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> Is there a reasonable alternative? What most other countries are doing: Fund healthcare from tax money. The middle class will anyway pay for the healthcare
by sampo 9y ago
> Is there a reasonable alternative?
What most other countries are doing: Fund healthcare from tax money.
The middle class will anyway pay for the healthcare of those who can't pay for themselves. In other countries they pay in taxes, in the US they pay for it in their own higher medical bills.
This is a matter of an opinion of course. But most Europeans would opine that the American model is the unreasonable alternative.
- narrator 9y agoThe American health care system also costs double as a percent of GDP vs every other modern country's health care system so spending more money on it is not going to fix things. Arguing about who pays is easy.
- kittiepryde 9y agoPaying for more preventative care, instead of the care required in the ER after the health issue became too serious, should help bring costs down.
- ksenzee 9y agoPossibly. There was a study on this in Oregon, and the data suggested that people who use the ER for their primary medical care keep doing so even after they're insured: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/10/19/498526110/emergency-room-use-stays-high-in-oregon-medicaid-study https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/10/19/4985261...
- vilmosi 9y agoInsurance has co-pays, does it not? People who use ER as their primary medical care would avoid that if possible.
- lowbloodsugar 9y ago"People who self selected to apply for free medical care used it", study finds. More at 11. People who self selected for free medical care didn't have much better health outcome than others who were not selected, except that they didn't go bankrupt. So, the group that didn't get paid for didn't go to the ER, while the group that did get paid for went to the ER but didn't have better health outcomes than those that didn't. Surely that says something about the private, for profit institutions that run the ER business.
- j4kp07 9y ago> What most other countries are doing: Fund healthcare from tax money. Then why do people in those same countries purchase additional insurance from the private sector? > In other countries they pay in taxes, in the US they pay for it in their own higher medical bills. Surely you have heard of Medicaid and Medicare before. Yes?
- burntwater 9y ago> Then why do people in those same countries purchase additional insurance from the private sector? Same reason some people upgrade their coach-class airline tickets - they can afford a nicer, more personalized level of service.