Why can’t we have universal healthcare in the US?

I don’t know but all I know is I’d rather pay for health insurance than have an issue and have to get on a long ass waiting list like what happens in Canada.

Because their are far too many Americans and far too many diverse cultures for a universal healthcare system to be successfully administered. Universal health care works well in countries with homogenuous populations under 20 million, such as Denmark, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand. Once the population goes over 30 million and diversifies, the health system begins to collapse. See Britain, Italy and France.

Some claim that Canada's healthcare system isn't all that healthy.

I remember reading years ago that California was thinking about doing it until they crunched the numbers. They estimated it would cost over $400 billion, but the budget of California at that time was only $250 billion. Extrapolate that nationwide and it would be in the trillions on top of the trillions already spent for defense, social security, paying interest on the debt etc.

I imagine there would be savings though since Medicare and Medicaid would no longer be needed, but we would probably have to raise a few extra trillion in taxes.

In he U.S. a lot of us pay for health care, and we have long waiting lists here. For instance last month I made an appointment for a colonoscopy, and the earliest I could get a consultation would be April 2023.

Because that's communism you pinko swine.

[quote] Why can’t we have universal healthcare in the US?

Because cold blooded political calculation plus personal spite.

Ted Kennedy didn't want to lose the campaign issue, nor let Nixon or Jimmy Carter get the credit when each attempted to create such a system..

Jimmy is being polite about it.

Republicans, that's why.

Because we are having a hard time combing the insurance company leeches out of our system, and that makes healthcare incredibly expensive.

[quote]Once the population goes over 30 million and diversifies, the health system begins to collapse. See Britain, Italy and France.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this - are you suggesting that too many non white people in a country causes problems? Because there are a higher proportion of ethnic minorities working in the British NHS than there are in the country as a whole. And as a patient group people from other countries or who have African or Asian heritage are no more likely to need services than white Europeans.

Anyway, I work for the NHS in the UK. It's incredibly expensive and bureaucratic and when it goes wrong it goes wrong horrendously, but for the most part it works. But then the bureaucratic nature worked in our favour with the Covid vaccine roll out. Britain did fantastically well because it is a centralised service.

The main problem is that the NHS is viewed by some as a godlike status - we should be GRATEFUL that healthcare is free at the point of care, even when it's not very good.

The "NHS Heroes" thing makes my eyes roll. NHS staff did wonders during Covid but doctors, nurses, physios, pharmacists etc aren't these altruistic angels, they're highly skilled professionals who were working under extreme pressure and should be treated as such.

But free healthcare just isn't enough for the ideologically driven people. We have a huge backlog with elective surgery and if you're wealthy enough you can pay to go private. The NHS should be commissioning private hospitals to perform the surgeries for those who can't afford it, rather than have them wait in pain and discomfort, but there is so much pushback to private sector involvement, even when private hospitals have the same surgeons as the NHS and can afford to do it for pretty much the same amount of money the NHS pays.

They're less likely to pay i n and contribute r9.

Powerful interest groups are able to advance their agendas while things with broad popular support get ignored. No serious person would try to argue that we can't afford universal healthcare when nearly every other rich western national has some version of it. When someone claims that we can't afford it they are certifiably stupid or they're a liar trying to bullshit people. I personally believe it's only a matter of time until we get it. Obama originally wanted a Canadian system with government-run insurance plans but the so-called "blue dog" democrats derailed it.

Because the politically powerful people in this country are fine with the system we have. It works for them and that’s all they care about.

Because racist white hicks can’t bear to have any more of their tax dollars going to coloured folk. They’d rather suffer themselves than see blacks being offered free healthcare That’s simply what it boils down to. Cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Because tying your access to health care to your employment means you'll put up with whatever shit they throw at you because if you lose your job, you're utterly and truly fucked if anything happens.

Control. There is no ideology beyond control. No, you can't get an abortion. No, I have a right to carry a gun everywhere. No, you can't tell me to wear a mask. No, you can't tell me to accept marriages I don't agree with. No, we will not change anything we do to address climate change.

And then justify it by whatever excuse works, consistency only matters to Dems. If the Fed statute is what the Right wants, then states cannot be left to make their own decisions. If the Fed statute is what the Left wants, states have the right to make their own laws disregarding it. And the Right wants whatever puts control into the hands of Old White Christian Heterosexuals With Money.

