4 ms·

What do you mean by socialized medicine? If you mean government required and subsidized, like the systems of France and Germany, which have great healthcare sy

What do you mean by socialized medicine? If you mean government required and subsidized, like the systems of France and Germany, which have great healthcare systems, that sounds wonderful. If you mean single-payer healthcare, like Canada and the UK, screw that disaster.

bigpoo 8y ago
If you mean disaster as in people not going bankrupt because of medical bills. Or maybe you mean the disaster of there not being upwards of 40,000 deaths a year due to not being able to receive basic health care. ... Oh wait that is all problems they don't have in Canada and the UK but we do have in America.
SolaceQuantum 8y ago
What makes single-payer healthcare, like Canada and the UK, a disaster? I'm from Canada and currently live in the US. I don't have many complaints about the canadian healthcare system. I got a suprise bill yesterday in the US healthcare system for routine bloodwork.
- bitrrrate 8y ago
  I'll second that. Due to a couple of significant illnesses growing up my family would have been bankrupted two times over if we lived in the US. Also, when one of my parents passed after a couples months of hospitalization, emergency room visits and an ambulance ride, they didn't owe a single loonie (Canadian dollar coin) for the care. If it was the US, my bereaved parent would not only owe thousands but they would have to be on guard to verify the accuracy of each bill, negotiate with the provider and then setup a payment plan stretching into infinity. The US healthcare system is another area where capitalism and the 'free market' is failing the consumer. Frankly, when I hear see someone stridently decrying socialized medicine or single-payer healthcare I wonder if their tune would change after their first medically induced bankruptcy or not being able to afford medication that would keep them alive.
- sys_64738 8y ago
  The NHS in the UK continues to be underfunded to the extent of what it's trying to provide. It takes about 7.5% of the UK's GDP and is continuing to rise. But as I point out it's underfunded to the extent that there are long multi-year waiting lists for things like hip replacement operations.
baddox 8y ago
Disaster compared to what? The insane number of medical bankruptcies in the United States?
- olivermarks 8y ago
  It's worth noting that the modern US usage of the term 'socialized medicine' was invented, amplified and promoted by a pr firm for the for-profit medical insurance industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine#History_of_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine#History_of...
  - TomMckenny 8y ago
    No surprise really, the word "socialism" has been used to attack any pro consumer / pro employee policies since the first red scare 100 years ago. Indeed up to the '70s, even civil rights was painted as "commie".
- jmalicki 8y ago
  Compared to dying because treatment a private health insurer pays for would simply be denied, as other payers are prohibited. Why would you want to make medicare supplemental coverage illegal, or forced to be completely separate, which is a characteristic of single-payer health care (as opposed to multiple payer universal health care coverage)?
  - baddox 8y ago
    AFAIK the UK has optional supplemental health care, and Canada has optional supplemental plans for things not covered by the public plan.
  - qyv 8y ago
    That is not how public healthcare works in Canada at all.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Supplementary coverage is perfectly legal in the UK, I don't know why people think it isn't. Maybe there's a disinformation campaign.
Youden 8y ago
As an Australian expat who's lived in all three situations (Australia with single-payer, USA with high level private insurance and Switzerland with government required and regulated), I much prefer single-payer. Pure private like the US is just insane. It technically works but when you go in you have no idea what you're paying. Random service providers can bill you months later and there's not much you can do to stop it. Plus you have to be sure your provider is in-network and a bunch of other pointless nonsense. Finally, insurers can charge you whatever they want. Switzerland's eliminates most of these problems. Everyone is required to have a "basic" level of cover, where "basic" is defined by the government to include basically everything medically necessary (in much more precise terms than mine). The maximum premium is fixed to be just a little over what's profitable for a well-run company but customers get to choose their deductible, up to a mandated maximum. All procedures and medications have fixed prices. Thanks to the regulated premiums and procedure prices, you end up with everyone paying roughly the same amount for the same thing but to different people. Service providers have to send and process bills for 30 or 40 different insurers or hundreds of individual customers. Customers have to pay bills to their insurer and/or each service provider they visit. This makes no sense to me. When everyone's paying the same amount for the same thing, it doesn't matter that there are different choices. By centralizing everything with one insurer, you can drastically reduce the paperwork for everyone. Providers send bills to one insurer. Customers pay bills to one insurer.

bigpoo 8y ago

If you mean disaster as in people not going bankrupt because of medical bills. Or maybe you mean the disaster of there not being upwards of 40,000 deaths a year due to not being able to receive basic health care. ... Oh wait that is all problems they don't have in Canada and the UK but we do have in America.

