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There isn't really such thing as free healthcare as long as staff need education and training, doctors have to be paid, hospitals need to be administrated, and
by err4nt 7y ago
There isn't really such thing as free healthcare as long as staff need education and training, doctors have to be paid, hospitals need to be administrated, and treatments have material costs, etc. If it's being paid for by the taxpayer, it's not coming at no cost to them, they're paying for it in a pretty direct way.
- silversconfused 7y agoI wonder if it would cost as much as the F35 program. I'd rather pay for a junkie's health care than a token national alliance tech project jet that no one needs.
- harryh 7y agoEstimates for the cost of the F35 program vary widely, but a decent guess is 1-1.5 trillion over 50 years or 20 to 30 billion a year. The US currently spends ~3.5 trillion per year on health care. So yes, taxpayer funded health care would cost as much as the F35 program. In fact, quite a bit more. Perhaps 150x more per year.
- supergauntlet 7y agoYes, but we're already paying that and we're spending more than everyone else. [1] Universal healthcare isn't just morally justified, it's also financially justified. The only justifications for our insane system are regulatory capture or sadism. 1. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-relative-size-wealth-u-s-spends-disproportionate-amount-health https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...
- 0xffff2 7y agoYou seem to be assuming that introducing universal healthcare in the US would bring down costs. I've never seen any evidence whatsoever to support that claim.
- ikiris 7y agoYou could look at every other country that did it for the evidence you seek, provided you aren't limiting to the pool of evidence "in the US".
- 0xffff2 7y agoChanging the country changes too many variables at once. The US also spends a whole lot more on infrastructure than virtually everyone else in the world, and there's no obvious reason why. Just assuming that universal healthcare would solve all of our cost problems is comically optimistic.
- tylersmith 7y agoPeople don't really care about it being free they just don't want to be responsible for paying for it themselves.
- einpoklum 7y agoDon't nitpick. "Free" as in "sick people get healthcare without paying anything that healthy people don't".
- mikeash 7y agoEverybody knows this. There’s no need to repeat this every time someone says “free health care” any more than there’s a need to repeat “the sky is blue.”
- carapace 7y agoThere is. Sri Sathya Sai Super Specialty Hospital >The Sri Sathya Sai Institutes of Higher Medical Sciences also popularly known as Super Specialty Hospitals are tertiary health care hospitals established by Sri Sathya Sai Baba to provide patient care facilities to all irrespective of caste, class, creed, gender, religion or nationality totally free of charge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Sathya_Sai_Super_Speciality_Hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Sathya_Sai_Super_Specialit... It's staffed and paid for by devotees of Sri Sathya Sai Baba.