And now they have an unelected cabal of religious extremists who can legislate from the bench with no way to fight back, and the party that promised to do something is more concerned with not upsetting the other side than with actually fighting.

I do think the Left will be energized and we'll keep at least one of the two chambers, but then we still won't do anything. No fillibuster reform, no court reform, we just lick our wounds and do our best to try to make sure the next domino doesn't fall which it nonetheless will. Because fighting back is so much harder than just going along with it, especially if the policies have minimal effect on you personally as they do for virtually of the Dems in congress.

It's really not that compli

[quote]They're less likely to pay i n and contribute [R9].

It's been a long established fact that immigrants are net contributors to British society and the NHS would collapse without the contribution of people born outside of the UK.

Because you can't have nice things, OP.

Canadian here. We do have a shortage of physicians, but I can go to a medicentre and see a doctor without an appointment. Wait times are 30 minutes to two hours, depending on how busy they are.

I have never waited more than 6 hours in emergency. The last time I was there, I was seen immediately.

We provide excellent care if one is very ill. Children also get excellent care, from before birth until adulthood. Where we fail is when people need treatment to improve their quality of life, but won’t die right away without that treatment. My sibling is a surgeon, who says patients become more ill because of wait times for surgery. That’s the failure of our system.

Sibling’s spouse, also a physician, worked in the US and found mo discernible difference in treatment/wait times, etc. But, that was in the 1990’s. Moved back to Canada because dealing with insurance companies was no different than dealing with provincial health billing authorities. and said life here isn’t as complicated.

I forget which - a Republican politician, Paul Ryan maybe - said universal healthcare would destroy the "work ethic" in the US.

Also, long ago, companies decided to offer healthcare to employees and it became an entrenched perk of working - and unions championed the cause and came up with some pretty great coverage, back in the day when there wasn't really that much healthcare to be had anyway - no antibiotics till the 1940s so what the hell did they even do for you? Give you some morphine or sulfa drugs - for those who had the wherewithall to get to the doctor anyway. Cancer? Just die. TB? Go to a sanitarium. Delivering babies - maybe if there's a problem and the doctor makes it...

Anyway, it just developed differently. I think I read that even Theodore Roosevelt had some dream of universal healthcare. Much later, another Republican, Richard Nixon also considered it. The American Medical Association but a stop to that -- and many other efforts, going back decades. Too much money to be made, privately.

What a ramble. Sorry. It's mostly greed and the "I've got mine, so fuck you" attitude. And of course, no whites wanting to pay to support blacks and browns, who disgust and horrify them.

* American Medical Association PUT a stop to that -- sorry for the typo

[quote] I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this - are you suggesting that too many non white people in a country causes problems?

R9 Bigoted, racist Brits have hypocritical racism/bigotry so socially inculcated into their psyche they don't even realize it. Any perceived disparagement about "diversity" automatically shoots straight to the "warning, warning, anti-black, anti-Muslim scree". Of course, if other minorities were disparaged in the post, R9 wouldn't even have noticed, let alone commented.

Continuing, my assertion about "diversity" was due to a homogenuous society is more likely to think/act collectively, for the good of all. More diverse societies lose that collectivity and become more "what's in it for me?".

You need help, R20. Thankfully, the NHS offers counselling for free.

Because your ability to live unhindered by health issues must be determined by what you end up doing for a living in this capitalist hellhole.

Your entire value as a human being and a life must be eauated to your ability to provide surplus (profit) to our Overlords. If you provide little or no value, you don't deserve to live. Suffer with your health issues, which will be consistently blamed on your own behavior.

[quote][R9] Bigoted, racist Brits have hypocritical racism/bigotry so socially inculcated into their psyche they don't even realize it. Any perceived disparagement about "diversity" automatically shoots straight to the "warning, warning, anti-black, anti-Muslim scree". Of course, if other minorities were disparaged in the post, [R9] wouldn't even have noticed, let alone commented.

Going by the spelling I'm guessing you're an American. Which says enough.

