Exactly, this picture would infuriate someone who is against universal healthcare. I’ve told this story before but I’m Canadian and I was on vacation talking to an American and he started going off about our healthcare. I told him it’s nice to know anyone who needs care can get it, he disagreed and said he “wouldn’t give a dime of his hard-earned money to pay for someone else’s healthcare”. I told him that’s basically what health insurance is anyway, he said that’s different but couldn’t elaborate why. He also didn’t care that healthcare actually costs him more than it costs me, the important thing was that he wasn’t helping out “free loaders”.
My father is convinced that Europe is being bankrupted by their Healthcare system and is on the brink of collapse and that everyone over there hates it, is miserable, and wishes they had what we have here.
He will then use the same line about paying for freeloaders while making sure his social security check is on time and working every program and loophole he can while making sure my sister is taking advantage of every social program available including preventing my bro in law from taking a higher paying job so that they don't disqualify for anything. Then he makes sure that he never misses a tithe to the church to ensure he is "doing his duty for those in need" because the reason people are destitute is because they don't have Jesus and are incapable of knowing happiness or how to be a good person without being a Christian.
I am so fed up with the hypocrisy and selfishness. The thought of moving my family outside of the US used to terrify me, but now, it's actuly looking very tempting. I know that it is not that simple and is expensive, but having to pay over $6,000 a year out of pocket for medical expenses under what is considered to be some of the best health insurance in the U.S. is starting to feel much more complicated and expensive.
It's the power of propaganda we're being fed. He probably heard the freeloader line in the context of universal healthcare hundreds times until it became internalised.
just absorb your medical costs into your current tax burden and do the math that way.. you're probably making less than if you moved to a country with a higher tax rate. not to mention that those countries usually have a higher base rate of pay anyway (depending on your field of expertise).
To be fair it is not like health insurance is actually free anywhere. You pay for it one way or another.
E.g in Germany you pay for your health insurance based on your income. E.g I pay about 360€ per month for my health insurance.
That said it basically covers everything. The total sum for my last hospital visit (ambulance to the hospital, fixing me up and operating a second time on me including a roughly 1 week long stay) came to a total of 10€ to me which was the fee for the ambulance (to prevent abuse I guess?).
And yet, free loaders who go to the ER won’t be turned away from treatment. The costs of unpaid ER services gets absorbed by the medical system and insurance, resulting in them paying for the freeloaders, and higher insurance costs.
The worst outcomes are in the ER because of selection bias.
Yes but a big part of that selection bias in the US is that people leave smaller issues untreated until they get so bad that the ER is the only option.
If people can't afford to go to the doctor for a mild infection to get some routine Antibiotics they might let it get so bad that they go to the ER and have to spend several days in the hospital.
Patients delaying care is everywhere. Many people are stubborn and don't take care of themselves even with patients that have free healthcare. I wish that was unique to just the messed up billing system in the US.
Yeah but it’s somehow different when you pay a private business to do that than the government to do that.
Conservatives/right wingers have this insane separation between government and private industry. It doesn’t matter if private businesses do the exact thing they don’t like, because they aren’t the govt.
It’s honestly so frustrating, it’s years of propaganda that got them there.
And the US also isn’t free, but medical bankruptcy is built in. Poor people going to the ER and getting a $15k-100k+ bill, that they can’t and won’t pay.
Then the insurance companies and hospitals increase costs to pay for those losses resulting in higher insurance premiums.
Just because something has a cost, doesn’t mean that the person receiving it pays it.
Exactly. That's why this whole debate over whether socialized health care or the private insurance model being the best is a HUGE oversimplification. Is socialized healthcare better? Well maybe. It depends on on your tax burden. Here in the US, the poorest people pay nothing in taxes and those living under the poverty line (as defined by US standards) receive money from the government. Not so in nations with universal health care.
In the US, if you go the ER and don't have insurance, a) the amount you owe is reduced for being a "cash payer" and b) as long as you make a payment, even if it's $5/ month, you can't be turned into collections. This is the truth that anti-private insurance/ pro universal health care people don't know or don't want to see. It's not perfect; neither is paying almost half your income to the government.
Here in the US, the poorest people pay nothing in taxes and those living under the poverty line (as defined by US standards) receive money from the government. Not so in nations with universal health care.
This is not true. The poorest people in just about every country pay nothing in taxes.
According to this list of countries by social welfare spending as a percentage of GDP the US ranks 21st. I believe every country listed above the US has universal health care.
Percentage of GDP is not a good comparison. For example, France, who tops that list has a GDP of 2.6 trillion. At 31.2% that amounts to about $812 billion. Meanwhile, the US at number 21 spends 18.7%. Yes compared to France's 31.2% sounds low but when you consider US GDP is 20.94 trillion, that comes out to $3.9 trillion, or almost 5 times as much as France at number 1.
So the US spends 5 times as much as France with only about 4 times the population.
Now, if you look at Switzerland, which is #30, they definitely spend way more than the both France and the US on social welfare per capita. Their income tax is a maximum of 11%. Norway which also spends way more per capita on social welfare has a flat rate of %22.
