Say what? I cannot find a single friend or family member who wouldn't be complaining at the healthcare; and those who are healthy just complain how high deductibles are in case they got sick.
Have you ever been to Europe? Some west-block countries like Germany? Same wait time for private sector only at the 10% cost surgeries, xrays you name it, with the same equipment that USA is using in most cases.
I've had relatives that have had quadruple bypass surgery here (Canada) and had to fill out more paperwork when applying for a library card than when checking out of the hospital.
I've also had American relatives that could not, no matter how hard they tried, no matter how many times they called, begged and peaded with their insurance company, to get the treatment they desperately needed. It's like those companies would prefer to drag out the process until you're dead than pay out a nickel.
Everyone complains about healthcare. It's a universal thing.
In New Zealand, everyone complains about healthcare, even though hospital care is free and doctors visits are really cheap. Everyone in the UK complains about the NHS, people in Canada complain about wait times at hospitals.
Anecdotal evidence is worthless. Perhaps you could contribute something more substantive than this because it leads the conversation in an unproductive direction - "oh I live in the UK and everyone I speak to loves the NHS"
Yes, people complain, but in New Zealand and much of Europe you can get your healthcare eventually. Maybe not always to world-best standards (although more often than right-wing newspapers would like to suggest), but good enough.
In the US, there are people who can't access healthcare at all - not because there's not enough providers, but simply because they don't have enough money. There's insurance plans that will cover very little unless you have a car crash, due to very high deductibles - much of America is on these.
>In the US, there are people who can't access healthcare at all - not because there's not enough providers, but simply because they don't have enough money.
That's not true. We have public hospitals, and we also have Medicaid.
Nope. I know plenty of people personally who are in the situation where they make too much money to be on Medicaid, but not enough to be on health insurance that'll actually cover anything without a deductible in the thousands. Obamacare made things better, but it's still very far from covering what universal healthcare covers for many.
The only situation in which a hospital is required to treat you - public hospitals included - is if you go to ER and are not in a stable condition. They will not provide e.g. medicine for lifelong chronic conditions, or the tests required to make sure that medicine isn't killing you until you're practically already dead. They won't provide necessary surgery unless you're literally about to die from not having it. They won't provide psychiatric help. It is not a treatment option for anything except a car crash or severe acute illness.
Everyone in the UK complains about the way the goverment run/fund the NHS, and the majority of the issues people have with the service are due to bad outsourcing choices or services affected by funding cuts. It's a big distinction.
It's not only possible, it's typically less expensive on a per-capita basis than what the US is doing now.
The system isn't perfect here, some people fall through the cracks or live so far away from a doctor that they can't get the care they need, but anyone that's able to see a doctor or visit a hospital will get the same treatment as anyone else who can.
I don't think you realize how much money is lost in the black hole of insurance paperwork and claims processing. People spend way too much time, doctors spend way too much time, and the hospitals spend way too much time. All of that goes away under single-payer, it simply vanishes.
The quality of care must go down for some, right? It's not possible to a) keep the same existing standard of care for all, b) maintain prices, or c) keep the same level of profit for the industry. Something has to give. If [a] and [b] are true, then profits will be lower, and therefore quality will suffer next.
Without debating around the edges (because yes,in practice there is almost always someone winning and someone losing), a market model only works if profit is a function of a sufficiently competitive market, and not other structural, cultural, or political factors and barriers working against that outcome. And your implied equivalency largely ignores those factors present in the US.
Indeed, the theory that a competitive market can actually deliver socially efficient outcomes could almost be said to be predicated on the idea that yes, you can push down profits substantially without quality deteriorating, because market outcomes are not driven just by profit making motives on the producers' side, but also competitive and structural considerations that determine the nature of competition and consumer demand, competition, and substitutions in that market.
So if the US healthcare system generally delivers worse outcomes and costs more (and that's something I generally take to be true), I think it would be a mistake to come at it from a simplistic point of view of an efficient market already operating and saying that any cut would worsen outcomes, because your opponents position is not predicated on the US health care system being a competitive market. Indeed, we need to take into consideration all the other structural qualities driving healthcare delivery and outcomes in the US market. And compared to most other countries, these differences are usually quite substantial: everything from your political process, to where and how health care is typically purchased and received, how your insurance market works, to your social security and labour laws.
There is nothing, in even basic neoclassical economic theory, that implies a market is optimal, in either supply quantity or quality, by maximising producer profits or surplus.
Ah, you see, when you remove profit as the primary motivator a lot of problems go away.
Here (Canada) the insurance is public, but the hospitals are private, the doctors are self-employed. The insurance companies (plural since each province has their own singular insurer) regulate prices so costs are predictable. If a knee replacement is $X and they expect to do Y of them per year based on statistics, then it's no surprise what the final tab will be.
Hospitals and doctors are free to innovate in terms of how they provide care provided they can meet all applicable standards and regulations. If they make money, great. If they lose money that's their problem. On the whole there's no serious problem with providing the care at the regulated prices.
So yeah, it is possible to maintain the same level of care for all if you're willing to reign in profit.
But the question then would be: what If I want to pay more for even better care? Why wouldn't I be allowed to? Assuming I would be allowed to (unless there is a law against paying more), then providers should be allowed to deliver it (unless there is a law against better). At that point, some will get worse care than others, and because the line is qualitative (since politicians mostly know nothing about care), then this creates worse care for those who can't pay. It is those who we need to solve for.
Here (Canada) you have some options, but are limited. You can't pay to get to the head of the queue for some operation, you can't skip your place in line for replacement organs. Sure, if your name is literally on the hospital building because you've made a gigantic donation to it they might grease the wheels a bit in your favour, but generally you're just like everyone else.
You can go internationally for treatment but it's on your own dime. Some people, irate at wait times, will hop across the border for treatment at US hospitals. These stories show up in the paper from time to time, but the "intolerable" wait these people endure is more often than not pretty minor. Waiting six months for a hip replacement, which is not a life-threatening procedure, is not uncommon. You'll survive.
Meanwhile if you're feeling really ill and step in to the emergency wing, then they realize you're suffering from a massive cardiac problem and need to get you into the operating room immediately, you won't be stuck in line, you may not even fill out any paperwork, you'll be given all the attention they can spare until you're stabilized.
"Two-tier" health care, where you can pay to get better service than everyone else, is something politicians of the conservative bent flirt with from time to time as a way of "fixing" our health-care system. It's always shouted down because people know they're just looking for ways that their billionaire buddies can jump the queue.
It's disruptive, it creates a rift between the rich and poor and puts a lot of stress on people who may not have the money but believe they need the superior treatment.
Consider: When the Canadian medical system fails someone, when they fall through the cracks, it is front page news and the media has a field day. This happens so frequently in the US that it doesn't even surface as a story. "Old lady didn't get hip replacement, insurance wouldn't pay, stuck in old-age home forever" is not news in the US, but it would be here because people would be pissed off she didn't get fair treatment.
Have you ever been to Europe? Some west-block countries like Germany? Same wait time for private sector only at the 10% cost surgeries, xrays you name it, with the same equipment that USA is using in most cases.