R23 Which has nothing to do with your hypocritical, socially inculcated knee-jerk defense of "ethnic minorities", rather than a more sensible benefit of the doubt approach. But it is always far easier to shoot the messenger, innit?

R21 See response to R23.

Hmm probably because America is greedy and wants to keep us sick for profit.

There are real reasons why we don't.

1. As we can see right now with gas prices affecting politics, Americans want more of everything for less in perpetuity. Elections often are won by promising to lower tax rates. Lower, lower, lower all the time is the promise. Universal healthcare would raise taxes considerably unless a plan like Elizabeth Warren's to tax the super-rich and redistribute to the people were enacted, and it wouldn't be because, as SCOTUS has ruled, corporations are more important people than people are.

2. Speaking of taxes, we already pay hefty taxes in the US without healthcare. Adding costs to cover that would make people flip out.

3. More on the 'Americans are spoiled' point: Universal healthcare usually makes American-style healthcare for those who can afford it seem very luxurious. In countries with free healthcare, the system decides when you see a doctor and how you see them. You don't get to shop for them. And you don't get to see a doctor for everything you want; the system decides IF you get to see a doctor. You have far fewer choices, and American people demand MORE of everything, never less of anything.

4. We have landed on a troubling economic model in which manufacturing and selling weapons of war is a staple profiting industry that we are financially dependent upon. War is a major export for the US. Likewise, pharmaceuticals and healthcare are major profiting industries in the US. Like everything else here, these industries unlike in other countries are *not* social services; they are reliable generators of profit. Corporations before people. US Congress mandates that the government cannot negotiate any drug prices with pharmaceuticals on behalf of taxpayers (we used to say 'citizens,' but now taxpayers because money matters more than citizenship) because huge drug companies are hugely profitable—and profits are more important than people. Drugs like PrEP and psychiatric medications and cholesterol medications are ideal because patients who take them are dependent on them for most of their lifetimes, and that's guaranteed revenue generation. The rest of the healthcare industry also is seen as a massive conglomerate business model and not as a public service.

TL:DR, there are two reasons: American people are far too greedy to sacrifice conveniences to be satisfied with universal healthcare or to pay for it, and because 'healthcare' in the US refers to corporate moneymaking, not to take care of people, and there's no moneymaking incentive in limiting profit potential.

R26 talking out of his ass and false attribution of others.

R2 isn't wrong, but I find it interesting that Germany is always left out of the conversation: population of 84,000,000 and reasonably diverse.

It is easier to focus on statistics such as population and diversity than it is to address the real reason. Northern countries where universal healthcare works have a strong cultural ethos that is often dismissed as "autistic" on DL. Honesty, punctuality, and trustworthiness are valued above individuality. Indeed, individuality is pretty far down the list.

In the 1970s, there was a popular British sitcom about a bunch of guys who were scamming the NHS to be perpetually in hospital: free room and board, plenty of cute nurses. It bombed in Germany. People were appalled that someone would rip-off healthcare.

The problem in the USA is that we love crooks. We always have from PT Barnum, Texas" Guinan, Bonnie and Clyde, to Donald Trump. 90% of our problems with the economy stems from businesses trying to work around the system to make money rather than focusing on making a decent product or provide a decent service. Scaming the US unversal healthcare system would become a national pastime equal to baseball.

Just a note: studies have shown that the cost for universal healthcare to the average individual would be slight. Unfortunately, most people focus on the increase in taxes and ignore the fact that there would no longer be insurance premiums. Basically, people would pay about the same, it would just shift from one column to another.

The U.S. will never have it. That train has left the station, unfortunately.

Considering how incompetent government is in the IS, not to mention how bad healthcare is in the rest of the world except 1 or 2 places, it’s probably better not to have government running it.

If we didn’t send billions to places like Israel, we probably could afford it.

Scroll down to Figure 1, R26, and stop getting your "facts" from Fox News.

Of course you're not as highly taxed as countries whose governments provide a lot of quality services for their citizens.

R28's point about individual freedom is right on the money. You'd be better off espousing the Janis Joplin philosophy - "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose: nothing ain't worth nothing, but it's free."