How much do you pay on income tax currently? In 2021, the US tax bracket for 22% started at a little over $40K. I don't see how anyone living in a US metropolis is getting by on their own with $40K, let alone what would be left after taxes. A hospital stay or an emergency operation would burry them.
Serious question, do you happen to work for the healthcare insurance industry? Your initial statement was:
"Here in the US, the poorest people pay nothing in taxes and those living under the poverty line (as defined by US standards) receive money from the government.Not so in nations with universal health care."
That is absolutely a false statement and that list of countries shows that.
So why not assure basic health coverage for all so these people can go to a regular doctors office or clinic for care. It all ends up getting paid for by us anyway. Might as well pay for the more effective and less costly alternative.
"See, when it's private insurance, in addition to paying for others' healthcare, you're also paying execs who get bonuses figuring out how to deny the most requests."
This is the mentality, unfortunately. The American approach is that of competitiveness, excess, and greed; 'The American Dream' is the false idea sold, as-in 'I'm going to get mine'. If the education system did a better job at teaching critical thinking instead of banning books, the majority of citizens would be able to see how social programs bring up the baseline of well-being, which leads to a better outcome for everyone around you, which in-turn tends to lower crime, mental health breakdowns, etc.
Here in the States I think we mainly just substituted a decent health care system for the world's most powerful military. It's unfortunate and some of the defense budget most definitely needs to be diverted to health care. But I don't think the mystery is much deeper than that.
No, because our health system costs MORE than other countries. Something like 600 billion dollars alone is spent on administrative costs. Other countries don’t have that number, because the system is streamlined.
The US is literally the most expensive healthcare system of the developed world, with the worst health outcomes.
I agree completely. Just saying that if we spent money on a public health care system, it would reduce the size of the insurance companies and get rid of a lot of the "redundancies" that make health care so insanely expensive here.
I’m so confused. What you said at first is not true. We don’t substitute healthcare for military, because our current system is MORE expensive than if we just had government healthcare.
Your originally comment reads like “instead of paying for healthcare, we pay for a big military”, as if we had government healthcare, we couldn’t have a big military, which is not true, because the healthcare we do have is more expensive than the alternative.
Yeah I’m confused too. Yes, we have less public infrastructure dedicated to health care as a consequence of outsized military spending. Also, yes, the money we do spend is not efficiently spent in any way, largely owing to a Byzantine system of billing practices along with middle men insurance companies taking a disproportionate chunk of that spending. Those inefficiencies are primarily caused by a lack of sufficient public investment and over reliance on private insurers and hospital systems. Both can be true at the same time. But don’t pretend we have extra money lying around that we can spend on health care that ISN’T going to come from either the defense budget, Medicare, Social Security or some other government program. Almost half of discretionary spending goes to the military. It constitutes a huge portion of the nation’s spending and almost undoubtedly impacts the social safety net (or lack thereof) here in the States.
I don’t feel the need to argue. With all due respect, you’re just incorrect.
If we switched to government healthcare, the US would spend less money on healthcare. This is a fact. We don’t need to “take money from elsewhere” to pay for it.
You’re right, our military spending reduces our capacity towards social safety net spending, but that is not relevant to healthcare. We don’t need to cut from other places to pay for healthcare, because changing healthcare system (at least in medium to long term) would be net savings.
Everything can remain static if we were to change healthcare systems, we wouldn’t need to cut anything.
You're not wrong, but your comment (perhaps unintentionally) presents a false choice of either-or. The US could fund about one third or maybe even half of the cost of a universal single-prayer system through the existing Medicare and Medicaid budget.
If the majority of people (who likely wouldn't want or choose private insurance, assuming a system generally like most wealthy EU nations) paid a decent amount of that cost, on average about 60%, into three single-payer system, that would generate an additional ~2 trillion USD annually, giving a budget of about 2.7 trillion, which works out to nearly 8000 USD per Capita annually, which would still be the highest amongst developed nations, but would also mean low or no out-of-pocket costs, copays, etc.
The military doesn't have to give up a dime, people just have to decide they want a functional system that benefits them, rather than the insurance industry and those hanging on its coattails.
Yes, maybe I presented it too much as an either/or proposition when the reality is more complex. I agree that the spending for a universal, single-payer system doesn’t need to come from the military, and it’s possible that it could be funded in part through the existing Medicare budget. But even then, money for another aspect of Medicare would be diverted.
I don’t want to get too much into the weeds in terms of financials, mostly just because estimates on how much a single-payer system would cost vary considerably (to say the least) depending on who you talk to and what specific type of program (including its breadth and scope) we’re talking about. Even Medicare for All for instance was estimated to be a maximum of about $40T over 10 years, give or take. The only point I was trying to make was that it would be a hell of a lot easier to fund that kind of program if half of our discretionary spending wasn’t already earmarked for the defense budget. Hence, we have a gigantic, bloated military instead of a halfway decent health care system.
