Well, what does one expect when the answer given by many when the topic of socialized medicine comes is "go to the emergency room, they can't turn you away for having no money"?
We could at least have a little compromise by making health care more tiered so that citizens, payers and people with insurance receive better health care than others. Make a list of services that will only be provided to payers and automatically push non-payers to the back of the queue.
Additionally, we already had that system in place, it was called "lifetime limits" and it was typically $1-2m on the best healthcare plans.
Ie: I broke my toe and I have insurance, so I get ER treatment, but that guy who has no insurance and is internally bleeding to death from a street stabbing (and is hispanic, doesn't have insurance and maybe isn't american?) is pushed behind me in line. That is the real life scenario that at least one person is advocating here.
I think as the governments become more starved (not made more efficient by reducing costs, starved by simply cutting funding without optimizing it logically) that important government services will have to replaced with tiered private companies. As regulations are removed, the same thing occurs.
What if a speed of ambulance was built into your insurance? How do you know what response time is right for you and your family (as it will be framed)?
It's impossible for that not to be the case. It's even the case in countries with single payer, because rich people who live there and don't want to wait for an appointment or want something that isn't covered will just go to a country that can give them what they want and open their wallet. Even without leaving the country, they can hire private nurses and so on when they aren't covered by the national health system.
Moreover, why is this supposed to be a problem? "Money buys things" is the purpose of money.
There are things a rational national health system wouldn't pay for because they aren't economical, but a rich person would buy for themselves for much the same reasons they buy a Tesla instead of a Dodge. Which means they have a safer car because they have more money. Should we prohibit expensive safer cars because poor people can't afford them?
Shouldn't triage take into account who is the most profitable so wealthy people can go to the front of the line where they deserve to be?
I mean really, why should my undocumented nanny, house keeper and gardeners be entitled to the same health care that I am? [Of course, I don't pay them enough to buy health insurance but that's their problem.]
As @gselevator tweeted "I never give money to homeless people. I can't reward failure in good conscience."
(This is sarcasm in case it isn't obvious.)
It totally reads like the kind of libertarian/dude-bro nonsense that has invaded tech.
I'd be wary of reusing text like this in other areas, because until I skipped ahead to "this is sarcasm" I was like "oh here we go again"
The next question would be: how many of the people that ended up on the ER could actually afford healthcare? And why didnt they have/use it?