I lived and worked in Japan for almost 20 years and got to love that country's healthcare system. It isn't perfect but it is sensible and affordable. I received healthcare in Australia as well and was impressed with the ease that I could visit a local doctor and get an antibiotic for a respiratory infection. Now I live in the States ... Reading the comments above I see that posters don't understand "Universal Healthcare." Back in the 1990s Israel, Switzerland, and Taiwan all went through massive healthcare reform and all came out with very different systems but you could call them all "universal."

The reason that the USA doesn't have a "universal" system (whatever that looks like) is because it would level the playing field and thus end the current power structure.

Another matter where the republicans are so interested in "life," but are seemingly against health insurance for those of us already here - look at all their attempts at dismantling Obamacare. And where is the tRump big, beautiful, healthcare plan that everyone was going to LOVE? The amount of money going to insurance companies and all of the profit centers along the way is mind-numbing.

R32 We are obviously not taxed as highly as countries that provide healthcare, higher education, paid parental leave, and reasonable working hours and vacation as rights.

But we are taxed highly relative to what we get. Those income-tax comparisons only figure in federal taxes. Almost all of us in the US pay state taxes. And what do we get in return for them?

I'm not arguing for lower taxes; I am arguing for a less fucked-up country, both what government delivers and voters' priorities. We don't get any of the benefits I mentioned above, and yet we pay a lot relative to what is returned in benefits as rights.

Our greatest federal investment is in manufacturing war weapons.

Our infrastructure is continuing to fail and Amtrak is the best we can do while other countries have energy-efficient high-speed railways that actually operate.

One of Trump's campaign promises was to fix infrastructure. He ignored that promise. One of Biden's promises was to fix infrastructure. He pushed through a proposal and Congress passed a proposal, but they negotiated it to less than what it needs to be and they all, as always, added on taxpayer-funded returns to their donors.

Because it would be a huge blow to capitalism in this country.

Because rich people don't want the government paying for anything so that they can avoid paying taxes all together.

We can’t have universal healthcare SOLELY because white people don’t want black people to get benefits.

This is specifically why the first attempt at universal healthcare, after the Civil War, was shut down. This is the undercurrent even against Obamacare.

In the end, single payer is 1/3rd cheaper than what we have AND everyone gets healthcare.

No more insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, provider networks.

Yes taxes go up but what we pay to insurance companies goes away—leading to a net savings for everyone. Moreover, health outcomes are far better in countries with single payer

[Quote] Back in the 1990s Israel, Switzerland, and Taiwan all went through massive healthcare reform and all came out with very different systems but you could call them all "universal."

When they were looking at health systems around the world to emulate, they all said, right off the bat, that none of them would mimic the US’s system because it’s too disjointed, ineffective, expensive.

[Quote] The U.S. will never have it. That train has left the station, unfortunately.

I disagree. It will take a crisis but the US will have to do it. Note that with COVID, the US suddenly jumped to a universal healthcare system.

ACA will stabilize expenses for another 20 years but then costs will rise to the point that the government won’t be able to afford paying subsidies any more. More and more will become uninsured. There’s no other place to go besides singlepayer

Partly OP, it's because Progressives suck at marketing

"Medicare For All" sounds like "a crappy underfunded overly bureaucratic system that is the healthcare version of the DMV and will be far, far, far, worse than the awful health care coverage you are paying too much money for now."

So no wonder they have trouble getting people behind it or convincing them it would actually be good.

Throw in real world examples like R1 and you have your answer.

We need to package it as something shiny and new that takes advantage of tech advances and will actually be better than what most people have now, so much better that it will be sort of the iPhone of healthcare.

Then we need to do something that ensure that it continues to innovate because it is in the nature of monopolies to stifle innovation.

[Quote] Speaking of taxes, we already pay hefty taxes in the US without healthcare. Adding costs to cover that would make people flip out.

American pay the least rate in taxes on any other western country. Unfortunately we think we pay the most. Over all that we still have to pay for education, healthcare, child care, etc.

[Quote] “Medicare For All" sounds like "a crappy underfunded overly bureaucratic system that is the healthcare version of the DMV and will be far, far, far, worse than the awful health care coverage you are paying too much money for now."

That terminology was chosen because Medicare is a beloved government program that costs little to administer. Sure, a new name for a universal care program might help. How about “Big Beautiful Healthcare Plan?”

