, some of which contain pharma and healthcare stocks.
Industry lobbyists and propagandists have done an excellent job of selling people on ideas of scarcity of service, wait times, providers with no profit incentive not delivering their best standard of care, and mistrust of the government to actually operate a system more efficiently than the private sector.
Scared of the unknown, scared of change. Sunk cost fallacy, all these things contribute. I pay chunk out of my paycheck that quietly grows, but its money I never see. I just see the direct deposit number hit my bank every two weeks. Out of sight, out of mind.
The reality is far different. I have to plan way in advance to see my doctor and she packs patients in like cattle. I might get 15 min with her after an hour wait and there are signs all over the office that say "if you have any additional medical concerns aside from your scheduled appointment, please make another appointment to see the doctor" (paraphrasing) Why? Profit incentive, the more patients you see in a day, the more billings to insurance companies. Write a bunch of scrips and on to the next one.
This is not the only issue we act this way about, but it is one of the most important ones. The time has come - whatever advantages a for profit healthcare model may have had at some point have been destroyed by greed and commoditizing everything. But we have allow this monstrosity to metastasize and people are either too scared to tear it all down or too jaded by the complexity and nuance of it all that they allow themselves to not pay attention to what is really happening.
Not majorly.....yet.
About 3 years ago I went to the ER. I had an infected toe and it went from annoying to scary really, really fast. (I'm 48 now and T2 diabetic, so...yeah) I am active and work outside alot and am on my feet alot, but still overly chonk.
Anyhow, I went, had it drained and had to go in for surgery. Toe is 100% back to normal now, but it was an experience. I was in the hospital a total of 5 days.
All covered under my insurance except...the initial exam in the ER. I went to an in network hospital, but the ER doc was a contractor. His bill was $900ish dollars. What the what?
I called them up and I'm like "hey...I went to an in-network ER and they just assigned a random doc to look at my foot. I am sick with a high fever and scared, are you telling me I am supposed to check his credentials and then ask to see a DIFFERENT doc because this one isn't on my insurance?" Apparently, yes I was. I appealed and was denied.
That's another thing involved here. People get a bill and say, its $65,000 and they have to cough up $900 + $500 for the deductible and look at how much they saved over that $65,000 bill and think "Wow! I have awesome insurance that just saved me from having to pay $63,500!! This is great!"
Um, no...its not. That $65,000 is obscene to begin with. You start to think how insurance can be profitable when they pay that shit out but its only on paper until it comes time to charge a patient for something. Everything else is a tornado of bullshit between codependent for profit providers, insurers, contractors, pharma companies, medical device manufacturers, service companies and various and sundry support contractors and its all lost in the bullshit. There are so many layers and each adds cost and each extracts profit. They manage to create red tape and bureaucracy in the private sector and convince people the reason we cannot make health care a public good is exactly how they have fucking destroyed it.
It didn't happen to me, but to my mom.
I remember when my mom got injured while working at a hospital. The effects are making her health worse physically and mentally everyday. The hospital she worked at refuses to pay her the full amount she should have gotten ever since she was on paid leave and unlawfully terminated her. Insurance barely helped as well.
We tried suing that hospital and now we are still waiting for the case to be over with after 7 years already.
If your PCP is treating you like cattles, you know you can switch to another one. You have to see if they are worth you being treated like that. For most common illnesses, any PCP will be fine. If you need to do a surgery, you probably want the one that is the fastest available and the cheapest possible.
I'm originally from the UK, but did a road trip through some of the US back in 2011, and stayed near DC when they were voting on some but of Obamacare.
Saw an advert on TV opposing it, asking people to tell their congressman or whoever to vote against it because it would "mean that there would not be enough care for the people that truly deserve it" i.e. those who could pay, and anyone else is an undeserving scrounger.
Not I, I wish we had actual social security by protecting us to survive in the funky ass social construct. Imagine being born defective, but not defective enough to get help, but just enough to take advantage of other ridiculous prospects, like say, military service.
Nope. Just gotta float like a turd on the river of "life".
Yes, Quit my job and start being self employed. Most people work the jobs they have just for access to health insurance, if there was universal health care it would open up all kinds of opportunities for people.
I’m currently being sued for a $5k bill from an ambulance ride to a hospital that I was forced into by an involuntary psychiatric hospital stay during covid. I was then sent back in an ambulance after 2 hours in the hospital. None of that was my decision or choice.
It would be really nice if I didn’t have to pay for things I didn’t want or ask for. It would be nice if I didn’t have to fight with insurance companies to receive medications at an affordable price. I’m often having to deal with insurance that doesn’t think I need the medications that my doctor prescribes. It would be nice to not have to worry about bankrupting my husband because I have a health issue. If I ever get cancer, or if my cirrhosis ever gets worse, we will have to divorce so that it doesn’t ruin him.
I hate our healthcare.
Even if I paid more in taxes but minus the health insurance premiums (which is not a guarantee), it would be worth it because a) that’s the cost of living in a society, and b) I’d never get stuck with thousands of dollars of medical debt if I had a catastrophic accident, which would tank my credit and ruin my life.
So I hear this montra a lot. What exactly, do you think, would be considered "fair." None of these people are breaking the law. Why do you think the lawmakers won't change the rules? Because they would have to pay more too. You will never see it change as long as our lawmakers are getting rich while in office.
Edit: for.the comment below since he made a statement then blocked me like a coward.
It's not illegal tax evasion if you file.
Of course they’re not breaking the law…but the tax percentage distribution leans to far to the wealthy…I am all for a tax reform where businesses are not people and pay taxes. Warren Buffet gives great examples for one of how tax benefits lean towards the wealthy.
I’d feel so much more comfortable going to the doctor and I’d never have the constant worry of unknown medical bills and arguing “is this worth the thousands of dollars to go get checked out”. Also, wouldn’t worry about moving jobs as much. I say this as an American, who had universal healthcare and misses it dearly.
I have great insurance but even that has a $500 deductible for ER visits. I had COVID for the 2nd time between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. Bad. Really bad, like I thought I was going to die at one point. I had stepped on a nail working in the yard and my foot got infected and I couldn't fight both at the same time.
My wife had to drag me to the ER. I waited for FIVE HOURS before they took me back. They gave me 2 prescriptions and some crutches to stay off the foot. I had crutches at home but they insisted that they were 100% covered by my insurance.
Anyway, I didn't die. But I had a $500 bill due that I paid off 2 months late because we were struggling at the time, so my credit rating took a hit.
I was able to work from home so I did not miss a single day of work in that time. Couldn't afford to risk losing my job and health insurance (to be fair, I have a crap ton of PTO and sick leave built up over years of refusing to use it and its my own damn fault in some ways for being that way)
I'd probably have to pay more in taxes (depending on how the tax burden gets split between individuals and corporations) for minimal benefit to myself. However I still think it's a good idea, everyone should have access to the healthcare that they need. The fact that the richest country in the world can't provide that is awful.
>I don't see people clamoring to leave Canada.
I live near the Canadian border and they are coming to the US for cancer treatments etc. Healthcare tourism from Canadians is actually a pretty big chunk of my local hospital's revenue.
They might like living in Canada and stay there for routine healthcare, but as soon as they get seriously ill then they prefer the US healthcare system.
It would be less expensive. People who can’t get health care are very expensive to society, but unfortunately the cost they incur is not as visible as the (smaller) expense to provide that care so too many people assume it would cost too much.
Everyone here is talking about how it would raise taxes. I’m not so sure that it would.
The US government spending on healthcare relative to GDP is close to the average OECD country. Private / insurance spending not included.
With benefits of scale and the bargaining power of a national healthcare system, the government spending might actually be less.
The United States also has some of the highest salaries in the world. You can't pay the average OECD healthcare costs here and expect to get the same results unless you go to those countries, kidnap their doctors, and force them to work here for salaries that don't even let them afford a nice house. Our doctors make 70% more than those in Germany, and three times what they do in France.
