In the U.S. we have Medicaid for low-income earners. So the bottom 20% the article mentions would largely qualify for free health care: https://eligibility.com/medicaid/texas-tx-medicaid-benefits
It is a common misunderstanding that if you’re poor you get Medicaid. Eg. In Florida no matter how poor your are you don’t qualify unless you’re disabled, have children, or are pregnant. In other states there are hard income limits which are incredibly low, and earns a dollar more, you don’t qualify. You go from having free Medicaid to needing to pay $1000 per month in premiums which obviously you still can’t afford.
Edit: actually looks like it’s the same thing in Texas, if you’re poor you don’t qualify. You have to have kids or be disabled. These are all the states that refused the federal funding for Medicaid expansion I guess.
There are 4.4 million people on Medicaid in Florida. That's about 21% of the population, which matches up with the national Medicaid figure of 22% of the US population.
Medicaid isn't necessarily free healthcare:
“States can impose copayments, coinsurance, deductibles, and other similar charges on most Medicaid-covered benefits, both inpatient and outpatient services, and the amounts that can be charged vary with income. All out of pocket charges are based on the individual state’s payment for that service.”
https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/cost-sharing/out-of-pocket...