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Comment by baggy_trough | Hacker News Reader

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free.

That's weird because in every other OECD country that offers "free" healthcare (as in, single-payer or two-tier with national option) it's dramatically cheaper and has much better outcomes [1]. Reality doesn't line up with your pre-conceived notions.

[1] https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Health-at-a-Glance-2017-Ke...

What do the obesity rates look like in those countries? You cannot compare a country like Sweden or Finland to the United States when they have completely dissimilar obesity rates, the main driving force behind healthcare costs.

A close example to a region with high obesity rates would be the UK and the obesity epidemic has been straining the NHS for years: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/04/obesity-putt...

If you’re solely using obesity as a comparison point Canada is just slightly behind in obesity but health costs are one half. The NHS while strained costs one third of what the US system costs. You could add the per capita spending of the NHS and Canada together and just barely be in the same league as the US incredibly inefficiency system.

Y’all better be hella fat if that’s the justification you’re using.

This. Spreading the cost of something that's getting increasingly more expensive across the populace doesn't solve the fundamental factors that are causing that thing to become more expensive in the first place. It also removes the incentives to fix the underlying issues.

Sympathy and support for the organisationis bleeding your bank account dry. Carry on, mate.

Instructions unclear, it's "free" in my country, and it's still great ? What am I doing wrong ?

We’re just gonna pretend Europe, Australia, Japan, Canada etc. don’t exist?

Those countries are smaller and most likely have more functional governments than the United States. Having a dysfunctional government is a feature, not a bug, but it does mean that the national government would do a bad job running the health care system.

Germany's nearly 90 million people. What about a 90 million person health system can't be done with 300 million? At what point does this magical impossibility kick in?

No, but we need to have a nice long talk about how much the lot of them free ride on the US healthcare system to develop drugs, treatments, and more.

Having just visited the EU I can tell you the working folks in those socialist countries are pissed they have to support immigrants who arent contributing.

Its not all roses over there

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