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nagmay t1_je82k91 wrote

A lot of good answers here, but perhaps some examples of "universal" services that Americans already enjoy would help:

  • Firefighters
  • Police
  • Road maintenance
  • Public schools
  • Military protection

These are all services that are paid through taxes. They are then "freely" available to all citizens of the US, regardless of income or current employer.

Imagine if firefighters would only save your home if you had insurance provided through your current employer... otherwise, your house would burn down (or, more like the current healthcare situation, you would go bankrupt paying them back).

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bluecatcollege t1_je8nxrg wrote

I'm now thinking about a crazy world where insurance companies have their hooks in every public service.

Operator: 911, what's your emergency?

Person: I'm locked in my bathroom! My husband's gone crazy and says he's going to kill me!

Operator: Ok, I'll need your address and insurance information and we'll send an officer over right away.

Person: Ok here it is!

Operator: Hmm...It seems your insurance plan doesn't cover domestic violence so you'll have to pay $787 out of pocket. Do you still want us to send an officer over?

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Unkindlake t1_je8oeil wrote

This is completely unrealistic. You know they would charge a lot more than that

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taisui t1_je8tygi wrote

and there is no way they can give you a quote over the phone, the bill will arrive in a month and be 10X of what you expected but with a 70% insurance "discount"

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USS_Barack_Obama t1_je8x2mz wrote

and the officer would still be late

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taisui t1_je8yc2s wrote

and one month later you get another bill for the fee of the police cruiser.

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bluecatcollege t1_je93dn8 wrote

Officer response ($787 x 2 officers)..................................................$1,574
Use of mace on suspect......................................................................$50
Use of taser on suspect.......................................................................$150
Handcuff arrest.....................................................................................$45
Cruiser ride to jail..................................................................................$200
Overnight stay in jail ($300 x 2 nights)...............................................$600
Emergency response call ($1.50/per minute x 32 minutes).............$48

TOTAL.....................................................................................................$2,667

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MmmNotSureBoutThat t1_je8r6na wrote

I'm giving them 6-8 years to get to that. Sorry, the time it takes to build 3 football fields.

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Blasphemous666 t1_je8xsjg wrote

Don’t give them any more ideas. We’re already being nickel and dimed by corporations.

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Schuhey117 t1_je92ht2 wrote

Yeah this was actually the case in London at one point. If you weren’t insured you had lower priority for your house being put out if it was on fire.

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DTux5249 t1_je8gxnj wrote

>Imagine if firefighters would only save your home if you had insurance provided through your current employer...

Wasn't that actually the case in early US history?

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USS_Barack_Obama t1_je8xbxv wrote

Don't know about US history but, apparently, in Ancient Rome Marcus Crassus used to do this:

> Once a house caught fire, Crassus would send his slaves to fight the fire. Once they arrived at the house, they would only put out the fire if the owner of the house sold the building to Crassus. Crassus would then sell the house back to the original owner at a marked up price.

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PavelPod t1_je98908 wrote

That is incorrect information. Firefighters, police, road maintenance and public schools are regulated and maintained by local governments- state and primarily town. Military is shared between federal and state.

There are many towns in US without police departments. There are many towns in US that have only volunteered firefighters or no firefighters at all. There are US towns with worlds worst schools, with worlds best schools and without schools at all- and kids go to schools in nearby towns.

Truly universal services would mean- no matter how much you pay you get approx the same public service quality. In case of US- you live in poor town - you get poor service.

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throwawaydanc3rrr t1_je8a3et wrote

Ever notice that universal road maintenance still has lots of roads with potholes?

Well, the road maintenance crew cannot get to all of the roads, there is a limit to how many manhours of labor they have, and also of the necessary materials (asphalt, tar, etc.) and equipment they have available.

And just like they have to decide which roads get fixed and which ones have to wait, universal healthcare has this exact same issue.