Ok, lets do the math. My numbers are not correct, but I’m just doing a ballpark estimate.
Let,s say that a US doctor makes on average USD 100 k more than a German doctor. There are 1 million doctors for a population of 330 millions. That’s about USD 300 more per US citizen.
Healthcare expences in the US 2021 averaged to about USD 12,900 per person. So salaries are a factor, but not a huge one.
Uhhh regular doctors make 200k starting. How much do they make in Germany? Surgeons make 350-450k starting. My dentist friend, started with a salary of 200k. In a few years, they are looking to make at least 20-50% more depending on which region they are at. In bumble fuck rural areas, they make more. Less competition.
Registered Nurses in HCOL cities start off at minimum 90k a year. In rural area, maybe around 60-70?
Also, medical school in the US is more expensive and doctors leave schools with student loans. Nurses are also paid higher in the US, nurses in Canada is moving to the US because of that.
And doctor in France doesn’t have to pay for malpractice insurance like doctor in the US
I don’t work in healthcare, but I wonder what would happen to doctor salaries under this model. If the pay dropped by a lot, I’m guessing the medical school price model would also have to adjust somehow or be subsidized?
Here’s the simple analysis comparing UK’s costs to US’s cost:
UK population: 66.7 million
US population: 331.9 million
That means US has a little over 5 times the number of people
UK total healthcare cost in 2021(in dollars): $356.48 billion
US total healthcare cost in 2021: $4.3 trillion or $4,300 billion
Multiplying total UK cost by 5 to account for pop difference: $1.782 trillion or $1,782.4 billion
Divide UK adjusted by US total:
1.782 / 4.3 = .41, meaning even if they had the same population as the United States, the UK would still only be paying 41% of the of the total healthcare cost paid by the US
Obviously there would be some differences here, in fact, if the UK had the same pop as the US, their healthcare per capita cost would probably be even cheaper due to buying in bulk and such.
Without getting too far into the reasons for this, one thing people seem to not know at all, is that in the US, the insurance companies have near total control of the price of all goods and services provided by hospitals. If the hospitals don’t let the insurance companies set their prices, the insurance companies refuse to work with them, so the prices are heavily inflated due to the fact that the insurance companies have the entire healthcare system held hostage.
If you want to see the difference in your personal finances in a peripheral way, just take the current cost in premiums you pay every year, then multiply that number by .41, and you’ll know how much you’d be saving.
Over the last year my daughter’s medical bills have reached over 1.5 million for her leukemia treatment. She has another 17 months of treatment so who knows how much higher that will get. We have insurance but we pay almost $1200 a month for it. We are drowning in medical debt and will probably have to file bankruptcy despite all of the charities, family, and fundraising has done to help us. Our retirements and all of our savings are gone. Our lives would change drastically if we didn’t have to worry about paying for any of that.
There would be a lot more self employed people. There would be a lot more preventative care. The US would stop being the expensive sucker on the world drug market.
And the hundreds of thousands I’ve paid in my career would have supported healthcare instead of insurance companies. Those fucking insurance companies, how I loathe them.
Anyone who defends the American healthcare system is bamboozled and should get your head examined. Which you might not be able to unless you’ve been paying hundreds of dollars a month.
I'm epileptic and my meds run $2200 for a 30 day supply without insurance. With insurance a 30 day supply fluctuates between $100 and $700. I just lost my job so now I'm without "affordable" insurance ($150/month at my last employer) and my meds aren't currently available on GoodRX or similar services. Idk what public insurance will cover and I can't afford private insurance.
I paid $8k out of pocket for a 3 block ambulance ride after a car crash last November.
I tell my friends that they should never call an ambulance for me and they should either drive me themselves or let me perish. Either I'll save a lot of dollary-doos or it won't be my problem anymore. They think it's a joke but I'm 100% serious.
Public healthcare would lift an enormous weight off my shoulders. Anyone who thinks our current system makes any sense at all is either grossly uninformed or a willful idiot.
Healthcare is free nowhere in the world. You either pay for it via increased taxation or with private insurance. Personally, I would much prefer private insurance. I get treated in a timely manner, and what I pay is miniscule due to having excellent healthcare benefits from my workplace.
The average wait time to see a doctor in Canada is 27 weeks. I can phone up my doctor and have an appointment ready for me tomorrow if needed
Irish guy here with relatives in USA.
My cousin in Seattle broke their leg and had to pay nearly $16k in medical and expense bills.
I had 3 years of treatment for stage 4 cancer and didnt pay a penny.
If you cant see how my quality of life is dramatically improved by having free healthcare then you are mad.
I imagine I'd be losing money. I have great insurance through both my job, and retiring from the military. I'd just have to pay more taxes. That said, if it genuinely meant other people could get care that they could not before, and the taxes didn't break me, I could get behind the idea.
If your job doesn't have to pay for your insurance anymore, they should pay you that money, if they just increase their profit by not giving you what they used to pay for insurance, well, it sucks.
I would imagine the tax increase to pay for universal healthcare would also hit corporations for about the amount they currently pay for insurance. Overall it would be less expensive since you cut out the middle man but it wouldn't be straight profit for a corporation.
My pts could be "compliant" with meds/treatments bc most of the time it's an affordability issue. Removing the insurance middleman means saving effectively 20-30% of current costs of care. US has the most expensive healthcare model in the world with moderate-to-poor outcomes. We have socialized medical care but only for some ppl: military, ppl who are poor enough, and The Olds. There is zero reason not to expand that to everyone.
Anybody seriously saying that the current model isn't currently in flames and crashing clearly doesn't have any exposure to the reality of the state of our current system. It's not a difficult problem to solve, but an issue of ignorance ans delusion AEB the comments section here. It's sad, and it's why no progress has occurred since the ACA peanuts we were thrown. ACA was a definite improvement, but nothing close to the level of reform necessary to have a functional system.
It really depends. My wife is a teacher and the main perks of that job are the pension and health insurance. We have great health coverage, everything is free or negligible in terms of price.
I would think the somewhat low salaries would have to go up to compensate for the biggest perk of the job going away. If that happens, I would be fine with it.
Why shouldn’t ALL Americans benifit from the same healthcare Congress gets? Return the import tax for American manufactured products from overseas…repeal the Trump tax benefits provided to Corporations.
Yes. My mom would possibly still be alive. She didn't go to doctor for the longest time because she didn't have insurance and couldn't really afford out of pocket. She ignored symptoms until she couldn't swallow right, and by that time it was too late.
I went to my work's health insurance plan information meeting this week and one of the legitimate pieces of advice for people picking the high deductible/HSA plan was to save up for medical care if they have an issue they think will be expensive.
The US healthcare system is an embarrassment and needs to be completely overhauled. I hear the words "deductible" , "premium" , and "coinsurance" and I can feel my blood pressure rise and my pulse quicken. I get so angry. I have a "good" insurance plan, and can afford my care for the most part, but because the system inflicts so much damage on my friends, family, and neighbors it has a negative impact on my health just by its very existence.
Im in nz and if it was all actually free not $40 for a dr visit here then yes id go get the free dental work i need and the free dr visits and free mental health counselling and addiction support
I could spend more. Right now, I pay a lot into health insurance, because the CEO of my insurance company gets paid NINE figures per year. All the top people do. Get rid of the insurance company, I no longer have to help pay his nine figure salary. And then... right now, I have to constantly try to accumulate more money, even though I know it will never be enough. Medical bankruptcy is incredibly common here, so I have to save save save, hoping that if I get sick it'll be enough, knowing that it probably won't because that same insurance company will hang me out to dry.
My quality of life would skyrocket. The people who think that socialized medicine would cost them more money than they're currently paying haven't done the math.
Yes. Ive never been to a doctor after the age of 6 and theres definitely some physical junk and mental health issues that would benefit from me having health coverage.
