The pros and cons of having a Universal Healthcare System

[Hardkill]

So, I've been deliberating over whether or not the US should really have some kind of universal healthcare system. This video talks about the pros and cons to having it in the US:

 

[Yarco]

The con of being bankrupted through no fault of your own makes private healthcare appear insane to the rest of the world. Nobody should have their life and the life of their family ruined through no fault of their own, just because they happen to get cancer or something and don't have a job that has good insurance.

I'm happy to have a 5% higher tax rate to not have to worry about that for myself or any of my fellow citizens.

Along with a privatized American system comes a lot of devilry that bloats the entire system and makes it less efficient anyway. The hospital can charge you $1,000 for a pill that would cost $5 in any other country, and other stupidly inflated fees, because they know insurance companies will pay it anyway. When doctors and hospitals are working with the government, you pay what your drugs and procedures actually cost. You have the bargaining power of the state.

Someone I know in Texas who runs his own business told me recently he pays $12,000/year for health insurance for him and his wife. You really think your taxes are going to go up THAT MUCH? Even if you work for a company that covers that cost, it's gotta be reflected as an expense in the goods they sell and passed on to the consumer somehow.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Yarco

[Hardkill]

On 11/23/2021 at 7:14 PM, Yarco said:

The con of being bankrupted through no fault of your own makes private healthcare appear insane to the rest of the world. Nobody should have their life and the life of their family ruined through no fault of their own, just because they happen to get cancer or something and don't have a job that has good insurance.

I'm happy to have a 5% higher tax rate to not have to worry about that for myself or any of my fellow citizens.

Along with a privatized American system comes a lot of devilry that bloats the entire system and makes it less efficient anyway. The hospital can charge you $1,000 for a pill that would cost $5 in any other country, and other stupidly inflated fees, because they know insurance companies will pay it anyway. When doctors and hospitals are working with the government, you pay what your drugs and procedures actually cost. You have the bargaining power of the state.

Someone I know in Texas who runs his own business told me recently he pays $12,000/year for health insurance for him and his wife. You really think your taxes are going to go up THAT MUCH? Even if you work for a company that covers that cost, it's gotta be reflected as an expense in the goods they sell and passed on to the consumer somehow.

Yeah, I agree. I actually wouldn’t mind paying just a bit higher taxes for the single payer system.

However, I am now concerned about the possibility of a universal healthcare system inadvertently causing a decrease in quality of healthcare. I am also concerned about the possibility of their being less choice of healthcare options because of more government control.

Also, my parents and I have heard from our family friends in Canada who used to live here in the US for a few years   that the quality of healthcare in Canada isn’t as good as it is here in the US.

Plus, what about the fact that many people from other 1st world countries like the UK travel to the US for better medical care whereas it’s hardly case with the other way around.

Furthermore, some argue that a single payer or a universal healthcare system in the US would decrease the innovation of new medical and scientific breakthroughs made within the country because funding for researching and experimentation of new cutting edge methods and technology would greatly decrease.

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Hardkill

[Rilles]

Pros

•No bankruptcy of patients 

•No death of patients who cant afford care

•No price gouging of medicines or healthcare

•Less corruption

•No lack of incentive from corporations leading to lower quality hospitals

 

The biggest pro is compassion for your fellow humanbeing instead of being greedy for some extra money in your pocket. Wouldnt you be happy knowing 12-year Sadie doesnt have to die from cancer because the system helps her instead of treating her as just a customer? What if she was your daughter?

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Rilles

[Preety_India]

The quality of Healthcare basically declines and patients are generally put on huge wait lists. 

I don't think universal health care is a good idea. 

It doesn't give incentive to doctors and nurses to give better care as there is no avenue to pocket more money. As a result, they aren't too keen on giving the best treatment. 

The Healthcare industry is very psychopathic and cold in how they treat people. They don't care a lot about humanitarian values. There is not much place for charity there. 

You can't change these industries. They suffer from compassion fatigue. 

Privatized Healthcare is usually better in terms of quality because you fork out more money and they can make lot of money through insurance fraud. 