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Irbricksceo t1_je8m5tj wrote

That’s a matter of funding, there is no reason we couldn’t fund it enough to get rid of all waits. But, for the record, people DO wait years for healthcare here too. I’ve been doing it. The difference is we wait because we can’t afford it. They triage based on need, we triage based on income.

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throwawaydanc3rrr t1_je9hygo wrote

>That’s a matter of funding, there is no reason we couldn’t fund it enough to get rid of all waits.

Yes there is. A country only has so much money, and they have to decide how to spend it. Canada has a population of 39 million and it has as many MRI machines in the entire country as there are in the state of Tennessee with a population of 7 million.

Do you think that Canada would like to have as many MRI machines per capita as Tennessee? Sure they would! Why do they not? They cannot afford it.

Canadian healthcare does triage based on need, but they also triage based upon availability of resources. Hip replacements generally impact older people, and in some Canadian provinces the wait time for hip replacement is greater than 80 weeks. Statistically speaking that means there are people dying before they can get the hip replacement.

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Irbricksceo t1_je9rrqp wrote

That sounds like an issue that they should probably get working on then. If govs spent money in a way better suited to helping the people, and with a more logical tax structure, they absolutely could do it. I'm not saying canada's Healthcare system is some perfect model right now, it absolutely isn't, with many a flaw, But I'd still take it over the system here, where every life choice I ever make is built around minimizing the number of doses I'm likely to miss anyway. And I fully believe, with all my heart, that it is easier to fix a system that, at least in theory, exists to provide healthcare to all, than it is to fix one that is supposed to be profitable. I view profiting off healthcare as a moral failure.

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Colmarr t1_je8bcsh wrote

Universal healthcare is usually supplemented by a private health system.

If it will take too long to get the surgery you want, you have the option to pay for it with a private provider or to wait for a public provider to do it for free.

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throwawaydanc3rrr t1_je8cfhh wrote

First off, thank you for the reply.

Second off, I am not saying you are wrong.

But what I would like to point out is that without doing any deep searching I found three different news stories about Canada, Britain, and Ireland where there are prolonged wait times for diagnostic procedures, like MRIs. And diagnotic procedures are required to diagnose (or confirm diagnosis) so that treatment can be identified. Waiting three months for an MRI means you have to wait an extra three months before you get that knee operation.

"In March, the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health reported patients waited an average of 105 days for an MRI."

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/08/10/news/wait-time-mris-imaging-services-have-canadian-paying-their-pain

"Before the pandemic, Canadians were waiting an average of 89 days for MRI imaging, according to CAR’s 2022 pre-budget consultations report. This is far longer than the 30-day wait time recommended by the Canadian Wait Time Alliance, an organization focused on identifying the longest medically acceptable amount of time a patient should wait before receiving treatment.

Come 2022, the Conference Board of Canada estimates the average wait time for an MRI will rise to 133 days. "

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/08/10/wait-time-for-mris-imaging-services-have-canadians-paying-for-their-pain.html

"NHS patients are waiting more than three months for tests including MRIs, colonoscopies and heart scans, with overall waiting lists doubling in some parts of England."

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/17/almost-124000-patients-waiting-more-than-three-months-for-nhs-tests-in-england

"The average wait for a brain MRI through the public system is 126 days, the report points out, while private patients wait just six days."

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/public-patient-waits-120-days-more-than-private-one-for-brain-scan-1.4073560

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DTux5249 t1_je8h37h wrote

All I will say is that it's better to have slow healthcare than none at all; given many Americans just never go in for routine medical check ups due to the cost.

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modern_messiah43 t1_je8or77 wrote

Yep. I haven't been to a doctor in almost 15 years. I'm sure there are plenty of things I should get checked out and maybe even things a doctor would find. But it's not like I could afford to do anything about those things anyway.

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giantroboticcat t1_je8m439 wrote

> But what I would like to point out is that without doing any deep searching I found three different news stories about Canada, Britain, and Ireland where there are prolonged wait times for diagnostic procedures, like MRIs.