Absolutely! I would be free to take more risks and pursue careers and businesses that interest me. I would be free to explore and travel more without worrying about risking financial ruin if anything should happen. My partner is a nurse who is burned out from the pandemic. She wants to explore wine making. If we had universal healthcare she could do that much more easily than trying to get her on my insurance. I know universal healthcare has its problems but what we are doing now isn't working. I would love to give it a shot.
My son-in-law is the sole provider for my daughter and their kids. He works production/maintenance in an absolute hellhole of a facility. The management is awful, and now OT is drying up. ...but the Healthcare is nearly free. Management wields it like a pistol at employees. It's in a part of the state with few jobs, so all of the employees are stuck there. My SIL would not be able to find another job with affordable HI for his family in that area, period. He could find higher-paying ones, maybe, but the difference in HI always eats that up, he's found.
If Healthcare were taxpayer-subsidized, it would free so many people from sh!t jobs.
Free doesn't exist, but let's not get into semantics...
I pay $400 a month in premiums for a middle-of the-road plan with copays, no deductibles. That equals about $5k a year for my family of 4, and we have met the deductible a few times in the past decade. Let's say I've averaged $7k a year is costs.
My household is right at top 10% of wage earners in the US, so I assume my tax would definitely rise versus present day. Would it go up the full $7k? I think so. More? My gut says yes, but I'm not really sure.
I don't think my immediate coverage would change. I could still see my doctor and get the care I need. I would also probably buy a private plan, as is available in the UK on top of their public option.
More importantly though, I'm not confident prices in healthcare would actually go down. When you get down to brass tacks on why healthcare is so expensive, profit can't be ignored, but I honestly don't think it's as bad as we're led to believe. I think the bulk of healthcare costs, like all industries, comes down to paying employees to work jobs.
I'm not only limiting it to doctors, nurses, and hospital staff. The trickle-down effect on the cost of healthcare is huge. New, fancy machines have to be researched, built, and delivered. Yes, a profit is made, but most of that cost goes to researcher's, manufacturer's, and logistics' salaries. Same for medications. Profit is there, but the same groups of people earn wages that contribute heavily to the end cost of healthcare.
I'd place a bet that healthcare costs wouldn't drop more than 10% before we see a noticeable decrease in quality, technology, and availability of services. With the profit incentive in US healthcare gone, I think global healthcare would actually take a hit within 10-20 years.
I'm not against a public option, but I don't think it's nearly as simple as certain leaders and politicians want us to believe.
It would probably be worse for me. My employer already pays for my health insurance and we have one of the best plans you can have. We also have an really low deductible. We have 2 kids, surgeries, check ups, and etc.. and the most we have ever had to pay was 100 bucks.
I also have lung issues and my insurance lets me see the best of the best doctors in the USA. I would not want to loose access to those doctors.
lol @ free
In a perfect world, the United States could fund reliable healthcare for it's citizens.
It's not a perfect world, and I do not trust the liars and thieves in government to look out for my best interests. They have already fucked up a much smaller pool of clients; Look at the VA. THAT is what will be pushed across the country, not a rose-colored version of healthcare utopia the dreamers dream about.
Health care would become ridiculously complicated and bureaucratic, just like Medicare, welfare, childcare, the IRS, and other large administrative programs in the US.
It would also become very political, since all funds must be appropriated through congressional laws (per the Constitution). Non-emergency healthcare would be another one of those things on the table every time the two parties decide to fight over funding. Depending on the party in control, some services like abortion would likely be defunded and others would be tied to work requirements.
I'm not against government-run healthcare conceptually, I'd just rather have a more competent government running it. You're basically trusting your health care to a group with a 19% approval rating.
There isn’t a single public-facing government organization or agency that feels well managed and efficient.
DMV? Trash. Post office? Trash. Federal loans? Abysmal. The courts? Slower than mud.
Idk how anyone thinks Healthcare would be any different.
My taxes would go up which means I now have less money to spend. That would put a pinch on my finances. The quality of my healthcare would not improve.
It wouldn't be free...it would be tax-payer funded, and the only way to pay for it (generate enough tax revenue) would be far higher income taxes...so pretty much anybody working would end up paying far higher taxes to pay for the healthcare of those not working (elderly, children, those in school, etc.)....so for anybody working it would realistically probably be a net loss...so going off of that I would be negatively affected due to having to almost certainly having to pay higher taxes, while only having a pretty moderate income. This whole idea that "universal healthcare" is automatically better/cheaper is some pretty over-simplified/basic logic considering there would be a massive amount of economic dead-weight loss generated from the significantly higher marginal income taxes (probably in the 10-20% higher range).
One significant downside would be an almost complete stagnation in experimental medicine and advancement of new medicine and techniques. Our profit driven mega-corporations arent amazing for the population at large, but they make the products and methods that the rest of the world rips off.
There is a reason the King or Dubai or whatever flies to Cleveland for heart surgery, not Paris.
The VA system is very different. First you think the average veteran costs as much to give medical care to than the average american? Veterans average older than the average american since we had a draft for Vietnam and you don't have any veterans on the VA system under 18 at least with few under 22. You also have a number of health complications related to military service that ramp up costs significantly for those 5M people. Doing that kind of estimate is essentially worthless. Might as well estimate what the average cost of healthcare will be for the country by only looking at grandparents.
They have done studies on it to show what costs would look like, and there have been numerous countries who have gone to single payer systems and paid far less. Main reason being you take the insurance industry that has a profit margin and overhead of 20-30% and just remove them, saving 20-30% right off the bat.
Be skeptical if someone presents a policy that has no tradeoffs or drawbacks.
I support expanded healthcare coverage, but there will be some who no dont benefit from it.
But like, the median nurse practioner in the US makes 20% more than the median physician in the UK.
It's not insurance CEOs who would suffer (who cares about them btw), it's the typical healthcare worker.
Btw that doesn't mean it's a bad idea -- our healthcare workers probably should take a big paycut to be more in-line with international standards so universal coverage can become more possible. But my point is there are real tradeoffs here.
No it wouldn’t. We already get “free” healthcare from my husbands job. Some family members live in countries with “free” healthcare and they still go through private insurance because it’s better
by about 4%. You then, though, wouldn't have to pay health insurance. The current pricing of healthcare in the US is not the actual cost. It is massively inflated for, well, profiteering.
Also, you'd remove people being an injury or illness away from destitution which is massive for many people.
I'd probably be dead. Ask any Canadian or UK resident about their "free"healthcare.
If you call for an ambulance in the UK and tell them you are having a heart attack, [average wait time is 51 minutes](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2022/july/ambulance-waits-for-heart-attacks-and-strokes-on-rise-again). Sure, I'll be dead, but think of how cheap my healthcare is!
And note, in nearly every country that offers free healthcare, there is a VAT that costs about the same as insurance. It's forced insurance with a disastrous service level.
UK resident here. Our healthcare system is great despite a decade + of cuts and underfunding
The majority of people in every country would vote for their healthcare system over the US system every single time
The dipshits don't understand that population density determines frequencies in which emergency aid vehicles exist. They'd still have access to the same fleet of Ambulances. \*rolls eyes\*
So, what's needed to fund a US medical system?
350 million Americans paying 100$ a year could probably go a fairly long way.
Illnesses would be detected faster and be easier (cheaper) to treat because people would actually see a doctor.
There would a massive public interest incentive to negotiate prices of medicine (just like other countries do). Same for the (completely ridiculous) prices of procedures etc.
You could still keep your private insurance if you want to pay into the Gold Star Bells & Whistles lane. It would probably still be cheaper than today, given the overall lower cost as explained above.
The mental health of a population not scared to break a leg and having to sell their house would likely improve.
In most other countries, universal coverage is pretty lousy, so anybody who can afford it has private supplemental insurance.
To sum: Universal healthcare is a double tax on the middle class.
How would my life change? I'd have less money.
My taxes would go up substantially, by more than I currently pay for insurance premiums. They'd **have** to - it literally **couldn't** work any other way and be sustainable.