Don't mistake the Healthcare industry for some divine place. They literally make money off people's misery. Making it universal will only make it worse. 

One thing that can possibly change is introducing more guidelines and regulations by government centrally. Maybe it can enforce better care and curb corruption. 

 

[ZenRising]

On 24/11/2021 at 4:14 AM, Yarco said:

 

I'm happy to have a 5% higher tax rate to not have to worry about that for myself or any of my fellow citizens.

 

I totally agree... but also have to ask, 'would you have to pay more tax?'... the US is not a low-tax economy compared to most EU countries, and the government spends more on healthcare provision than most countries with a universal healthcare systems... it's just that US chooses to plough bajillions into the pockets of medical and pharmaceutical companies' profits... the economic arguments for privatised healthcare have never made any sense... it's not cheaper for anyone... 

[Leo Gura]

It's not just a matter of making healthcare single payer. The real work is in breaking up the healthcare industry cartel which overcharges everyone they can.

The biggest benefit of a single payer system is that the government can have enormous leverage over the private medical cartels. That's the real key. Without that not much money is saved. Basically government needs to put a lid on medical profiteering.

[Hardkill]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not just a matter of making healthcare single payer. The real work is in breaking up the healthcare industry cartel which overcharges everyone they can.

The biggest benefit of a single payer system is that the government can have enormous leverage over the private medical cartels. That's the real key. Without that not much money is saved. Basically government needs to put a lid on medical profiteering.

I totally agree that the US government must regulate the price of healthcare insurance a lot more than it currently does. I also do believe that the government should provide some kind of public option for those who cannot afford any kind of private insurance. 

Though are you concerned about the possibility of a single payer system in the US causing the quality of health care in the country to decrease and the amount of healthcare choices to plummet like the video I posted up above mentioned?

[silene]

I can't comment much on the US system, but I fully agree this issue doesn't need to be black and white. A mixture of both private and public healthcare systems could please and provide for the maximum number of the population. In the UK we have the NHS mostly paid from taxes, free-ish at the point of delivery (with notable exceptions); also a thriving private healthcare system. Rich people can go private if they want, but still have to pay their share of taxes for the state system. In fact the NHS regularly uses private hospitals when they lack the capacity themselves. And we don't get much opposition to the NHS from the right wing or the rich; it's a compromise which works pretty well for us. 

I think the US has state controlled systems for other services like schools, so why the insistence on privatisation for health? Maybe it's the money. 

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Hardkill said:

I totally agree that the US government must regulate the price of healthcare insurance a lot more than it currently does. I also do believe that the government should provide some kind of public option for those who cannot afford any kind of private insurance. 

Though are you concerned about the possibility of a single payer system in the US causing the quality of health care in the country to decrease and the amount of healthcare choices to plummet like the video I posted up above mentioned?

The whole point of a single payer system is to decrease the quality of healthcare for the wealthy.

The point is to redistrubute resouces from top to bottom. This means rich people get less. This is a good thing for society as a whole.

It is laughly selfish to hear people complain about receiving less. We live in a society.

[Hardkill]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The whole point of a single payer system is to decrease the quality of healthcare for the wealthy.

The point is to redistrubute resouces from top to bottom. This means rich people get less. This is a good thing for society as a whole.

It is laughly selfish to hear people complain about receiving less. We live in a society.

Well, I think that most people in the US of course wouldn't mind if the quality of healthcare was decreased for rich. However, is it possible that a single payer system the quality of healthcare for both the working and middle classes would also decrease? Also, what about the possibility of plummeting choices for everyone in the country if the US government was the only one in control of every one of its citizens healthcare?

Furthermore, why does America still have the best quality healthcare available and makes the greatest amount of scientific and medical breakthroughs on the planet? Is it not because the US is the only 1st world country that has privatized healthcare?

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Well, I think that most people in the US of course wouldn't mind if the quality of healthcare was decreased for rich. However, is it possible that a single payer system the quality of healthcare for both the working and middle classes would also decrease? Also, what about the possibility of plummeting choices for everyone in the country if the US government was the only one in control of every one of its citizens healthcare?

