We in the US pay more per capita for worse care than most other developed nations (Canada/UK/Nordic countries). Name your country where the care is worse than the US please and let us know how much they pay for it per capita comparatively.
What is actually the case is that care available to the bottom quartile of Americans is below the care received on average in a top-tier universal care nation, and the US spends an absolute fortune delivering this quartile with substandard care.
We also spend a bit more than average providing exceptional care to everyone else, except that we also spend a truly ludicrous amount (compared with every place on earth except possibly Japan, which is still less than us but not quite as much less) on care for roughly everybody above the median during the last year of life, because we have baked some very expensive decisions in as the default (basically, if you don't specifically ask otherwise, you will get absolute treatment maximalism basically until 30 days from death)
If a quarter of our country has the worst healthcare in the developed world that is unacceptable.
Answers like this are just begging us to give up our humanity.
I was making statements about how things actually are, since no discussion about how to make the world we want is likely to be meaningful or useful if there is not a shared view of what is first.
I think a country which lets some get rich off of other’s cancer is an abhorrent, indefensible, system.
The idea of 'market forces dictating absolutely everything' is proven objectively wrong by countries that still have a large amount of doctors despite being paid less. The market theory would posit that all of those doctors and what not would move to a country that pays them more but there are many, many other factors other than just pay.
lol
You should just assume I'm a misanthrope who enjoys watching people suffer. I mean, it's not true, but lots of idiots assume it.
Is there a source for this? I'd guess that there's a percentile where American health care has better outcomes than other countries, but 50th seems pretty low.
We already pay to cover our own family members on our plans. Why are we being forced to now cover everyone else's family?
I'm more likely to move to the adjacent state than pay 15% higher tax rate and literally get LOWER quality care.
2) Leaving these people uninsured is not cheaper, you're paying for it already with significant healthcare costs. The same people complaining about the cost of healthcare turn around and deny preventative coverage to people who end up in the ER and you pay for it regardless.
3) It's the right thing to do, ethically, morally and financially (long term)
What an incredibly ignorant take, no wonder we don't have any healthcare solutions.
She already performs a significant amount of her practice as "charity care" where she gets no reimbursement whatsoever.
Given that for a fellowship-trained (3) board-certified (2) surgeon the train-up period is measured in ~2+ decades, not 4 years for regular professions.
> What an incredibly ignorant take, no wonder we don't have any healthcare solutions
Please don't assign false morality to the compensation people expect when their working career is effectively halved due to their extensive training requirements, and their educational bills dwarf by comparison every other profession.
The US already subsidizes medical research and bigpharma profits for the entire planet. We're not the freeloaders you're making us out to be.
Funny because it’s just the sort of thing to cause more anxiety in an anxious person.
I’d also love hear how many Canadian cancer survivors have to put up gofundmes or go bankrupt for care.
As a Canadian: yes.
And the bill was $0 at the end of my father's heart bypass and valve replacement surgery. My friend's sister cancer treatment also had a bill of $0.
Finished filing my taxes last month, and my average rate (provincial+federal) for last year was 21%. Happy to pay.
“ "Then I found out that this other country — which I thought had a healthcare system that was so superior to the U.S. — doesn't test for the tumour marker that saved my life, and doesn't cover this drug that is responsible for pushing my cancer into remission after traditional chemotherapy failed to do that."”
Pretty sure I'd prefer even a 5% chance versus a guaranteed 0%.
The only difference has been that 1 time the Canadian ER was busier and I waited my turn (based on an initial triage).
I feel, during my visit, I was appropriately handled in all 4 locations. After leaving the hospital in Canada I was done. However in the US, both times a few weeks later I got a bill for roughly $1000, and it actively makes me think twice about going to the ER (even though I can afford the $1000). In the US, I may have skipped the ER the second time if I hadn't felt strongly I was having an appendicitis. Truly scary to think I considered not going based on a bit of money.
If it wasn't clear, even being well off in the US, I prefer the overall experience in Canada.
I value having public health care. I hope the US can come up with a good public system so that Canada can stop resting on "at least we're not like the US!"
The issue is we fail most people and those we don’t fail we often bankrupt. That isn’t acceptable.
Why do you ask?