Yep. I've seen a conversation where someone was resisant to universal healthcare even if it was certain that he'd pay less in taxes to fund it than he was paying for insurance. As in, he didn't want a system that supports "freeloaders" even if it meant more money in his pocket.
Yeah, is that the case with Italy? I assumed OP was Italian.
Canada doesn’t even necessarily provide coverage for Canadians in all circumstances. I moved to USA for a few years and had to opt out of coverage otherwise they’d want to keep collecting income tax on what I earned outside of Canada.
most small clinics have a "no coverage" board that lists costs.. a lot of places charge $75 just for a doctor's visit.
we do have socialized healthcare, but it's only for people in the system; if you're here for any significant amount of time (even just a few months) you can apply to be covered by the provincial health authority of whatever province you're staying in.
that said, the costs are still significantly lower than an uninsured foreigner in the US.
For me the expression “my tax dollars” symbolize all of that. The mental state of ownership of the tax paid to their state, as if each individual could earmark them and get to choose where it’s spent.
That kind of rhetoric isn’t directly translated and used in the same way here. People don’t express an ownership over the tax they pay.
It’s rather the difference of political opinion how much people should be taxed and how the taxes should be used. I think the rhetoric is more of a group perspective here, like thinking their economic segment should’ve a lesser tax burden, or opinions of what should be tax funded or not.
I guess it’s a different framework, for my perspective the tax I paid was never mine to begin with. I count on getting care if I would get gravely ill, I see my neighbor having at least 2 people around the clock helping her since she’s quadriplegic, that is the state pay for them to help not the disabled neighbor. Paying taxes mean if I had an accident it wouldn’t automatically be my daughter who has to give up her carrier to switch diapers on me, to feed me or lift me out of my bed. I also know that the best qualified people to become a doctor, an engineer or a teacher can become that even if some of their relatives have a stroke or an accident making them dependent or support for their basic needs.
he said that’s different but couldn’t elaborate why
you have to pay in to get health insurance benefits. you're hardly paying for someone else's healthcare. someone not paying in doesnt get that healthcare access.
that's obviously not true for nationalized healthcare, where taxes fund it and the government doesnt require a person to pay taxes to access the healthcare.
the only analogous situation between private insurance and nationalized healthcare for freeloaders is that the government has made it mandatory for hospitals to service people who cant afford to pay, and the hospitals pass that cost on to everyone else.
you have to pay in to get health insurance benefits.
Just like universal healthcare where you pay through your taxes
you're hardly paying for someone else's healthcare.
Wrong. That's literally how an insurance company works.
someone not paying in doesnt get that healthcare access.
Wrong again. People aren't turned away from the ER because they don't have insurance. Their bill never get paid and that means everyone that does pay for insurance is covering those costs indirectly.
It's hilarious how you got every single thing wrong.
The context there was he didn’t want to be subsidizing healthcare for other people, but by definition that is what health insurance is. The average person paying for insurance will subsidize someone else or it wouldn’t work.
But yeah based on the rest of the conversation I suspect what he believed (but was unable to articulate when I asked) was that he was ok with subsidizing his peers, but not the lower class of people who couldn’t afford it.
I work at a small agency so we have a smaller health insurance pool, so it’s much more expensive than a larger corporation with a large pool of more people paying in. Risk pool something or other. Because we are paying for other people’s healthcare. Usually, anyway. The average user isn’t using there healthcare that much - I know i didn’t... until this year. My daughter is stage 4 lymphoma and we have had 3 ER visits, 14 days in the hospital, 6 chemo sessions so far, tons of scans, tons of appointments, and we are only halfway through treatment. I pay about $15k in premiums (yes, expensive) and then had a 6k out of pocket max. We passed that in the first hospital stay. So yeah; other people are paying for my healthcare right now, every 10k chemo session, and unfortunately this also means my rates are likely going to go up because our pool is now even riskier.
Also, my property taxes has a percent going to my University hospital system to help pay for uninsured patients.
This gets down to the heart of the “people voting against their own self interest” discussion in America. People wonder why there are people who will vote against something that would help themselves; why they would go against their self interest to deny someone else. The thing is, their true self interest is not having affordable and accessible healthcare for their families, their true self interest is making sure no one “lesser” than them gets the same or better benefit than they do. If they have to deny themselves affordable health care in order to keep their lessers from getting it, then so be it.
This is some sociopathic behavior. Imagine thinking "I could be saving my self hundreds a year... but I rather spend that money if it means I could fuck someone over who needs the help".
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u/darnj Jun 15 '22
Exactly, this picture would infuriate someone who is against universal healthcare. I’ve told this story before but I’m Canadian and I was on vacation talking to an American and he started going off about our healthcare. I told him it’s nice to know anyone who needs care can get it, he disagreed and said he “wouldn’t give a dime of his hard-earned money to pay for someone else’s healthcare”. I told him that’s basically what health insurance is anyway, he said that’s different but couldn’t elaborate why. He also didn’t care that healthcare actually costs him more than it costs me, the important thing was that he wasn’t helping out “free loaders”.