People should never have to worry whether they can financially manage to go and see a doctor when they are in need of one. Doesn't care if you've broken your arm, am expecting a child or if you're chronically ill.
I don't know what else to say about this. Get that shit together and become a first world country.
I live in Sweden. Sweden has socialised health care so in theory it should be possible to go and see a doctor when [I am] in need of one. That's right, in theory. In practice the waiting times can be so astronomical that many people - my partner included - are on private health care insurances to make sure they actually go and see a doctor when they need one instead of in 4 months time, if you're lucky. This does mean they pay twice for health care, once through provincial ('landsting') taxes, once through the private health care insurance. It is the latter which ends up paying the bill, the question is where the former money goes. When she needed to see a doctor a few months ago she first tried to go the normal route through the public health care system. The response was 'we can book you for this-and-that date in 6 months time'. Right. When she called the private insurance it only took a few days. These waiting times accumulate, e.g. the doctor wants the patient to get a CT scan - wait for 2 months. MRI, wait 3 months, etc. The private insurance has bought (time on the) machines so they can offer a time next week.
For acute problems the public health care system is still the go-to place even if waiting times in emergency rooms are now so long that some hospitals (e.g. Sunderby, between Luleå and Boden in Norrbotten) have called upon visitors to 'make sure to take food and any needed medications with them as the waiting time can exceed 24 hours'.
So where to go from here? Public health care is affordable but often not available. Private health care is available but often not affordable. How can these two goals - affordability and availability - be met in one system?
Well, we both know that those are the same in the end. It's not like there are seperate CT scanners for private insurance patients, but the later are treated with priority as they can be billed more.
> How can these two goals - affordability and availability - be met in one system?
I think this is a problem of prioritizing and financing.
For one, I would immediately stop and forbild all private health insurances in Germany and make being member of one of the public health care insurances mandatory. Also public employees would have to pay their share for all social services. All of them, just like any other employee.
This will right away stop this whole BS with prioritizing private patients over those with public healthcare and it will also fix lots of financing issues in the long run.
Once that is done, pay the same money for everything at all places and also pay all (equally qualified) doctors the same. Obviously some kind of expert council will have to decide a fair price for everything, but in the end a CT scan should cost the same around the whole country.
If we have established this, lots of problems will solve themselves: Doctors will move out to the rural areas too, because the money is the same. Also with more money, we can pay better prices, build up new medical infrastructure and what not.
We provide and finance so much infrastructure because we find this to be a fundamental part of our society, but we fail so hard on medical infrastructure. That just doesn't fit together.
I don't even think it's a matter of funding. For good care, Australia has relatively low spending, while Switzerland has quite high spending. For bad care, the US and Sweden both spend quite a lot (per OECD [0]).
The problem in Australia is right-wing ideologues chipping away at public health to enrich their donors in the private health "insurance" scam industry, subsidising it and forcing people into it when it provides almost no benefit.
You think giving birth is free? There are usually 3 or 4 professionals present, along with a bed for the day, instruments to measure various things, drugs for (pre) and post delivery, etc... it's far from being like a regular doctor visit.
Sure, someone has to pay for it, but why not all together?
Because kids are a private luxury only rich people should be able to afford? Sounds kiiinda fascist to me.
When did "fascism" became a tag for "things I don't like" again ?
edit: I can't reply to your reply but you should research more on fascism, it goes way beyond "bad people are bad", most of these regimen were actually pro healthcare/welfare. I'd be glad not to make it meta but every single controversial article turns into that kind of lame "oh that's fascist!" thing when it almost never is related to fascism.
Also, could we please not make this meta?
If anything fascist states want their citizens to get more children, not fewer. More children means more workers, more soldiers, more future mothers for yet even more children, all to propel the State (with a capital 'S') to greater heights.
This is a straw man argument. Nobody is suggesting public healthcare is without cost. Civilised societies provide services like policing, fire and rescue, criminal legal defence, and education, because these are deemed rights. The United States is an outlier in not regarding healthcare a right to be supplied as a public service.
One argument doesn't mention the subtext of socialized medicine, and the other doesn't mention the subtext of insurance.
Of course it's not free. It's about who takes care of the costs. You should not see a bill from the hospital as your health care provider should fully take care of this.
Story time: When I was a little kid, I stumbled with a glass jar in my hand, fell into the shards and cut my right hand open. Half a centimeter more and I'd have lost three fingers of my right hand completly. Tendons and nerves were cut and the fingers were immobilized immediately.
Never did anyone worry about what it might cost to fix this. Not my family, not the hospital, possibly not even the health care insurance provider.
Instead I was taken to the best hospital for this kind of damage and several high trained professionals operated for 8 hours to fix it. After my hospital time I got movement therapy to get my hand fully working again.
This is a real indicator for a developed, first-world state: Whatever happens to you, professionals will take of you and you won't have to worry whether your family will go bankrupt because you stumbled as a kid or not. Because the society as a whole has build a net that will catch you when things like this happen.
Why?
Who builds the net?
So, obviously since 1884 the society has build this net with their monthly dues. Currently it's around 15% of your loan.
[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_der_Sozialversicher...