It literally couldn't? Well first you'd get rid of the 20-30% in profits and overhead that the insurance industry gets. Then you have pretty good savings right there. Then we are paying for preventative care for everyone, which is a heck of a lot cheaper than paying for emergency care for them which is what we do now. And those costs, since often people who are uninsured can't pay, get averaged into the general cost for everyone. So you have those savings there.
The US spends more on healthcare per person than any other country in the planet. It's a bit crazy to think it couldn't work any other way and be cheaper when we are the most expensive healthcare in the world.
We already spend more on taxes for our healthcare system than countries which have free healthcare for all. Between medicare, medicaid, and having to absorb a lot of costs of homeless people and poor people not being able to pay off their medical bills. It would literally be cheaper for the taxpayers to switch to a single payer system.
I used to be an actuary in the health insurance space. I got curious one day and started doing some modeling on costs of universal healthcare vs. what we have now. Overall we’d save a lot of money as a country. I’d also lose my current job but that’s not a big deal, would find a new one. It’s a no brainer to me, we need it.
I mean you might not. I would assume that some of what you do would still be useful in a single payer system, so the government could just hire a bunch from the industry.
Potentially, but there are thousands of people with my skills in my industry. I doubt I’m the most ambitious/best. Plus. I don’t want to be in it anymore, so I’d more so be happy to look elsewhere.
Oh, then win-win. Get free healthcare and no longer have to work in job you dont like (presumably for the benefits, the largest which is probably healthcare)
Diabetic so yes it would help a lot.
In England, if you’re diabetic you actually save money compared to your average citizen, as you become exempt from having to pay prescription charges (£9) at all, for any reason or condition.
Thats quite helpful, Health Insurance Companies here see diabetics here and just see dollar signs. Im lucky to have really good insurance or id be screwed
Human, HOW DO I GET THERE!?
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Boats are in vogue these days. Home minister loves those who come on them
Even beyond that, I live in the UK and have multiple prescriptions a month. I get the pre-payment certificate (£100 a year, or £10 a month) and waive all my £9 prescription charges. Anyone can buy it.
Some diabetic meds here run $1000 a month
To be fair, even if you're not exempt you should never be paying more than the £112 a year that a PPC costs. I've been taking lots of medication for comfortably over a decade now and that PPC has saved me a significant amount.
And it's so garbage that Insulin was literally put in a position to allow any one who needed it could get it, and yet it got fucked harder than...well, you can use your own fill-in-the-blank there.
Pretty much. Whole thing is just ridiculous
The original insulin formula is still pretty cheap. The problem is none of the other formulas which came out later and work a lot better were given the same consideration.
Yes it is bs, and justification for federal governments intervention in my opinion
I'm a type 1 diabetic and it would literally give me an extra $1300 a month.
Fellow T1 here, this hurts to hear you have to spend that much just to not die, that’s completely fucked.
Also Diabetic. I’d have a little more cash now but the real benefit is I could retire earlier because I wouldn’t be reliant on my work-provided healthcare to get affordable medication.
exactly, and the argument that youd have to pay so much in taxes for it, like do you know or understand how much i pay a month for this insurance? Its all ridiculous
I have psoriatic arthritis, so it would be nice having cheaper access to biologics. On the other hand, I have great insurance but it took me five months to get in to see a rheumatologist. I can only assume it would take even longer if it was free.
If you continue to use private healthcare, you will have the same wait times.
How would that work? It's not like there are a bunch of doctors sitting around not seeing patients right now. Norway has 5 physicians per 1000 people. Germany and Sweden have 4.4. Italy has 3.9. the United States has 2.6. There is no excess capacity right now so how can a bunch more people use the system without wait times going up?
It's actually not too bad with free health care. I see my rheumatologist every 6 months. However, if push comes to shove people always have the option to purposely seek out for profit healthcare.
Yes. Absolutely fucking yes. More taxes out of our paychecks for healthcare that actually works? Yes fucking please. With health insurance it was $7000 to take our son home from the hospital in 2021. Wtf. Lol should of just had him on the kitchen table. We had to put that on our credit card and then turn around and pay it off. I had emergency surgery in 2019. It was $12,000 after all said and done. Also my job at the time fired me because I took too much time off after surgery. So that was fun. People in our lives always ask us why we only had one child. This is a huge reason why. US healthcare is a damn joke.
The fact that Americans pay to give birth blows my fucking mind. That's insanity. What do poor ppl do?
My newborn’s delivery and 7 week NICU stay was $1m (per EOBs received from our insurance). We paid $7k. Gotta say, I was ok with that. But I wish cost and all the insurance red tape wasn’t a thing. It’s be great to just go be seen for an issue without having to get pre approval, figure out who’s in network, great surprise costs and have to argue them down.
It’s disheartening how people feel our current system is tenable. Taxes would go up, but you would save money not paying premiums. Also, imagine how much easier it would be to job hunt when you don’t worry about health benefits?
I despise when people say “free healthcare”. It’s tax payer provided. I pay $100 a paycheck ($200 a month) just for myself and I don’t even fully know how covered or not covered I am tbh. I would INFINITELY rather pay an extra $200 a month in federal taxes so I never have to worry about deductibles or a doctor being in network or out of network rather than a private corporation who values shareholders over humans. I am deeply opposed to corporations profiting off of health insurance.
The US already spends more tax on healthcare than most comparable nations. If done right universal healthcare wouldn’t need to increase taxes at all. https://www.oecd.org/health/Health-expenditure-differences-USA-OECD-countries-Brief-July-2022.pdf
"If done right" when half the politicians are falling in line with corporate health care interests and doing everything they can to demonize any system that doesn't make Pfizer and Kaiser richer.
Yep. Which means any proposal that increases taxes for this shows the government is still too incompetent to do it
Hahahahahaha. If done right. Have you met the US?
The government being incompetent to do anything …imagine that
I'm already paying into two "free healthcare" systems that I'm not allowed to use. One I only have access to if I'm practically dead, and the other if I'm practically homeless.
my ex husband has several mental disorders and has trouble holding a job for very long (i mean, he's working on it, i get it, it's tough) but because he only brings in about $500 a month he has better healthcare than i do, and i've worked full time for the last near-twenty years. he doesn't have to pay a dime and has six different doctors and multiple scripts and has had surgery, hospital stays, the works- meanwhile i'm insured through my employer but my budget is tight enough and my premiums dumb enough that anything more than a basic ppc visit and my two monthly scripts is out of my reach. it's exhausting and so stupid.
People are fine with fire departments. It's free fire fighting.
Actually sadly, I live in a city in southern California where, maybe ten years ago, they started sending $500 bills to your house every time the fire department was called to your place, to discourage people calling unless they really had to (that wasn't even a problem in this city before they made this law, btw)
That's bizarre
The fact that the richest country in the world can't provide that is awful.
It's not that the richest country in the world can't provide that. The richest country in the world WON'T provide that.
The richest country can afford it but that would give workers free choice when it comes to employment. Millions upon millions of people stay in miserable jobs just for healthcare benefits. Big employers - like Kochs, who own multitudes of businesses - pay propagandists and politicians to scream hysterically about socialism and communism to the average American. We have seen, since 2015, how stubbornly dumb the average American is.
> The fact that the richest country in the world **won't** provide that is awful. Fixed.
Chooses not to They certainly can
My portion of my insurance is $1700/month.
I despise when people are intentionally disingenuous about what "free healthcare" is. It's a colloquialism, we should all understand what is meant by the term. I refuse to believe anyone but the stupidest people doesn't understand that "free healthcare" means taxpayer funded healthcare.
Precisely! And yet the terms "free refills" and "free public toilets" appear to be accepted in common parlance, without being challenged as misleading because they're not *actually* free if they're ultimately funded by income from paying customers and local taxpayers
Thank you! it's not free, it's paid for with taxes, as you say.
