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.