R1, how charming

[Quote] Because their are far too many Americans and far too many diverse cultures for a universal healthcare system to be successfully administered. Universal health care works well in countries with homogenuous populations under 20 million, such as Denmark, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand. Once the population goes over 30 million and diversifies, the health system begins to collapse. See Britain, Italy and France.

Absolute bullshit peddled by the right. We all get the same diseases. None of those countries you mention are homogeneous anymore. None of this health systems you mention are collapsing because of the case they give. Their funding is being threatened by right wing politicians who want to move to a profit based system.

[Quote] I don’t know but all I know is I’d rather pay for health insurance than have an issue and have to get on a long ass waiting list like what happens in Canada.

The US’ waiting lists are approaching those of Canada and the US literally pays double

[Quote] I remember reading years ago that California was thinking about doing it until they crunched the numbers. They estimated it would cost over $400 billion, but the budget of California at that time was only $250 billion. Extrapolate that nationwide and it would be in the trillions on top of the trillions already spent for defense, social security, paying interest on the debt etc.

The biggest problem both California and Massachusetts faced was that they couldn’t include Medicare and Medicaid (and their tax funding) into their proposed systems. It wasn’t true single payer without that money and that artificially increased the price tag

R9, I'm not sure that there is a universal distaste for subcontracting work to the private sector. I had elective surgery on my back done by a private hospital (badly, as it turned out) because it would taken months longer have it done at the local NHS hospital. The cost to my NHS trust was the same in both cases. My GP was at pains to point that out because a lot of his patients wouldn't go the private route otherwise out of principle.

My sister had two more serious operations (heart and foot) done at a private hospital just before Covid struck. No particular reason why and she was just allocated there, not being given any choice. Presumably, because there wasn't enough capacity in the NHS even if the surgeons are the same, working in both sectors. Since Covid, my brother has had head surgery cancelled four times because of a lack of ICU beds, not a lack of doctors. Bed blocking in the NHS is a serious problem even now and we know who to blame for that.

I'd like to know what people from countries with universal healthcare think of their systems if we have any here.

I visited Ireland with my family a few years ago, and a woman who ran a B&B as well as a cousin of my mother both lamented their healthcare system. Both said they appreciated that it's affordable for everyone, but they complained about the inconvenience and both told us they knew people who died because of the system. The B&B lady said her next door neighbor died from a heart attack because it took over an hour for an ambulance to arrive and then it took more than two hours for the ambulance to travel to a hospital and the man died in transit. This was in western Ireland, in Doolin and County Mayo, and both women said that healthcare used to be more accessible, but that the government shut down a lot of hospitals to consolidate them into a few regional 'centers of excellence,' which are excellent if you happen to live near them but can result in poor access if you don't.

I've also heard stories from The Guardian Science podcast about people in the UK who have technicallt treatable illnesses but will die from their health conditions because the UK hasn't negotiated access to the life-saving medications they need and therefore there's no access. It's all or nothing.

Germany has a hybrid of universal access and premium private healthcare for people who can afford better. People in Europe and Canada who need care that their government services won't provide tend to come to the US or go to Germany, so they end up in circumstances like Americans, having to choose to pay fortunes (if they have fortunes) or suffer or die because they don't have the money.

It's a compromise one way or another.

I think universal healthcare works out for more equal access for more people but poorer access for many people and certainly less convenient access for many. Wealthy people in either type of healthcare setting can buy what they need, and truly poor people get better treatment with universal healthcare. People with cancer or hepatitis C or another illness with very expensive treatment are better off with universal healthcare but in some cases their governments don't negotiate access to life-saving medicines and they just have to die, just as poor Americans with serious illnesses do.

R46 Absolute bullshit peddled by the ignorant. To whit:

[quote] None of those countries you mention are homogeneous anymore.

ALL of the countries mentioned are 80%+ homogeneous. Perhaps you need to look up the meaning of the word homogeneous.

The rest of your post is equally ignorant/nonsensical.

R48 California's accessible education system alone is a huge drain on the state's resources.