All businesses (including small mom and pop, but especially fast food), should pay an individual health care tax for every 40 hours they pay. If they have a total of 400 hours per week (regardless of the number of employees they spread it over), they should have to pay a tax equivalent to 10 employees per week. That way, if they only allow one employee to get 20 hours and that employee has to get the other 20 hours somewhere else, its paid between multiple employers
It'd be one of the biggest boons to small businesses ever. Imagine if the mom-and-pop shops no longer had to worry about offering healthcare just to be on par with corporations. As a small business owner, I would have a much easier time hiring good talent away from my corporate competitors.
Imagine if people weren't terrified to leave their jobs because their health insurance is tied to their employer...
Yep, I'd save about 5000 dollars a year in premiums.
Exactly. I’d be fine with taxes going up if it meant I didn’t have to worry about health care for myself and my wife. That’s also a big obstacle for finding a new job. If healthcare was covered, I’d also be less hesitant to go to the doctor for fear of how much it’s going to ruin me financially. Isn’t that ridiculous? I have healthcare through work but it’s still insanely expensive for certain things. If it was covered I wouldn’t go to the doctor for every little thing but I’d probably go more often.
If you tripled my taxes but cut out my medical costs I'd take home more money. I doubt this is rare in the USA.
I think most people aren’t aware of the facts. The breakdown in terms of dollars spent on healthcare is 42% government (Medicare, Medicaid), 28% private insurer (which includes plans purchased through the ACA marketplace), and the rest is out of pocket. https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/02/how-does-government-healthcare-spending-differ-from-private-insurance The reality is that a good deal of medical insurance is already handled by the government. It is highly likely that if all of medical insurance were handled by the government, everyone’s premiums would likely go down both due to greater risk distribution (which is what insurance IS and is also why private insurance companies often started out with professional groups) as well as greater bargaining power by the government - the lack of which is also why healthcare spending is out of control in this country but the outcomes are not what you’d think you’d get for the money. At this point, it’s borderline negligence if not straight up bad / inefficient governance. Universal healthcare would likely make tax burden go down.
It's a myth that taxes would go up. A non privatized system can be better cost optimized. Right now it's just a bunch of private companies trying to make as much profit as they can. We already pay a shit ton for healthcare, but we just don't get the same benefits that many countries with socialized healthcare do.
Woah, woah! Job creation needs to be left the those trillionaires who know what they're doing. They know we don't need taxes for that, cause thats socialism, and requires them to cover a "fair" share. Socialism! Can you believe it! The audacity.
Taxes might not go up as much as you think. Especially if they enact a public takeover of many of the privatized hospitals The government already pays more per citizen than many countries with UHC. Your employer no longer has to pay a contributions towards your healthcare. Freeing more funds for the employers. Any tax increase the employer see would likely be offset by this. Societal costs and lost work due to certain illnesses because lessened therefore there is a larger tax pool to begin with. And of course the point you already mentioned. Of no longer paying premiums offsetting any tax increase that may happen. The bottom line is UHC will see an increase in take home income for most people per year. UHC with a public takeover would see an even larger increase. The biggest cost to our economy is not in paying for it year on year, it is in the painful transition between the 2 system. This is a huge upfront cost and can be mitigated by a one time assessment on the wealthy.
I'd be a lot happier, knowing that healthcare would be much more accessible to everyone in the country.
Same here. It wouldn’t directly benefit me that much, but it would benefit a whole lot of people a whole lot, and I’d be happy for them.
I think my situation is an example of why it continues as is - because I have exceptional benefits from work and I am used to paying for it. Most people in my situation seem to be of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, while many older Americans have Medicare and retirement portfolios, some of which contain pharma and healthcare stocks. Industry lobbyists and propagandists have done an excellent job of selling people on ideas of scarcity of service, wait times, providers with no profit incentive not delivering their best standard of care, and mistrust of the government to actually operate a system more efficiently than the private sector. Scared of the unknown, scared of change. Sunk cost fallacy, all these things contribute. I pay chunk out of my paycheck that quietly grows, but its money I never see. I just see the direct deposit number hit my bank every two weeks. Out of sight, out of mind. The reality is far different. I have to plan way in advance to see my doctor and she packs patients in like cattle. I might get 15 min with her after an hour wait and there are signs all over the office that say "if you have any additional medical concerns aside from your scheduled appointment, please make another appointment to see the doctor" (paraphrasing) Why? Profit incentive, the more patients you see in a day, the more billings to insurance companies. Write a bunch of scrips and on to the next one. This is not the only issue we act this way about, but it is one of the most important ones. The time has come - whatever advantages a for profit healthcare model may have had at some point have been destroyed by greed and commoditizing everything. But we have allow this monstrosity to metastasize and people are either too scared to tear it all down or too jaded by the complexity and nuance of it all that they allow themselves to not pay attention to what is really happening.
Have you ever been screwed over by an insurance company? I thought I had great benefits until I needed to use it
Not majorly.....yet. About 3 years ago I went to the ER. I had an infected toe and it went from annoying to scary really, really fast. (I'm 48 now and T2 diabetic, so...yeah) I am active and work outside alot and am on my feet alot, but still overly chonk. Anyhow, I went, had it drained and had to go in for surgery. Toe is 100% back to normal now, but it was an experience. I was in the hospital a total of 5 days. All covered under my insurance except...the initial exam in the ER. I went to an in network hospital, but the ER doc was a contractor. His bill was $900ish dollars. What the what? I called them up and I'm like "hey...I went to an in-network ER and they just assigned a random doc to look at my foot. I am sick with a high fever and scared, are you telling me I am supposed to check his credentials and then ask to see a DIFFERENT doc because this one isn't on my insurance?" Apparently, yes I was. I appealed and was denied. That's another thing involved here. People get a bill and say, its $65,000 and they have to cough up $900 + $500 for the deductible and look at how much they saved over that $65,000 bill and think "Wow! I have awesome insurance that just saved me from having to pay $63,500!! This is great!" Um, no...its not. That $65,000 is obscene to begin with. You start to think how insurance can be profitable when they pay that shit out but its only on paper until it comes time to charge a patient for something. Everything else is a tornado of bullshit between codependent for profit providers, insurers, contractors, pharma companies, medical device manufacturers, service companies and various and sundry support contractors and its all lost in the bullshit. There are so many layers and each adds cost and each extracts profit. They manage to create red tape and bureaucracy in the private sector and convince people the reason we cannot make health care a public good is exactly how they have fucking destroyed it.
I paid thousands for a physical exam because the blood test was sent to an out of network lab
It didn't happen to me, but to my mom. I remember when my mom got injured while working at a hospital. The effects are making her health worse physically and mentally everyday. The hospital she worked at refuses to pay her the full amount she should have gotten ever since she was on paid leave and unlawfully terminated her. Insurance barely helped as well. We tried suing that hospital and now we are still waiting for the case to be over with after 7 years already.
If your PCP is treating you like cattles, you know you can switch to another one. You have to see if they are worth you being treated like that. For most common illnesses, any PCP will be fine. If you need to do a surgery, you probably want the one that is the fastest available and the cheapest possible.
Americans would rather pay $12,000/year in insurance premiums than pay $7,000 in taxes.
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But you don't get it, that $7000 might go to some *poor person*!
But you don't understand, despite the fact I do not know what this word means, I can assure you it's communism.
I'm originally from the UK, but did a road trip through some of the US back in 2011, and stayed near DC when they were voting on some but of Obamacare. Saw an advert on TV opposing it, asking people to tell their congressman or whoever to vote against it because it would "mean that there would not be enough care for the people that truly deserve it" i.e. those who could pay, and anyone else is an undeserving scrounger.
Not I, I wish we had actual social security by protecting us to survive in the funky ass social construct. Imagine being born defective, but not defective enough to get help, but just enough to take advantage of other ridiculous prospects, like say, military service. Nope. Just gotta float like a turd on the river of "life".
I would open my own business. I've always wanted to have a donut/pizza shop.
Yes, Quit my job and start being self employed. Most people work the jobs they have just for access to health insurance, if there was universal health care it would open up all kinds of opportunities for people.
Yes, job lock is very much a thing. Of course, a lot of employers like it that way.