Do people think that healthcare is instant with private US insurance? It's fucking not...

My wife had chronic back pain and went to see an Orthopedist. Our insurance required her to do 12 weeks of physical therapy before she could get an MRI. The physical therapy did nothing for her and often times she came home feeling worse from her PT appointments than before she went in. The Physical Therapist said that if she had the MRI they'd at least know what they were dealing with and could maybe target exercises better to address the pain, but still insurance wanted to wait things out and see if things improved on their own.

After the 12 weeks were up, she got the MRI, it was a herniated disc as she suspected because she had a similar issue with her back when she was a teenager. So great, PT was never going to fix that. She needed back surgery. She made an appointment, had to schedule that out another 6 weeks before she could get a slot. A spot opened up after 1 week and they called her and asked if she wanted it. She of course said yes, she was in so much pain for so long she would have literally crawled over nails to get there. She called me so happy and excited, and then 30 minutes later called me back again in tears because the doctors said they couldn't give her the appointment because our insurance wouldn't be able to process the paperwork that quickly...

My wife works for the state of NJ. Our insurance isn't "bad", it's essentially the best available in our state, and since it's almost 100% covered by the state, we have the absolute best plan her job offers her.

And still my wife had to wait 18 weeks before she could have the surgery she needed to fix her back pain. She had a baby in September... Her back pain began in December and she didn't have surgery until May. She literally felt pain every time she lifted our infant child... Could you imagine how torturous that was for her? Can you imagine how difficult it is to comfort someone crying about not being able to care for her own baby?

But yeah go ahead and tell me how bad other countries have it with their scary socialized medicine...

The only people who get healthcare instantly are people rich enough to pay out of pocket for it. That is true in countries with and without socialized medicine. So let's fucking stop using it as an argument as to why the US system is better...

My anecdote is not an exception. US wait times are comparable to other countries with socialized medicine and if you think otherwise it's because of the propaganda we are fed to think such things.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/health-care-wait-times-by-country

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GeorgeJacksonEnjoyer t1_je8fplm wrote

Canada, US, and England all have privatized services working for them even though it's universal. What's the wait time on something that is completely socialist such as Cuba? Cuba has a much better healthcare system than the US and better doctors. They also have way more primary care doctors and help people prevent diseases rather than helping people cope with them. Seems it's smarter to prevent something before it occurs rather than to wait for something to happen to actually do something about it

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Colmarr t1_je8fwa7 wrote

You seem to be pointing to problems with universal healthcare as though we are arguing about its merits.

I wasn't (although I do believe it is a far better system than my understanding of the the US' user-pays model). I was simply pointing out that universal healthcare is commonly supplemented by a user-pays model.

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throwawaydanc3rrr t1_je9j0xq wrote

I am not "arguing" at least not on purpose.

the person that posted the "other universal services" that Americans receive (and it was a pretty good analogy) gave an opportunity to expand that analogy.

Just like every road cannot be patched because of limited resources in universal healthcare not every patient can be treated. This is not meant to be a statement of merit, merely one of fact.

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Ishidan01 t1_je8vs08 wrote

As opposed to private healthcare like in America?

Engineer: this road is in bad shape. Here is what materials and actions we need to fix it.

Insurance: denied, your customer's insurance plan does not cover that.

Engineer: what? Excuse me, may I see your engineering degree that says you can tell me how to do my job?

Insurance: don't need it. We're just telling you, it's not structurally necessary.

Engineer: by what do you base that?

Insurance: because it would not be profitable for us.

Edit round 2!

Engineer: we were unsure if there are underground utilities where I want to dig. Ignoring this possibility could be disastrous, so I ordered a consult with a specialist to look for underground utilities. The dig site is clear.

Insurance: so they found no utilities?

Engineer: correct.

Insurance: so the test was not necessary. Coverage denied.

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