I think an unexamined problem is that American culture is ALL about consuming/buying. People want premium food, premium homes with always-trendy kitchens and bathrooms, new clothes, new technologies and so on, and because of believing our wants are needs, we really do not have money to spare for social services. We SHOULD have money to spare but in reality we are materialistic and expect superficial luxuries in every walk of life and so there's no money to pay out for universal healthcare and education, for stable pensions, for roads and bridges, for environmental adaptations; it's all spend now for things I want and just assume there'll be no crises of need down the road. We're gamblers.

The state really is a model for some downfalls of trying to uphold socialist services in an ultimately capitalist society where people are greedy and selfish by culture. In order to make socialism work, everyone has to agree to be less greedy and self-centered.

MAGAts who moan about the post WW2 good ol’ days (when minorities knew their place) don’t take into account the tax structure and that CEOs weren’t making 1000x the salary of their employees.

[quote] That terminology was chosen because Medicare is a beloved government program that costs little to administer.

People who are not elderly confuse "Medicare" with "Medicaid"

Beloved?

Really?

"Medicare" still reeks of bureaucracy and is really only beloved by elderly people on fixed incomes. It's not "gosh those old people are so lucky to have that great system..."

r28, Just a note to German diversity, they are mostly white and christian.

I always find it interesting that so many people are trying to live in the US despite it being such a horrible country. I swear half the UK lives and works in the US.

I just learned from my 74-year-old father that annual physicals are not covered by Medicare. Old people who have physicals have to pay out of pocket. If a doctor says, "We need to schedule your annual physical," the patient has to say, "I'd like to schedule a wellness check." Wellness checks are covered.

My father has supplemental Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance that I thought was supposed to cover things like this, but it only covers Medicare-approved services and Medicare does not approve of annual physicals.

R55, read your link carefully. Germany does not collect data based on race. As noted, many people of African and Asian heritage resent being classified as anything other than German. The data is over four years old and oddly seems to have come from the CIA. The figures really don't support your argument.

R58 Nazi Germany originally collected demographic data by race and they obviously used it to round up people by ethnic group and then murder them.

The United States liked the idea enough to incorporate it into our Census, and the Census used these data to round up Japanese Americans and lock them up in camps. The Census blatantly lied about this until the statute of limitations ran out and they had to disclose evidence of it.

The US Census still collects these data, and LGBT people petitioned for the inclusion of our identities. So if they come to round us up using Census information, we can thank the Nazis and activists for the ideas.

[quote][R9], I'm not sure that there is a universal distaste for subcontracting work to the private sector. I had elective surgery on my back done by a private hospital (badly, as it turned out) because it would taken months longer have it done at the local NHS hospital. The cost to my NHS trust was the same in both cases. My GP was at pains to point that out because a lot of his patients wouldn't go the private route otherwise out of principle.

Labour's shadow health secretary, the dapper homosexual Wes Streeting, said that a Labour government would use the private sector to reduce waiting times and was roundly attacked for it - PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT. I agree with him but many in Labour will attack him for it.

Meanwhile the Labour government in Wales have been dismissive of using the private sector.

[quote]Since Covid, my brother has had head surgery cancelled four times because of a lack of ICU beds, not a lack of doctors. Bed blocking in the NHS is a serious problem even now and we know who to blame for that.

Bed blocking is caused by social care shortages, because it's not safe to discharge patients to their homes. Labour in Wales, the Tories in England and the SNP in Scotland have all failed to get a grip with 1. how social care is funded (it's not just elderly people who need it) but also 2. how social care is provided. For so long care work has been underpaid and undervalued. A job for foreigners (they come from a culture of caring!) or a job as a last resort. Our education system is so focused on academic success that kids aren't encouraged to think of it as a career.

[quote]I visited Ireland with my family a few years ago, and a woman who ran a B&B as well as a cousin of my mother both lamented their healthcare system. Both said they appreciated that it's affordable for everyone, but they complained about the inconvenience and both told us they knew people who died because of the system. The B&B lady said her next door neighbor died from a heart attack because it took over an hour for an ambulance to arrive and then it took more than two hours for the ambulance to travel to a hospital and the man died in transit. This was in western Ireland, in Doolin and County Mayo, and both women said that healthcare used to be more accessible, but that the government shut down a lot of hospitals to consolidate them into a few regional 'centers of excellence,' which are excellent if you happen to live near them but can result in poor access if you don't.

