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> I am from Denmark originally where we have it and it's not without issues because suddenly you turn a profit center into a cost center which means you need to
by nodamage 10y ago
> I am from Denmark originally where we have it and it's not without issues because suddenly you turn a profit center into a cost center which means you need to budget and you need to restrict who can get what, how much you can afford etc.
Are the same decisions not still made when health care is for-profit? Except it becomes the insurance companies that get to decide who gets treatment and who is too expensive to treat so we'll just drop their coverage instead?
- ThomPete 10y agoFor all that is wrong with the US system it at least have access to almost any possible treatment in existence. So yes the individual insurances are limited to various degrees but there are for some access to he best of the best. In my world the major problem in the US is that you can "go bankrupt" by being too sick too long. It should be so that everyone pay to go to the doctor for minor things but no one go broke if they happen to be sick. Why this balance can't be found baffles my mind.
- dpark 10y ago> It should be so that everyone pay to go to the doctor for minor things but no one go broke if they happen to be sick. > Why this balance can't be found baffles my mind. Because paying for a doctor visit for a minor infection is the cheap part of healthcare. "Being sick too long" is extremely expensive. Getting a shot of penicillin costs a couple hundred dollars. Treating cancer can cost tens of thousands.
- ThomPete 10y agoWhich is why you should pay for most of your less expensive visits to the doctor so we can pay for the really serious things.
- dpark 10y agoI think you're not recognizing the magnitude of difference here. I could personally pay for the normal checkups and basic healthcare for my family and my immediate neighbors with no real hardship. However, just one of the people I provided care for was diagnosed with cancer or any of a number of severe, chronic diseases, it could wipe out my savings entirely. The cost of one severe illness could cover the cost of dozens if not hundreds of generally-healthy people's healthcare. I don't strictly disagree with your assessment that people should cover their own basic healthcare needs. I just don't think that this actually does much to make coverage more affordable in general, because it's catastrophic coverage that costs so much.
- ThomPete 10y agoI think you are missing the point of what I am trying to say. In Denmark it's both free to go to the doctor and to go to the hospital. This model is obviously great but it has it's limits with things like treatment opportunity. What I am proposing is a model that mixes the US and the Danish system. We pay for our non-serious things but don't get bankrupted on serious illness. The price of US hospitals are inflated, they aren't the real cost which any visit to a hospital anywhere else in the world will tell you.
- dpark 10y agoI get your point. I just don't think it actually matters much. If you make people pay for basic care but cover the big stuff, you only cut a few percentage points off the cost of care carried by the state/insurers. I don't see how this is at all related to the inflated costs of American hospitals.
- ThomPete 10y agoIt matters quite a lot because the source of the money creates very different dynamics. I have lived in both of them. There is a reason why the us healthcare system can have inflated costs and thats because of the nature of the the way it gets funded. And because it gets funded differently it allows for a different kind of dynamics in the offering. Go to Denmark the hospitals mostly look the same with a few notable differences and you have to wait til it's your turn.
- jellicle 10y ago> For all that is wrong with the US system it at least have access to almost any possible treatment in existence. Oh, not at all. The dialog goes like this: A: I'd like a treatment, but I can't pay for it. Hospital: Go away. Most people in the U.S. have no access to care costing more than a few hundred dollars, because that's how much money they have.
- ThomPete 10y agoAgain I am not saying that the current system is good just that you can get access to that kind of treatment if you can afford being on the right healthcare plan. In a single payer system like the Danish you don't even have the potentially.
- infinite8s 10y agoThat's only correct for elective treatments. Have something life-threatening? Go to the ER and you will be treated. And then everyone else will pay for it indirectly through increased costs.
- jellicle 10y agoThe vast majority of life-threatening conditions aren't required to be treated at any ER, and won't be, unless you can pay.
- TheCoelacanth 10y agoNot really. In the US you have access to what your insurance company deems medically necessary. Not that different from other countries except that you don't get to vote on the people who ultimately decide what care you get.
- ThomPete 10y agoand insurance companies give various access some to everything more or less some to very little. In a public healthcare system everyone have access to the same, but the same is less. So there is a tradeoff.