Furthermore, why does America still have the best quality healthcare available and makes the greatest amount of scientific and medical breakthroughs on the planet? Is it not because the US is the only 1st world country that has privatized healthcare?

That depends on how it's implemented. Could be bad, could be decent.

Most other developed countries have done it. So there's nothing new here.

Yes, America has the best healthcare for rich people. America is the perfect place to live if you're rich.

The result of a highly capitalistic privatized libertarian society is that the top 10% do extremely well at the cost of everyone else. I'm in that top 10% so it doesn't really bother me. But if I was in the other 90% I would be pissed off.

[AdroseAkise]

It is possible to have high quality public healthcare for everyone, why is universal healthcare always framed as: sure everyone gets healthcare, but it's going to be mediocre.

[SgtPepper]

Why would quality decrease?

I don't understand why government funded healthcare immediately goes to decrease in quality. If there is too many patients than doctors, then couldn't we just train more doctors to meet the needs of society? 

And Why would it block scientific and medical breakthroughs?

We could incentivize this without the potential corruption of maximizing profits only.

My brother lives in Denmark and has never complained about the healthcare and has actual praised it, says it's easy, and gets served immediately. 

[DocWatts]

Basically every service in America, whether that's healthcare, education, or infrastructure, exists as part of a Tiered system.

For health care in particular:

At the top tier (%10-15) of the population, people here have access to the best services in the world, subsidized at the expense of the rest of the population. Of course everything that exists at this Tier is overpriced, but people at this level are affluent enough to not worry about the inflated costs of these services.

The middle Tier (roughly the top half of the country, median individual income here being about $30k a year) generally have access to the services they need, but the inflated costs that the first Tier can shrug off start to become a burden here. Services can range from decent to kind of shitty, but generally these folks aren't having too much difficulty seeing a doctor or getting treatment for chronic illnesses. The main difficulty here is the cost of routine medical services and procedures not covered by insurance, and the risk of losing the Health Care they have if they happen to lose their job, with Health Care being tied to employment. Which would effectively push them down to the bottom Tier.

The bottom Tier, which would basically cover the bottom half of the country, is where the vast majority of the horror stories about the American Health Care system are experienced. People not being able to see a doctor if they get sick, people declaring medical bankruptcy, people not being able to afford thier insulin or asthma medication. If you get sick (or heaven forbid develop a chronic illness) your options here are extremely limited. If you're 65 or older, or are legally disabled you have access to medicare/medicaid, but for everyone else you're basically shit out of luck.

 

Edited December 1, 2021 by DocWatts

[Terell Kirby]

Pros: screw up your health (whether intentional or non-intentional), pay little to no cost for repair.

Cons: Higher taxes (particularly for the most wealthiest folks in the pot).

It's really that simple. Society has to come to a consensus on what to do. Ideally the pros outweigh the cons when you see such a disparity between the poor working class and the wealthy elite.

But conservatives and corporate lobbyist have done an excellent job distracting the poor working class from the fact they are getting royally screwed, by means spreading false narratives about socialism, immigration, erosion of Christian values and white genocide.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Terell Kirby

[ZenRising]

On 27/11/2021 at 4:15 PM, Leo Gura said:

It's not just a matter of making healthcare single payer. The real work is in breaking up the healthcare industry cartel which overcharges everyone they can.

The biggest benefit of a single payer system is that the government can have enormous leverage over the private medical cartels. That's the real key. Without that not much money is saved. Basically government needs to put a lid on medical profiteering.

 Agreed... the guide prices for drugs set by the UK's NHS remain the main reference for pharamceutical pricing for most the world (except the US of course)... that's why Big Pharma is so obsessed with gaining influence over the NHS.... 

[Hardkill]

Ok, so it seems almost everyone here believe that the US should have universal healthcare. So, then which kind do you guys think would be better for the US? Single Payer system like in Canada or compulsory private health insurance system like in Switzerland?