The "centres of excellence" are essential under a socialised model. People living in rural areas are always going to struggle with specialist services. I live in a major city but if something happens to my eyes I'll have to go 50 miles in one direction to be seen. If I get burns I'll go in another direction.

There are issues in parts of the country with neonatal and specialist baby care. Enhanced services for mothers with at risk babies are provided during the pregnancy and a plan is in place for when they go into labour or need a surgical delivery, but that could be 100 miles from their home. It's simply not possible to host a specialist service with enough qualified staff and training new staff up to expertise levels by having lots of small units dotted around the country.

I have a friend who came to the UK from a European country and was furious that she couldn't get an appointment with a gynaecologist and had to see her GP first. She didn't want to explain to the doctor what was wrong with her as they weren't an expert. She eventually saw the GP, they diagnosed a problem and referred her on and she was seen within 2 weeks. She insisted it was a waste of time seeing the GP, even when I pointed out that if every woman with gynae issue wanted to see a gynaecologist the waiting time would be 2 months not 2 weeks.

Strike.

America needs to go on strike.

Demonstrations are meaningless.. and dangerous because of militarized police.

Stock up on food & weed and stay home.

It’s the only thing that’s had an effect on corporatocracy in 40 years. They didn’t know what to do when people stopped showing up for work.

Demonstrations didn’t end Vietnam war. Soldiers refusing orders and disrespecting officers stopped it.

Guerilla tactics work when there’s no one bothering to stop them.

Because America is fascist country

[Quote] I'd like to know what people from countries with universal healthcare think of their systems if we have any here.

Approval for their healthcare system is far higher in single payer countries than in the US

[Quote] ALL of the countries mentioned are 80%+ homogeneous. Perhaps you need to look up the meaning of the word homogeneous. The rest of your post is equally ignorant/nonsensical.

So Christian whites get one set of diseases and everyone else gets different diseases? THAT is the bullshit the right peddles to convince us that we can’t have single payer

Universal healthcare has numerous different financing modalities:

The Govt can employ the docs, build the hospitals, and pay for care —like in England.

The Govt can pay private docs to provide healthcare—like in France

People must buy private insurance like in Switzerland.

People must have insurance—either public or private.

The US has all these things simultaneously, making it extraordinarily inefficient.

Failures of socializes systems are not because of how the system is constructed but because of the money the country has committed to healthcare—more money means more and faster care.

Yes universal healthcare has its issues but overall their outcomes are far better than America’s outcomes, even when you just look at America’s insured population

OP - the reason is GREED + CAPITALISM which awards the GREED. Also American culture hates and stigmatizes the underclass as losers who deserve very little and that grudgingly.

America has so many obese people - and now we’re supposed to celebrate that. I’d be on board with a national health plan to slim the fuck down.

Also, the kids today are collecting mental illnesses and gender identities in an almost competitive mania. I don’t want to foot the bill for the therapy to treat social contagion resulting in imagined illness or for feel-good mastectomies on healthy teenaged girls.

I know, fat-shaming, transphobia, and mental health stigmatizing rolled into one post. Idgaf.

I was all for universal health care until the last few years. Now I’m on the fence.

New Zealand has universal free health care (but also offers private health insurance for those that want it.)

Around 5 years ago I had a pain in my stomach and went to my local clinic for assessment. Suspected appendicitis so was sent straight to hospital. That evening I had my appendix removed and was discharged the next day. On the way home picked up my pain medication and took the next 2 weeks off work to recover while on full pay.

The total to me $ 50 NZ dollars which is $30 usd. That was made up of $45 for the initial clinic consult and $5 for the medication/ drugs. Everything at the hospital was completely free.

Having to bankrupt yourself just to afford life saving hospital care if for what ever reason you don’t have insurance is crazy insane. I’m so glad to live in NZ.

My doctor left the group practice and moved. I've waited almost ten months to see another doctor in the practice. I could have gone to another town and seen one quicker but this is more convenient and I wanted to stay in my own town. I have primo health insurance, btw, that's not the problem.

Healthcare in the US is fucked and getting more fucked every year. Universal healthcare wouldn't be any MORE fucked so we may as well have it. Of course we'll have to run over some Republicans and right-wing Democrats with a Zamboni but I think we can handle that.

