Except that, on the whole, an individual in the US who 'loses' that lottery is going to cost themselves/their insurance significantly more than an identical individual in another country with the exact same condition, due to multiple levels of negotiation, backroom dealing, 'in-network', overcharges, etc.
That 30 year old individual with the $1m healthcare bill for the year in a for-profit system might well have only cost a public system (e.g. in Canada) $200k for the same standard of care, but with less additional financial stress impacting their ability to recover from their illness, and with no bills, phone calls, rejections, negotiations, and arguments after the fact.
It's just another example of how a uniform, public system works better.
Disagree. I had a valve replaced, and researched extensively what my experience was like vs. that in other countries. I received an unquestionably higher standard of care. I had my choice of valve, doctor, hospital, I had nearly zero wait (a few weeks from diagnosis to surgery, and only because I asked for the time -- in my circumstance there was a double digit chance of death, and I needed to ... process), and the nursing care that I received after surgery in the ICU was literally one-on-one - there was a nurse assigned to me. I had a bed that massaged and hammered the goop out of my lungs, I had tasty food (when I could eat again), and I had some say in when I would be discharged. The only thing that wasn't absolutely first-class was that I had a shared room with two beds post-ICU, but even that's becoming uncommon in the US.
After reading on the experiences of people from European countries and Canada in the 'OMG I had a valve replaced' forum (yes, there's a site just for that -- valvereplacement.org), the level of care that I received was significantly better than what is typical of public health systems.
Oh, and last week I needed to see the doc for a sore throat, and I was in the same day. Queues are a regular thing in public systems.
I think there are a lot of data points missing in this anecdote.
What do you pay for health insurance? How many people in the lower levels of society could afford to pay what you pay for healthcare? Do you have an employer that provides you with healthcare benefits?
I agree that healthcare in many countries could be greatly improved, but at least in many of those systems you could just walk into an hospital to start the process.
My employer offers a few options for health insurance. At the time I was a young and healthy 29 year old (or so I thought) so I was enrolled in the low cost high deductible option. It costs less than $200/month between both the employer and employee portion of the contribution for that plan today -- at the time (in 2009), it was less than $150/month, but our costs went up significantly with the advent of Obamacare. Total medical bill came to about $350k, down to $250k with insurance co's negotiate rates, of which I was responsible for approximately $5k. I was sitting on a pile of cashed earmarked for a mortgage downpayment at the time ... so I didn't have to go into debt over it, but even if I had, for most people $5k isn't a bankruptcy event type debt.
For a significant number of Americans, a $5k bill might as well be a $200k bill. A lot of people are living month-to-month on far less, and I wouldn't be surprised if most people couldn't actually afford that, or couldn't even manage to acquire $5k in debt, let alone pay it off.
The reality is that you're in a privileged position, and it may not seem like it to you but there are a huge number of people out there for whom your situation would be effectively a bankruptcy trigger. And that's even assuming that their company lets them off work long enough to get treatment and recovery, which, in at-will states, doesn't seem like a thing that's likely to happen for a lot of the working-class.
I'm from Europe and I know of a lot of people who wouldn't be able to front a $5K bill. With the US system I would still think there are many who would fall below that line as well. Free healthcare as exists in some european countries actually helps those people.
More anecdotes: every single urgent care center I visited is 2hr+ wait; then I opened my Blue Shield CA online doctor registry and called some — do not accept new patients or available in a month.
For rich people/folks with wonderful insurances the other countries with public healthcare have private care in private hospitals, and it's of the same class — with one-on-one nurses and good food.
That 30 year old individual with the $1m healthcare bill for the year in a for-profit system might well have only cost a public system (e.g. in Canada) $200k for the same standard of care, but with less additional financial stress impacting their ability to recover from their illness, and with no bills, phone calls, rejections, negotiations, and arguments after the fact.
It's just another example of how a uniform, public system works better.