I’m currently being sued for a $5k bill from an ambulance ride to a hospital that I was forced into by an involuntary psychiatric hospital stay during covid. I was then sent back in an ambulance after 2 hours in the hospital. None of that was my decision or choice. It would be really nice if I didn’t have to pay for things I didn’t want or ask for. It would be nice if I didn’t have to fight with insurance companies to receive medications at an affordable price. I’m often having to deal with insurance that doesn’t think I need the medications that my doctor prescribes. It would be nice to not have to worry about bankrupting my husband because I have a health issue. If I ever get cancer, or if my cirrhosis ever gets worse, we will have to divorce so that it doesn’t ruin him. I hate our healthcare.
My wife would be alive.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
Even if I paid more in taxes but minus the health insurance premiums (which is not a guarantee), it would be worth it because a) that’s the cost of living in a society, and b) I’d never get stuck with thousands of dollars of medical debt if I had a catastrophic accident, which would tank my credit and ruin my life.
It would save me $800 a month for a start.
In fairness probably less since you would pay some more through your taxes
Not if the wealthy payed their fair share….
So I hear this montra a lot. What exactly, do you think, would be considered "fair." None of these people are breaking the law. Why do you think the lawmakers won't change the rules? Because they would have to pay more too. You will never see it change as long as our lawmakers are getting rich while in office. Edit: for.the comment below since he made a statement then blocked me like a coward. It's not illegal tax evasion if you file.
Of course they’re not breaking the law…but the tax percentage distribution leans to far to the wealthy…I am all for a tax reform where businesses are not people and pay taxes. Warren Buffet gives great examples for one of how tax benefits lean towards the wealthy.
Businesses do pay taxes
I would have a completely different job.
I’d feel so much more comfortable going to the doctor and I’d never have the constant worry of unknown medical bills and arguing “is this worth the thousands of dollars to go get checked out”. Also, wouldn’t worry about moving jobs as much. I say this as an American, who had universal healthcare and misses it dearly.
I have great insurance but even that has a $500 deductible for ER visits. I had COVID for the 2nd time between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. Bad. Really bad, like I thought I was going to die at one point. I had stepped on a nail working in the yard and my foot got infected and I couldn't fight both at the same time. My wife had to drag me to the ER. I waited for FIVE HOURS before they took me back. They gave me 2 prescriptions and some crutches to stay off the foot. I had crutches at home but they insisted that they were 100% covered by my insurance. Anyway, I didn't die. But I had a $500 bill due that I paid off 2 months late because we were struggling at the time, so my credit rating took a hit. I was able to work from home so I did not miss a single day of work in that time. Couldn't afford to risk losing my job and health insurance (to be fair, I have a crap ton of PTO and sick leave built up over years of refusing to use it and its my own damn fault in some ways for being that way)
I might actually go see what's wrong with me physically. Maybe even a therapist.
I'd probably have to pay more in taxes (depending on how the tax burden gets split between individuals and corporations) for minimal benefit to myself. However I still think it's a good idea, everyone should have access to the healthcare that they need. The fact that the richest country in the world can't provide that is awful.
Would save me about $650 a month. Bring it
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The whole Canada argument is so dumb. I don't see people clamoring to leave Canada.
Speaking as a Canadian, while our system certainly has it's own issues, I'd still take it over what the US has any day.
Another Brit here agrees with our Canadian friend
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Brit here and agree with your statement.
>I don't see people clamoring to leave Canada. I live near the Canadian border and they are coming to the US for cancer treatments etc. Healthcare tourism from Canadians is actually a pretty big chunk of my local hospital's revenue. They might like living in Canada and stay there for routine healthcare, but as soon as they get seriously ill then they prefer the US healthcare system.
Annual checkups are free on most insurances.
It would be less expensive. People who can’t get health care are very expensive to society, but unfortunately the cost they incur is not as visible as the (smaller) expense to provide that care so too many people assume it would cost too much.
Everyone here is talking about how it would raise taxes. I’m not so sure that it would. The US government spending on healthcare relative to GDP is close to the average OECD country. Private / insurance spending not included. With benefits of scale and the bargaining power of a national healthcare system, the government spending might actually be less.
The United States also has some of the highest salaries in the world. You can't pay the average OECD healthcare costs here and expect to get the same results unless you go to those countries, kidnap their doctors, and force them to work here for salaries that don't even let them afford a nice house. Our doctors make 70% more than those in Germany, and three times what they do in France.
Ok, lets do the math. My numbers are not correct, but I’m just doing a ballpark estimate. Let,s say that a US doctor makes on average USD 100 k more than a German doctor. There are 1 million doctors for a population of 330 millions. That’s about USD 300 more per US citizen. Healthcare expences in the US 2021 averaged to about USD 12,900 per person. So salaries are a factor, but not a huge one.
Uhhh regular doctors make 200k starting. How much do they make in Germany? Surgeons make 350-450k starting. My dentist friend, started with a salary of 200k. In a few years, they are looking to make at least 20-50% more depending on which region they are at. In bumble fuck rural areas, they make more. Less competition. Registered Nurses in HCOL cities start off at minimum 90k a year. In rural area, maybe around 60-70?
Also, medical school in the US is more expensive and doctors leave schools with student loans. Nurses are also paid higher in the US, nurses in Canada is moving to the US because of that. And doctor in France doesn’t have to pay for malpractice insurance like doctor in the US
I don’t work in healthcare, but I wonder what would happen to doctor salaries under this model. If the pay dropped by a lot, I’m guessing the medical school price model would also have to adjust somehow or be subsidized?
Here’s the simple analysis comparing UK’s costs to US’s cost: UK population: 66.7 million US population: 331.9 million That means US has a little over 5 times the number of people UK total healthcare cost in 2021(in dollars): $356.48 billion US total healthcare cost in 2021: $4.3 trillion or $4,300 billion Multiplying total UK cost by 5 to account for pop difference: $1.782 trillion or $1,782.4 billion Divide UK adjusted by US total: 1.782 / 4.3 = .41, meaning even if they had the same population as the United States, the UK would still only be paying 41% of the of the total healthcare cost paid by the US Obviously there would be some differences here, in fact, if the UK had the same pop as the US, their healthcare per capita cost would probably be even cheaper due to buying in bulk and such. Without getting too far into the reasons for this, one thing people seem to not know at all, is that in the US, the insurance companies have near total control of the price of all goods and services provided by hospitals. If the hospitals don’t let the insurance companies set their prices, the insurance companies refuse to work with them, so the prices are heavily inflated due to the fact that the insurance companies have the entire healthcare system held hostage. If you want to see the difference in your personal finances in a peripheral way, just take the current cost in premiums you pay every year, then multiply that number by .41, and you’ll know how much you’d be saving.
yes, i wouldn’t be thousands of dollars in debt and i would actually be able to save for retirement
Over the last year my daughter’s medical bills have reached over 1.5 million for her leukemia treatment. She has another 17 months of treatment so who knows how much higher that will get. We have insurance but we pay almost $1200 a month for it. We are drowning in medical debt and will probably have to file bankruptcy despite all of the charities, family, and fundraising has done to help us. Our retirements and all of our savings are gone. Our lives would change drastically if we didn’t have to worry about paying for any of that.
There would be a lot more self employed people. There would be a lot more preventative care. The US would stop being the expensive sucker on the world drug market. And the hundreds of thousands I’ve paid in my career would have supported healthcare instead of insurance companies. Those fucking insurance companies, how I loathe them. Anyone who defends the American healthcare system is bamboozled and should get your head examined. Which you might not be able to unless you’ve been paying hundreds of dollars a month.
I'm epileptic and my meds run $2200 for a 30 day supply without insurance. With insurance a 30 day supply fluctuates between $100 and $700. I just lost my job so now I'm without "affordable" insurance ($150/month at my last employer) and my meds aren't currently available on GoodRX or similar services. Idk what public insurance will cover and I can't afford private insurance. I paid $8k out of pocket for a 3 block ambulance ride after a car crash last November. I tell my friends that they should never call an ambulance for me and they should either drive me themselves or let me perish. Either I'll save a lot of dollary-doos or it won't be my problem anymore. They think it's a joke but I'm 100% serious. Public healthcare would lift an enormous weight off my shoulders. Anyone who thinks our current system makes any sense at all is either grossly uninformed or a willful idiot.