SolaceQuantum 8y ago

What makes single-payer healthcare, like Canada and the UK, a disaster? I'm from Canada and currently live in the US. I don't have many complaints about the canadian healthcare system. I got a suprise bill yesterday in the US healthcare system for routine bloodwork.

bitrrrate 8y ago
I'll second that. Due to a couple of significant illnesses growing up my family would have been bankrupted two times over if we lived in the US. Also, when one of my parents passed after a couples months of hospitalization, emergency room visits and an ambulance ride, they didn't owe a single loonie (Canadian dollar coin) for the care. If it was the US, my bereaved parent would not only owe thousands but they would have to be on guard to verify the accuracy of each bill, negotiate with the provider and then setup a payment plan stretching into infinity. The US healthcare system is another area where capitalism and the 'free market' is failing the consumer. Frankly, when I hear see someone stridently decrying socialized medicine or single-payer healthcare I wonder if their tune would change after their first medically induced bankruptcy or not being able to afford medication that would keep them alive.
sys_64738 8y ago
The NHS in the UK continues to be underfunded to the extent of what it's trying to provide. It takes about 7.5% of the UK's GDP and is continuing to rise. But as I point out it's underfunded to the extent that there are long multi-year waiting lists for things like hip replacement operations.

baddox 8y ago

Disaster compared to what? The insane number of medical bankruptcies in the United States?

olivermarks 8y ago
It's worth noting that the modern US usage of the term 'socialized medicine' was invented, amplified and promoted by a pr firm for the for-profit medical insurance industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine#History_of_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine#History_of...
- TomMckenny 8y ago
  No surprise really, the word "socialism" has been used to attack any pro consumer / pro employee policies since the first red scare 100 years ago. Indeed up to the '70s, even civil rights was painted as "commie".
jmalicki 8y ago
Compared to dying because treatment a private health insurer pays for would simply be denied, as other payers are prohibited. Why would you want to make medicare supplemental coverage illegal, or forced to be completely separate, which is a characteristic of single-payer health care (as opposed to multiple payer universal health care coverage)?
- baddox 8y ago
  AFAIK the UK has optional supplemental health care, and Canada has optional supplemental plans for things not covered by the public plan.
- qyv 8y ago
  That is not how public healthcare works in Canada at all.
- pjc50 8y ago
  Supplementary coverage is perfectly legal in the UK, I don't know why people think it isn't. Maybe there's a disinformation campaign.

Youden 8y ago

As an Australian expat who's lived in all three situations (Australia with single-payer, USA with high level private insurance and Switzerland with government required and regulated), I much prefer single-payer. Pure private like the US is just insane. It technically works but when you go in you have no idea what you're paying. Random service providers can bill you months later and there's not much you can do to stop it. Plus you have to be sure your provider is in-network and a bunch of other pointless nonsense. Finally, insurers can charge you whatever they want. Switzerland's eliminates most of these problems. Everyone is required to have a "basic" level of cover, where "basic" is defined by the government to include basically everything medically necessary (in much more precise terms than mine). The maximum premium is fixed to be just a little over what's profitable for a well-run company but customers get to choose their deductible, up to a mandated maximum. All procedures and medications have fixed prices. Thanks to the regulated premiums and procedure prices, you end up with everyone paying roughly the same amount for the same thing but to different people. Service providers have to send and process bills for 30 or 40 different insurers or hundreds of individual customers. Customers have to pay bills to their insurer and/or each service provider they visit. This makes no sense to me. When everyone's paying the same amount for the same thing, it doesn't matter that there are different choices. By centralizing everything with one insurer, you can drastically reduce the paperwork for everyone. Providers send bills to one insurer. Customers pay bills to one insurer.