[quote]That was made up of $45 for the initial clinic consult and $5 for the medication/ drugs. Everything at the hospital was completely free.

The fee for the initial consultation doesn't happen in the UK. And you'd have been given the drugs free of charge on discharge

NHS England does charge for GP prescriptions but once exemptions are applied for pregnant women, kids, pensioners etc it's barely 10% who have to pay for antibiotics and if it's a repeat prescription or more than one medication you can sort out a payment deal.

"We can't afford it" because Big Pharma can afford to bribe all our elected idiots to make sure drug prices are sky high, Medicare which is supposed to be beneficial to seniors excludes hearing aids, glasses, other sundry items that one would need as one ages. We have a very corrupt government where money and lobbyists rule the roost.

[quote]The Census blatantly lied about this until the statute of limitations ran out and they had to disclose evidence of it. The US Census still collects these data, and LGBT people petitioned for the inclusion of our identities. So if they come to round us up using Census information, we can thank the Nazis and activists for the ideas.The Census blatantly lied about this until the statute of limitations ran out and they had to disclose evidence.

Good quality data on health is imperative to provide good healthcare.

We know from Covid how it affected people by sex/gender, race/religion, class and age.

Women are more likely to get Covid because of *gender* - they is a higher proportion of women working in healthcare and other public facing roles and they are the main care givers for children. But women are less likely to die from Covid because of *sex* - their immune system works differently to men, who had a higher death rate. Women however have more cases of long covid, again because of *sex*.

In the US and Europe Black, Asian and Jewish communities suffered a higher death rate than white people. This is partly due to class - racial minorities tend to work in public facing jobs where home working wasn't possible, they live in overcrowded social housing and have poorer health outcomes anyway,

And we know that age was the biggest factor determining death from Covid which was why Britain staggered the vaccine roll out to prioritise the elderly.

I'm in the US, I get what is considered to be excellent healthcare through my employer. I still often have to wait months to get a test or procedure. Colonoscopy took a 4 month wait, a kidney stone Lithotripsy (ultrasonic shock waves) took 5 months. I passed the kidney stone before the scheduled date, very painful. And after a had coronary bypass surgery I was looking to schedule physical training to strengthen my muscles and minimize sternum pain, and the wait period was 6-8 months, depending on the specialist.

R76, worse waits than Canada or UK. A dermatologist appt can take a year in American big cities

Two reasons we don’t have universal healthcare in US:

1) Whites don’t want to “pay” for non whites, although there are plenty of middle class non whites already paying for poor whites.

2) So many people are getting rich off the current system that they don’t want a thing to change.

Look at where the holes are. Insurance companies fought tooth and nail when Hillary Clinton had a plan for universal healthcare. Remember the Harry and Louise ads claiming people would end up with no choices? And the refusal to allow the government to negotiate prescription prices for medicare. Big Pharma lobbied Congress like crazy including Joe Manchin to keep that from happening. Then there were cuts to government healthcare where veterans were forced to wait for long periods to get treatment. And giving states control over Medicaid expansion so that in some far right states, men who were not working and not officially found disabled were denied healthcare. And even men who managed to find work were often unable to complete the byzantine requirements that would allow them to be placed back on the Medicaid rolls. So big pharma, insurance and far right (and not so far right) politicians getting large donations from the super rich via PACs to keep taxes low and maintain control over the population giving them a forced base for labor. These are the primary players in this situation.

Of course, the solution is to elect politicians with the motivation to do it. It has to be done right so, like Social Security, it becomes too popular to cut. And the details need to be worried about later. I would never completely remove private care options, but there must be a level of care that allows the public to receive emergency treatment and health maintenance care including medication at no cost.

R73. If I had a “community services card” which is given to people on low incomes (and pensioners) then the clinic fee would have been cheaper and if I had gone to a different chemist for my medication I could have gotten them for free but for $5 I couldn’t be bothered and convenience was the bigger factor.

NHS covers dental too right? Nz’s system only covers dental until the age of 18. That’s my biggest gripe with our system. Dental work is prohibitively expensive that many don’t go. I know I’d go more often if it were cheaper.