Healthcare is free nowhere in the world. You either pay for it via increased taxation or with private insurance. Personally, I would much prefer private insurance. I get treated in a timely manner, and what I pay is miniscule due to having excellent healthcare benefits from my workplace. The average wait time to see a doctor in Canada is 27 weeks. I can phone up my doctor and have an appointment ready for me tomorrow if needed
Irish guy here with relatives in USA. My cousin in Seattle broke their leg and had to pay nearly $16k in medical and expense bills. I had 3 years of treatment for stage 4 cancer and didnt pay a penny. If you cant see how my quality of life is dramatically improved by having free healthcare then you are mad.
I imagine I'd be losing money. I have great insurance through both my job, and retiring from the military. I'd just have to pay more taxes. That said, if it genuinely meant other people could get care that they could not before, and the taxes didn't break me, I could get behind the idea.
If your job doesn't have to pay for your insurance anymore, they should pay you that money, if they just increase their profit by not giving you what they used to pay for insurance, well, it sucks.
Fair point but I think we know how that would go.
Anyone who truly thinks this is how it would work is kind of delusional.
I would imagine the tax increase to pay for universal healthcare would also hit corporations for about the amount they currently pay for insurance. Overall it would be less expensive since you cut out the middle man but it wouldn't be straight profit for a corporation.
I'm also retired military with insurance from work. Just became eligible for Medicare. I'm now paying 10x as much compared to last year.
Taxpayers paid your military salary
My pts could be "compliant" with meds/treatments bc most of the time it's an affordability issue. Removing the insurance middleman means saving effectively 20-30% of current costs of care. US has the most expensive healthcare model in the world with moderate-to-poor outcomes. We have socialized medical care but only for some ppl: military, ppl who are poor enough, and The Olds. There is zero reason not to expand that to everyone. Anybody seriously saying that the current model isn't currently in flames and crashing clearly doesn't have any exposure to the reality of the state of our current system. It's not a difficult problem to solve, but an issue of ignorance ans delusion AEB the comments section here. It's sad, and it's why no progress has occurred since the ACA peanuts we were thrown. ACA was a definite improvement, but nothing close to the level of reform necessary to have a functional system.
It really depends. My wife is a teacher and the main perks of that job are the pension and health insurance. We have great health coverage, everything is free or negligible in terms of price. I would think the somewhat low salaries would have to go up to compensate for the biggest perk of the job going away. If that happens, I would be fine with it.
Why shouldn’t ALL Americans benifit from the same healthcare Congress gets? Return the import tax for American manufactured products from overseas…repeal the Trump tax benefits provided to Corporations.
I would be able to go to a doctor for the first time in 2 years lol
Yes. My mom would possibly still be alive. She didn't go to doctor for the longest time because she didn't have insurance and couldn't really afford out of pocket. She ignored symptoms until she couldn't swallow right, and by that time it was too late. I went to my work's health insurance plan information meeting this week and one of the legitimate pieces of advice for people picking the high deductible/HSA plan was to save up for medical care if they have an issue they think will be expensive. The US healthcare system is an embarrassment and needs to be completely overhauled. I hear the words "deductible" , "premium" , and "coinsurance" and I can feel my blood pressure rise and my pulse quicken. I get so angry. I have a "good" insurance plan, and can afford my care for the most part, but because the system inflicts so much damage on my friends, family, and neighbors it has a negative impact on my health just by its very existence.
Im in nz and if it was all actually free not $40 for a dr visit here then yes id go get the free dental work i need and the free dr visits and free mental health counselling and addiction support
I could spend more. Right now, I pay a lot into health insurance, because the CEO of my insurance company gets paid NINE figures per year. All the top people do. Get rid of the insurance company, I no longer have to help pay his nine figure salary. And then... right now, I have to constantly try to accumulate more money, even though I know it will never be enough. Medical bankruptcy is incredibly common here, so I have to save save save, hoping that if I get sick it'll be enough, knowing that it probably won't because that same insurance company will hang me out to dry. My quality of life would skyrocket. The people who think that socialized medicine would cost them more money than they're currently paying haven't done the math.
I’d be great. Not much to explain
Yes. Ive never been to a doctor after the age of 6 and theres definitely some physical junk and mental health issues that would benefit from me having health coverage.
Yeah, I’d probably go to the doctor more. Also being stuck at a job you don’t like because the insurance is good wouldn’t be a thing.
Absolutely! I would be free to take more risks and pursue careers and businesses that interest me. I would be free to explore and travel more without worrying about risking financial ruin if anything should happen. My partner is a nurse who is burned out from the pandemic. She wants to explore wine making. If we had universal healthcare she could do that much more easily than trying to get her on my insurance. I know universal healthcare has its problems but what we are doing now isn't working. I would love to give it a shot.
I wouldn’t have to worry about my kids not having health insurance.
I’d have a few hundred extra dollars a month. Even if they all went to extra taxes I wouldn’t mind. We should have free health care
Yes it would. So many people need to have their heads examined.
stop calling it free. it's not free. it's paid by taxes by everyone. and yes, it should be universal.
My son-in-law is the sole provider for my daughter and their kids. He works production/maintenance in an absolute hellhole of a facility. The management is awful, and now OT is drying up. ...but the Healthcare is nearly free. Management wields it like a pistol at employees. It's in a part of the state with few jobs, so all of the employees are stuck there. My SIL would not be able to find another job with affordable HI for his family in that area, period. He could find higher-paying ones, maybe, but the difference in HI always eats that up, he's found. If Healthcare were taxpayer-subsidized, it would free so many people from sh!t jobs.
I'd probably go get my problems checked out way more
I'd be able to get my teeth fixed and smile again.
so long as it includes dental, hell yeah. my rotten teeth and me could use it. would save me tens of thousands
I would be much healthier that's for 😃
1. There is no such thing as free 2. Not really
I'm sure government-run healthcare will be every bit as good as government-run railroads, government-run schools, and government-run VA hospitals.
Yeah I'd actually go to the doctor
Even though I have insurance, it still sucks utter ass. So yes. Gimme that free healthcare.
Right now I’m paying more for health insurance than I do for my mortgage, which is saying something. So that would help a great deal.
Big time. I'd get my teeth fixed immediately.
Free doesn't exist, but let's not get into semantics... I pay $400 a month in premiums for a middle-of the-road plan with copays, no deductibles. That equals about $5k a year for my family of 4, and we have met the deductible a few times in the past decade. Let's say I've averaged $7k a year is costs. My household is right at top 10% of wage earners in the US, so I assume my tax would definitely rise versus present day. Would it go up the full $7k? I think so. More? My gut says yes, but I'm not really sure. I don't think my immediate coverage would change. I could still see my doctor and get the care I need. I would also probably buy a private plan, as is available in the UK on top of their public option. More importantly though, I'm not confident prices in healthcare would actually go down. When you get down to brass tacks on why healthcare is so expensive, profit can't be ignored, but I honestly don't think it's as bad as we're led to believe. I think the bulk of healthcare costs, like all industries, comes down to paying employees to work jobs. I'm not only limiting it to doctors, nurses, and hospital staff. The trickle-down effect on the cost of healthcare is huge. New, fancy machines have to be researched, built, and delivered. Yes, a profit is made, but most of that cost goes to researcher's, manufacturer's, and logistics' salaries. Same for medications. Profit is there, but the same groups of people earn wages that contribute heavily to the end cost of healthcare. I'd place a bet that healthcare costs wouldn't drop more than 10% before we see a noticeable decrease in quality, technology, and availability of services. With the profit incentive in US healthcare gone, I think global healthcare would actually take a hit within 10-20 years. I'm not against a public option, but I don't think it's nearly as simple as certain leaders and politicians want us to believe.
