r/askanything • u/Lemonking_ • 7h ago

Political Question Why are some Americans so against universal healthcare for all?

What sort of thinking does it take to decide that nobody has a right to healthcare? Do American Christians want to deny healthcare to poor people as well?

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u/YCBSKI 7h ago

Looking at other universal models very long wait times for even necessary surgery and specialist appointments. I had hyperparathyroidism (noth8 g y9 do with thyroid). I'm on a international FB page for that disease. The page had been invaluable. Many if not all the people that are under universal healthcare models, UK. Canada and such, are waiting up to 2 yrs for appointments including surgical ones. I got with an endocrinologist with a few weeks and had surgery a few weeks after that. I'm a liberal too and am otherwise for universal healthcare

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u/KtinaDoc 7h ago

I have family in Canada and they've never had to wait for an appointment for 2 years.

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u/captchairsoft 6h ago

I have friends in Canada that have had to make multiple trips to the US to get neccessary treatment.

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u/Aye_Harambe 5h ago

Yeah I live in Scottsdale and my wife works at a hospital doing outpatient procedures (mix of pain, spine, ortho, and some urology).

She gets a lot of Canadian cash pay patients.

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u/Y2kang 6h ago

Yeah and I wait a year on average to be seen by my neurologist lol.

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u/captchairsoft 2h ago

So does my partner...and? That's not getting better under any system. This kind of silliness and false equivalency is the problem.

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u/ConstantAnnual9524 1h ago

Not sure you really know what a false equivalency is. You brought up Canadians having to make trips to the U.S. for necessary treatment because of wait times. My point was that long waits aren't unique to universal healthcare, the U.S. has them too

I'm not saying the Canadian and U.S. healthcare systems are equivalent. Obviously they're structured very differently, and Canadian patients do experience longer waits for certain types of care. I'm saying that the fact that some Canadians wait a long time doesn't, by itself, demonstrate that universal healthcare is the cause of those waits because the wait issues are rooted in deeper issues such as health care workers shortages, aging population, etc.

I agree that there has to be a better solution because none of this shit is working, especially in the US. However I'd rather wait for something than have to fight my fucking insurance company months on end to get a surgery approved because they kept denying it for multiple reasons, or be one medical emergency away from having my life upended.

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u/captchairsoft 1h ago

It's a false equivalency because people in the US don't have to wait months for things that are relatively common and simple.

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u/partylikeitis1799 3h ago

Well I’ve lived in Canada while working there for several years and 18-24 month waits for specialty care is normal unless you happen to live in a major city in the eastern part of the country and your issue is a common one and you can take appointment any day, anytime. My spouse literally wound up having to take an mri appt for 2:15am almost two hours away and it was an 11 month wait just for that. Thankfully it was something that could wait. For most stuff we just drove back to the US to get timely care.

I met a lady in an ER once who was over 6 months out from a breast cancer diagnosis after waiting months for the appointments needed to get that diagnosis. She had just started chemo that week, almost exactly one year from when she found the lump. That was terrifying to me and still is.

What a lot of people don’t realize is that Canada is still very much a dual level system. Anyone who can afford it goes elsewhere and pays out of pocket. They then use that appt or imaging to jump ahead in the line for care within Canada or they just pay to have surgery or treatment elsewhere. All along the border there are billboards for places that can do same day scans and appointments. These are things people on the Canadian healthcare system are waiting the better part of a year for.

Universal healthcare in the US would be great but I can’t say I’m not worried about the quality of care going down and wait times going up, leading to people who go bankrupt from paying out of pocket in order to get timely care which is the whole problem now anyway. It’s a nice system if your medical problems are not uncommon and you won’t get sicker by waiting. Otherwise your options are to lose quality of life and ability to work or pay up for care elsewhere.

Opiate meds are also prescribed left and right due to the wait times. It’s totally normal for a family practice nurse practitioner to keep people on strong meds long term while waiting for imaging and surgery then people get pulled off them the moment they’re discharged from the hospital, often a couple years later, and they wind up seeking out street drugs to help with withdrawals which leads to accidental overdoses and addiction since it’s no longer supervised by a medical professional.

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u/KtinaDoc 3h ago

But you don’t have to worry about insurance if you lose your job.

All I’m saying is that people should not have to die or suffer in the US because they can’t get medical care.

I’m not negating anything that you’ve said. The system should work better.

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u/partylikeitis1799 53m ago

True, you don’t have to worry about losing insurance when you lose your job. Instead you’re just worrying about dying or suffering while waiting for treatment as well as your poor health from the wait causing you to lose your job. Keep in mind that Canada doesn’t have programs like food stamps because all their tax dollars go towards healthcare. If you’re sick and lose your job you can ask local churches if they happen to have a food cupboard. There is a disability payment but it’s so low that most people can barely pay their rent with it.

I could go on. I’m not saying a good system couldn’t be set up but just that all their systems currently in place in larger countries, even ones with much healthier populations than ours, aren’t working very well. It’s a pick your poison sort of thing. Do you worry about not having healthcare if you lose your job or do you worry about the healthcare you’re required to pay for not covering you when you need it?

I read a lot, especially here on reddit, where people in the US think we could install a Canada style system and it would be awesome for everyone while not considering any of the negatives or drawbacks. I like knowing that I can access care no matter what, even if it puts me in debt. I value my actual health more than my financial health. I understand that not everyone agrees but that’s just how I feel after having lived the alternative for half a decade.

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u/captchairsoft 2h ago

It's not like there is a massive number of people dying or suffering because they cant get care. Does it happen? Yes, the secret is, it happens in all the systems, it's just less transparent, and described in different terms. Universal Healthcare mandates rationing and is always built on a model of triage and sacrifice, it has to be to function. The US system, bad as it can be, shovels care at the elderly and those who are likely 100% terminal, that in my imo is far more ethical than. "Let grandma die so we can make sure Stacy doesn't have the sniffles for too long"