Please no, I don't trust the government at all to handle healthcare efficiently. And I enjoy my insurance company through work, its the equivalent to a significant raise each year
If only we had literally the entire rest of the developed world to demonstrate that it's doable, with dramatically lower costs (and yes, that includes the tax portion) and similar health outcomes.
The first step to making something politically palatable is actually making the case for it and building momentum. If you frame it with political palatability as the metric for whether you actively pursue the policy, the whole discussion devolves into a chicken-and-egg problem.
Universal healthcare doesn't mean the government handles healthcare.
> And I enjoy my insurance company through work, its the equivalent to a significant raise each year
You can still get your healthcare from your employer with universal healthcare. You'll just be covered in the event of losing your job. Probably paying less for it too.
1. Cut funding to govt services
2. Complain about bad govt services
3. Repeat
Money is minor compared to the culture found in a government agency
From a general review, it appears we're in the top of spending. There's a good reason why: government services have been privatized and contracted out. So when the govt could have did it for X$, the for-profit private entity charges 2*X$. And this happens across the government at all scales.
I work in a regulated industry and have called three letter agencies over computing issues. 95% of the time, I end up getting another contractor.
> but we dont produce the smartest students.
But we create rich companies who suck on the public teet.
None of this is avoidable. Give money to the government, they are going to give it to their friends.
And frankly, when companies get their hands into it, they are going to extract profit from it. Government isnt bound by shareholders or profit-seeking behavior. Doing things at cost is not only acceptable, but expected.
There's times and places where governments providing the service makes a great deal of sense. It's times for libertarian types to actually realize that game theory does indeed show good reasons for govt services.
BTW what happens if you lose your job? do you know what the helthcare options for next job are going to be? Heck, your own company can have a few bad quarters and goto a sh*t insurer and you are back to averages.. never ignore the base rates and base rates suck in us healthcare.
"every other major industrialized nation" has a healthcare system that's deeply interconnected with the global healthcare market, which is itself heavily dependent on the revenue that is generated from the US market.
You can't compare the US to Europe without also factoring the massive benefits European patients get from the high costs in the US.
Luckily for us all the major pharmaceutical companies are public and we can can see exactly where they generate their revenue. Maybe you can show us exactly by how much the US subsidises Europe then. I suspect not by much.
All pharmaceutical companies - including those based in Europe - derive the lion's share of their revenue from the US market, despite the US having half the population.
That's pretty obvious from the relative prices of drugs in the US versus Europe and the quantities sold, but take a look yourself if you want.
Again, not true. And easily verifiable. Take Norvatis for example, one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Europe 36%, America 34%. [0]
> That's pretty obvious from the relative prices of drugs in the US versus Europe and the quantities sold, but take a look yourself if you want.
It's not obvious at all. Drug spending is a fraction of health expenditure in the US. Just because a drug is expensive it doesn't mean that money goes to the manufacturer. There's a lot of factors involved that increase the price (for profit insurance companies taking a cut as an example) and it's true in all industries.
[0] https://www.novartis.com/investors/novartis-annual-report/no...
This is entirely WITHOUT universal public insurance, the US could easily save money by making public insurance avalible for everyone.
That's fine, because you don't have to. It's just there if you need it.
> Thankfully the government won't be able to mandate it anytime soon as we have a first and second amendment protecting citizens
The First and Second Amendments didn't prevent Social Security or Medicare. Why would it be any different for Medicare-for-all?
The US also implicitly subsidizes all of the research and operations of the rest of the world. Over half the medical research in the entire world is directly funded by the US, and a significant portion of the rest is indirectly funded by sales in the US market. Biomedical and pharmaceutical companies in Europe make the lion's share of their revenues from the US, despite the US being half the population.
You can't compare the US and European healthcare markets without accounting for the fact that they're deeply interconnected, and the biggest beneficiaries of that interconnectedness are, in fact, European patients.
This is something that always bothered me about the American healthcare system. Isn't it profoundly un-American to depend on your employer for such a personal matter? I know that work is highly valued in the US, but this is almost a slave-like relationship... If you are going to be so dependent on some orgnanization, wouldn't it be preferable to depend on a democratically elected one?
I know that European-style healthcare smells too much of socialism to you guys, but doesn't your current system smell of feudalism?
How would you feel if insurers prodded lazy people to engage in healthier lifestyles?
Empowering insurers could be useful in this regard.
No, people who have serious health issues are the ones who tend to prefer the more complex treatment options, shorter wait times, and customizable interventions that multi-payer systems have to offer.
People who don't have complex health needs are the ones best served by single-payer systems like the NHS - and the data around treatments for complex conditions (like cancer) backs that up very plainly.
This statement shows an utter lack of experience navigating the insurance/medical complex with a serious health problem.
It's pretty arrogant to assume that anyone who doesn't support government-managed healthcare has no experience with dealing with serious health problems, which you've done twice in this thread alone.
I'd encourage you not to do that. It doesn't lend itself to productive conversation, and shallow, pithy dismissals are against HN comment guidelines.
Besides, you can get those things with single-payer health care by purchasing private insurance on top of the single-payer plan or simply visiting private places instead of the state-funded ones. Here, the state still pays the private places their normal fees and the extra payment from the patient provides bells and whistles, generally including things like shorter wait times in some cases.
Just because you have a serious health issue doesn't mean you need a complex treatment option. A gall bladder can be a serious health issue. All interventions are customized to the patient based on medical standards lest you risk injuring the patient. You also aren't as likely to get the slew of run-arounds when changing health insurance or doctors (migraine sufferers often have to repeat treatments that didn't work or find their medication that works is no longer covered, even if their medical history reflects this). You aren't getting repeat tests because the others were out of a hospitals' network either (happened to my aunt).