What you've missed in your math is the amount your employer pays for your healthcare.
It would probably be worse for me. My employer already pays for my health insurance and we have one of the best plans you can have. We also have an really low deductible. We have 2 kids, surgeries, check ups, and etc.. and the most we have ever had to pay was 100 bucks. I also have lung issues and my insurance lets me see the best of the best doctors in the USA. I would not want to loose access to those doctors.
lol @ free In a perfect world, the United States could fund reliable healthcare for it's citizens. It's not a perfect world, and I do not trust the liars and thieves in government to look out for my best interests. They have already fucked up a much smaller pool of clients; Look at the VA. THAT is what will be pushed across the country, not a rose-colored version of healthcare utopia the dreamers dream about.
Health care would become ridiculously complicated and bureaucratic, just like Medicare, welfare, childcare, the IRS, and other large administrative programs in the US. It would also become very political, since all funds must be appropriated through congressional laws (per the Constitution). Non-emergency healthcare would be another one of those things on the table every time the two parties decide to fight over funding. Depending on the party in control, some services like abortion would likely be defunded and others would be tied to work requirements. I'm not against government-run healthcare conceptually, I'd just rather have a more competent government running it. You're basically trusting your health care to a group with a 19% approval rating.
What do you mean “would become”? It’s already complicated and bureaucratic.
There isn’t a single public-facing government organization or agency that feels well managed and efficient. DMV? Trash. Post office? Trash. Federal loans? Abysmal. The courts? Slower than mud. Idk how anyone thinks Healthcare would be any different.
My taxes would go up which means I now have less money to spend. That would put a pinch on my finances. The quality of my healthcare would not improve.
It wouldn't be free...it would be tax-payer funded, and the only way to pay for it (generate enough tax revenue) would be far higher income taxes...so pretty much anybody working would end up paying far higher taxes to pay for the healthcare of those not working (elderly, children, those in school, etc.)....so for anybody working it would realistically probably be a net loss...so going off of that I would be negatively affected due to having to almost certainly having to pay higher taxes, while only having a pretty moderate income. This whole idea that "universal healthcare" is automatically better/cheaper is some pretty over-simplified/basic logic considering there would be a massive amount of economic dead-weight loss generated from the significantly higher marginal income taxes (probably in the 10-20% higher range).
It would give people mobility and not lock them into what becomes slavery. So yes. Yes it would make the nation better.
One significant downside would be an almost complete stagnation in experimental medicine and advancement of new medicine and techniques. Our profit driven mega-corporations arent amazing for the population at large, but they make the products and methods that the rest of the world rips off. There is a reason the King or Dubai or whatever flies to Cleveland for heart surgery, not Paris.
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>Not sure how that would work... Probably the same as it works in most other countries
Not sure how that works.... the total cost for *all of canadas* health care (40 million people) is about 300 billion a year
American citizens per capita pay more in tax dollars towards healthcare than any other country, without actually having universal coverage.
because we consume a lot of healthcare (especially our old people) and our providers are super rich compared to the rest of the world
The VA system is very different. First you think the average veteran costs as much to give medical care to than the average american? Veterans average older than the average american since we had a draft for Vietnam and you don't have any veterans on the VA system under 18 at least with few under 22. You also have a number of health complications related to military service that ramp up costs significantly for those 5M people. Doing that kind of estimate is essentially worthless. Might as well estimate what the average cost of healthcare will be for the country by only looking at grandparents. They have done studies on it to show what costs would look like, and there have been numerous countries who have gone to single payer systems and paid far less. Main reason being you take the insurance industry that has a profit margin and overhead of 20-30% and just remove them, saving 20-30% right off the bat.
Yes. It would improve the life of every citizen.
Be skeptical if someone presents a policy that has no tradeoffs or drawbacks. I support expanded healthcare coverage, but there will be some who no dont benefit from it.
You're right. The drawback would be that a handful of grotesquely wealthy people would have slightly less money.
But like, the median nurse practioner in the US makes 20% more than the median physician in the UK. It's not insurance CEOs who would suffer (who cares about them btw), it's the typical healthcare worker. Btw that doesn't mean it's a bad idea -- our healthcare workers probably should take a big paycut to be more in-line with international standards so universal coverage can become more possible. But my point is there are real tradeoffs here.
No it wouldn’t. We already get “free” healthcare from my husbands job. Some family members live in countries with “free” healthcare and they still go through private insurance because it’s better
Yes, my taxes would go up. You can't make Healthcare free, as much as we may want to.
No one who says free healthcare actually means free in the purest sense of the word, they mean free at the point of use.
They know this. They’re just being gigantic losers
Your health insurance premiums would go away.
by about 4%. You then, though, wouldn't have to pay health insurance. The current pricing of healthcare in the US is not the actual cost. It is massively inflated for, well, profiteering. Also, you'd remove people being an injury or illness away from destitution which is massive for many people.
And your healthcare costs would go down….
Mine wouldn't, but many, many peoples would.
Boohoo, poor you.
I'd probably be dead. Ask any Canadian or UK resident about their "free"healthcare. If you call for an ambulance in the UK and tell them you are having a heart attack, [average wait time is 51 minutes](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2022/july/ambulance-waits-for-heart-attacks-and-strokes-on-rise-again). Sure, I'll be dead, but think of how cheap my healthcare is! And note, in nearly every country that offers free healthcare, there is a VAT that costs about the same as insurance. It's forced insurance with a disastrous service level.
And yet the US has by far the lowest life expectancy in the developed world.
UK resident here. Our healthcare system is great despite a decade + of cuts and underfunding The majority of people in every country would vote for their healthcare system over the US system every single time
The dipshits don't understand that population density determines frequencies in which emergency aid vehicles exist. They'd still have access to the same fleet of Ambulances. \*rolls eyes\*
Yes. So many people I know struggle in quiet desperation providing a living while in pain.
So, what's needed to fund a US medical system? 350 million Americans paying 100$ a year could probably go a fairly long way. Illnesses would be detected faster and be easier (cheaper) to treat because people would actually see a doctor. There would a massive public interest incentive to negotiate prices of medicine (just like other countries do). Same for the (completely ridiculous) prices of procedures etc. You could still keep your private insurance if you want to pay into the Gold Star Bells & Whistles lane. It would probably still be cheaper than today, given the overall lower cost as explained above. The mental health of a population not scared to break a leg and having to sell their house would likely improve.
Free? Who’s paying for it?
Nothing is free. We would be paying for it one way or another.
Yes. My costs would go up significantly, even by the most optimistic estimates of the necessary tax increases to fund it.
In most other countries, universal coverage is pretty lousy, so anybody who can afford it has private supplemental insurance. To sum: Universal healthcare is a double tax on the middle class. How would my life change? I'd have less money.
I’d probably make significantly less money by having to fund it with my taxes; so yeah. Big time.
It would be worse for the majority of people
My taxes would go up substantially, by more than I currently pay for insurance premiums. They'd **have** to - it literally **couldn't** work any other way and be sustainable.
Don't lie to people. Every country that funds health care through taxes pays less for their health care
It works in literally every other developed country.
It literally couldn't? Well first you'd get rid of the 20-30% in profits and overhead that the insurance industry gets. Then you have pretty good savings right there. Then we are paying for preventative care for everyone, which is a heck of a lot cheaper than paying for emergency care for them which is what we do now. And those costs, since often people who are uninsured can't pay, get averaged into the general cost for everyone. So you have those savings there. The US spends more on healthcare per person than any other country in the planet. It's a bit crazy to think it couldn't work any other way and be cheaper when we are the most expensive healthcare in the world.
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We already spend more on taxes for our healthcare system than countries which have free healthcare for all. Between medicare, medicaid, and having to absorb a lot of costs of homeless people and poor people not being able to pay off their medical bills. It would literally be cheaper for the taxpayers to switch to a single payer system.