Yeah man, we usually die waiting for treatment instead.
I had cervical spine issue which made it impossible for me to work, walk for longer than few minutes, sit in certain positions. I would need to wait 3 years to get it fixed in my EU country and that is after few years of paying more in healthcare contributions than some of the most expensive premium insurance plans in US.
I paid out of pocket to be able to function. Whatever the solution to American healthcare costs is it's not what we do in EU.
Yep this is what a lot of the socialists in the US don't understand - they think you'll get the same level and speed of treatment in EU as the US, you just pay much less.
That is not the case - as mentioned even in pretty serious cases you might need to wait 1 year or more for something that should be done ASAP, on top of that the quality of the doctors isn't the best.
This is especially bad for well-off people (as in middle class) as you pay e.g. 500-1000 USD a month and can't even get a basic check-up.
Right but you also have everyone pay for health insurance in Japan. If you don't pay of it and suddenly decide that you want it, you have to pay the back owed portion as well before it is applied.
Japan isn't an outlier, there are other countries with universal healthcare that are also high functioning, like Canada (Ranked 7th in public health and 5th in quality of life), Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden.
Not to mention if it was on the median so bad for citizens you'd see more broad support for repealing it in countries where it is supposedly isn't working, but that isn't really happening either.
Switzerland doesn't have universal healthcare. It has heavily regulated private insurance market.
Private insurance is not the reason healthcare is expensive in US. The reason is that services and drugs are too expensive because of collusion, lack of sensible regulation and lack of competition.
Yeah and in some countries with private insurance healthcare is good as well (Switzerland). It's just not about public vs private. It's about sensible regulation so services can be delivered cheaper and cartels/monopolies are curtailed.
I agree. The only model we have for this in the US currently is Medicare. It’s the only version of universal healthcare we have and would be the most obvious way to implement it
I paid out of pocket to be able to function. Whatever the solution to American healthcare costs is it's not what we do in EU.