US absurdities aside, I find it ridiculous that people need to pay for something that will save their life.
I'm not defending the insane billing system of the U.S, because it truly is designed to be or at least accidentally off the wall with absurdities, but it's not ridiculous to charge people reasonably for many complex, expensive things that also require hiring specialist assistance. Somewhere down the line, somebody in any case needs to pay for it via money and time.
A person’s capacity to live shouldn’t be a function of how much money they make.
It’s such a core and fundamental principle that I can’t reconcile it.
You may disagree with me, and you are free to, but this is merely an opinion.
The word “reasonably” does a lot of work in your comment. I can accept 20 eur for a rabies shot, not 4k.
For me as an European, i see anything related to healthcare as core to our society. You mention food, if i dont like an apple from a vendor i can just have another fruit that is cheaper this season. I wouldn't have that choice to change meds for my current ilnesses.
Yeah sure someone has to pay for it, but do meds need a 10000x markup compared to the 2x markup on food? US is such an advanced country in terms of science and tech that is scary to think people still die due to not being able to pay their cancer treatment.
"Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community."
And it’s not just Americans either, for example some Japanese like to intentionally eat fugu, meat from super poisonous puffer fish prepared in a very specific way.
Surely there’s no expectation for society to pay millions to treat someone who ate the 99.99th percentile fugu slice…
You can either accept the vast bureaucracy of evaluating risk and paying for each bit of treatment or the much simpler and cheaper option of paying for it in taxes and giving everyone the same level of basic care and not worrying too much about the fugu eaters...
No vast bureaucracy and no payment expectation.
But more realistically since the vast bureaucracy already exists… and isn’t going away in the foreseeable future, then it makes sense to utilize it.