Lol. Well… it’s not quite that bad but the entire “universal healthcare” issue often gets oversimplified. Canada has a great healthcare system- but it isn’t perfect. Like the UK there can often be long waits for specialists and deferrals of treatments. Canada’s system has poor coverage for the maintenance of chronic illness as chronic illness isn’t a major issue with the majority of the voting public. Other political pressures complicate the matter of healthcare and portability of care. Many Canadians would say they don’t have issues with their healthcare system and have not experienced problems like long wait times. The same can be said in the US, where many people are able to manage their healthcare well. The Canadian system as is true for many “universal” systems tends to offer coverage to a wider group and cater to the needs of a majority of patients. The US actually offers some of the best quality and availability of healthcare in the world… to those who can afford it and…
.. navigate the complexities of the healthcare system as part of their financial lives. Unfortunately you generally need to be in a certain bracket of income and wealth to really take advantage of these options. Simply put, the problem with US healthcare goes deeper than healthcare, when we look at the state of the housing market or average earnings we can see huge wealth disparity and lifestyle disparities. In general the tax system and most economic systems highly and disproportionately favor those with greater wealth and their abilities to protect and build that wealth. Universal healthcare debates in many ways offer a keen distraction from these issues.
Case in point, around 2/3rds of the US healthcare systems revenue is already funded by the US government. Would that final third make such a profound improvement? The other thing to consider is that in a “single payer” “universal healthcare” system, the “client” becomes the government. The care being rendered and control of that care is ultimately at their discretion- the discretion of law makers and voters. It gets thrown around a lot when talking about things that work in others countries, people will say “just because it works there does not mean it works here!” Well… it sounds cliche or ridiculous right? But…. Let’s think about this. The only other countries that tend to rival US population tend to not have the levels of diversity the US has. It isn’t that we can’t “trust” voters or officials as much as it is that we have many types of peoples and many opinions whenever we place things into the hands of the democracy. We have huge populations living vastly different lives with…
.. different circumstances. What works in New York doesn’t always work in Iowa. So already the government spends enormous amounts on health care and this is the system we have. “Single payer” healthcare has existed in the form of medical welfare for some time and well…. Those systems tend to leave alot to be desired. Keep in mind that a FRACTION of the US qualifies or will ever use single payer government medical welfare and even dealing with such small numbers of cases the government has managed the system with an overall poor grade. The costs to government welfare programs for care are generally comparable to the costs to private insurers even with the advantages in scale and literacy making law and policy the government wields.
The controversial “Obamacare” program, not saying it is a bad thing by any means, but it isn't perfect and the same problems are seen there that any “real” universal healthcare program in the US would face. When we examine the affordable care act what we see are lots of half measures and concessions to special interests. Instead of “reigning in big medical” what we see is a program that makes every American, willing or not, a customer. You do not get to decide if you can afford insurance- someone in an office somewhere picks a number and if you make more than that- you can afford the same insurance as someone who makes 10x your salary. It does not consider your personal finances or circumstances, your extended family you care for or your debts or whatever else. It also allows “low cost” insurance to qualify which is essentially a “self insurance” system with a low maximum cap that allows insurers to profit off your savings instead of you.
In the consideration of essential services- dentists still run wild in the modern day like prairie Bison on the frontier. Dental insurance covers… a couple fillings and some cleanings? Basically? If that? With little regulation, little mandatory coverage, no mandates to provide critical care or stabilization to those who can’t pay (unlike medical), and essentially no protections for those who have any major need for dental work. Keeping in mind that asides the simple fact that one’s income potential can be drastic at effected among other social matters- you can literally die from dental issues that are untreated and severe dental issues are a MAJOR quality of life issue. So we can see from the way the government tends to legislate healthcare that the citizen and the tax payer and even the patient are ultimately less a concern than making sure special interests are placated.
This does not bode well for the concept of “universal healthcare.” When we examine something like the quality of education and satisfaction of students, teachers, and parents often reported in public schools…
Well… it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the government isn’t always the best at managing these sorts of things.
So “universal healthcare” is bad or can’t happen in America? No. Not at all. I think that for a wealthy and developed country to have people who can’t afford to get medical care or can’t afford to have teeth when accident or youthful foolishness and carelessness caused issues… that’s ludicrous. What we see historically when we look at the US is that the “dark” periods of history for the average citizen tend to be the periods of deregulation.
When we leave the “free market” without any rules beyond “make profits” we don’t get systems driven by ethics or humanitarian values, we get systems designed around ruthless efficiency. We need regulation in commerce. In the US where healthcare is a private industry, we need our government to regulate that industry. It may seem ridiculous but it wasn’t more than a lifetime or so ago that things like indoor plumbing or electricity in most homes or building codes and sanitation didn’t exist. Compulsory education is relatively recent in our history and the sprawling infrastructure of roads and pavement that cover much of the country were laid out and have been kept up within the last century or less than for the most part. Telephones networks didn’t become so common until the mid to late 20th century and the switch to “broad band” internet required entirely new infrastructure.
Many “essential services” are highly regulated by the government to ensure access and keep costs to where most Americans can afford things like to lived where roads are paved or to have a phone or electricity, heat or running indoor plumbing. Markets like real estate which were heavily deregulated have seen horrible consequences which have in turn caused horrible effects for many Americans. At the very least a system of regulations on private commerce in the medical field could go a long way to helping sort out issues in the US healthcare system, but broader changes are needed to combat the disparities in our economic systems and administrations.
Well… it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the government isn’t always the best at managing these sorts of things.
So “universal healthcare” is bad or can’t happen in America? No. Not at all. I think that for a wealthy and developed country to have people who can’t afford to get medical care or can’t afford to have teeth when accident or youthful foolishness and carelessness caused issues… that’s ludicrous. What we see historically when we look at the US is that the “dark” periods of history for the average citizen tend to be the periods of deregulation.
US: Ok that'll be 50k
UK: Ok sure just wait 36 weeks
Canada: kys