“ Mr. Kim owns his place in the building, bought for $30,000 after he sold his house in a better neighborhood 20 years ago to help pay for his late wife’s cancer bills.”
How does that fit into universal health care?
How does that fit into universal health care?
You can debate the morality of such a discussion, or how the private medicine industry is allowed to charge these prices, but the effect is that some cancer treatments are only available through private insurance or personal wealth, even in Scandinavian countries where we are know for our equal access healthcare.
More like two weeks, and with a lot of painful side effects.
It's really sad and seems almost exploitative. They often get ripped off by private clinics in their home countries as well.
At some point we need to say these people aren't in a fit state of mind to make these financial decisions. (Who would be? When the life of their own child seems to be at stake?)
It's such a sad situation.
Of course, affordability is not a guarantee for all treatments, regardless of which healthcare system you agree with. It seems this is the problem for the Kim family. Even in a universal healthcare system, things like chemotherapy and cancer surgery might still cost too much for people who earn below living-wage.
http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/healthcare-system-in-...
Some may consider the fact that Korean national health insurance only covers around 55 percent of the total healthcare cost to be problematic. This may be true if one takes the idea of guaranteed socialized medicine seriously. But for fiscal conservatives with some measure of compassion for the plight of the uninsured, this could be an attractive balance. While corruption is definitely still a problem with Korean government, the NHIC is surprisingly efficient and well-run. It does a great job squeezing out maximum value out of the tax it receives.
And no, the US does not have it. You can be denied insurance and you won't be able to see most doctors because of it. Some ERs won't even treat you without insurance, especially if it's an expensive procedure.
I think we have a word for that: affordable health care. Universal Healthcare necessarily covers affordability:
"""Universal health care is a system that provides quality medical services to all citizens. The federal government offers it to everyone regardless of their ability to pay. """ -- From https://www.thebalance.com/universal-health-care-4156211
Because even if costs are "affordable" over all, it doesn't guarantee that everyone, including the Kim family in 'Parasite' would be able to afford more expensive treatments without selling their home for 30k.
The problem with charging poor people for healthcare is that they get sicker and sicker and then need emergency care, and that's more expensive than giving them free healthcare in the beginning.
It's unethical and classist to pick-and-choose who gets life-saving cancer treatment based on their income. Doctors with integrity would be abhorred at being presented with such a decision because it goes against the fundamental values of their profession.
Since we're talking ethics, do you also think universal healthcare should be provided by wealthy nations to all the world? Otherwise we are just picking and choosing based on where someone happens to be born, aren't we?
At the core of it what you're basically arguing is that nations are unethical because what citizenship someone holds influences things like their access to health care, and the solution to that would probably look a lot like the EU but completely borderless world-wide (with no immigrations or customs departments?)
I think you know how people would react to that. It's a pointless 'gotcha' question
As for national borders being unethical by nature, if that logically follows then why not?
I certainly don't consider ethics a source of "gotcha" questions, but of real conundrums.
Not really. A huge amount of charity money supposedly going to the poor in other countries is actually used to bribe officials in those countries to allow the aid to be delivered. Any attempt to give healthcare to people in those countries would also be seen as foreign interference, and suffer the same problems.
As regards providing free healthcare to anyone regardless of country, that seems next to impossible without providing the infrastructure necessary within the country they live, which would indeed be very difficult to work out. It seems like a good goal to work towards - everyone regardless of nation having access to reasonable quality healthcare.
Others are indeed effective - hormone blockers for certain reproductive system cancers, specific treatments for leukemia, surgeries where applicable and screening, toxic chemotherapy for cancers where it is effective or after surgery.
Advanced biologicals are often expensive because they can be and are not very effective there. But there are some that are effective for autoimmune problems, those are problematic for our general healthcare in Poland with long conservative treatments with side effects while you're waiting to be qualified.
"Free Universal Healthcare" on the other hand focuses on delivering all healthcare at no cost for all common illnesses. To be clear, South Korea has Universal Healthcare and Bernie Sanders is proposing Free Universal Healthcare. But even Sanders' program would not guarantee that prescription drugs are free, they'll still be at maximum $200 per year per perscription. So, while I agree with you that it's "unethical and classist" to pick and choose who gets to live based on whether or not they can afford it, Universal Healthcare is not an end-all to this and is just part of the whole solution.
Also, to stay on topic, South Korea has the most consistently highest rated access to healthcare, but the issues presented in the movie Parasite still ring true for many Koreans.
My mother got full cancer treatment for free*, but the wards were always full, and she stayed at home so someone from out of town could have a place to stay. The hospitals didn't have the right to force patients to go home though; they just asked nicely if they wouldn't mind staying elsewhere.
Single-payer, universal healthcare should also include (all but cosmetic and elective procedures):
- prescriptions
- mental care including therapy, psychiatry, rehab and commitment
- dental care
- vision care and prescription glasses
- hearing aids (avg cost is $3000 USD)
- mobility and safety aids for disabled and elderly
- gym memberships for people below a certain income level
- smoking, drinking and substance abuse intervention, counseling and cessation assistance (medications, tools, relocation assistance)
- weight-loss for obesity/significantly overweight with effective, tailored, holistic approaches
If you’re not interested in earning money, then there are quite a few firms that are, so if you release the schematics and details of the hearing aid, surely they will run with it.
why? this is a luxury. You don't need a gym membership - just jog around, it's free. Tax dollars are meant to pay for things that can't be free or have a free substitution.
it is not the tax payer's responsibility to provide a proper strength training program for those who cannot afford it themselves. It is the tax payer's social responsibility to provide a service when said service is important (like healthcare) but is difficult for the poor to fund themselves.
Exercising is important, but it's free to do, so should not require a tax burden to provide anything of this nature for the poor. Health care cannot be free (nobody works for free). Therefore, it's important for the tax payer to fund it.
My understanding is that cancer drugs are considered to be experimental, so there's no "latest and greatest" with any guarantee.
Also, US doctors usually prefer to not get cancer treatment when interviewed, since they know "how the sausage is made."
I would like to ask for a source please. Maybe they don't want cancer treatment in very special circumstances (e.g. cancer with extreme low survival rates, new experimental drug with very painful side effects), but in general and for most cancers? That sounds rather outlandish.
The difference is that on the US vast swathes don't have basic healthcare, which can often reduce the rate of complexities that require extreme treatment measures, like treating cancers early before they advance to a terminal state.