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> We're talking about emergency medical treatment for a child. You think there's time to search around for the best price? Exactly, this child got the emergenc

> We're talking about emergency medical treatment for a child. You think there's time to search around for the best price? Exactly, this child got the emergency treatment. His dad wasn't asked to pay 19k upfront. I write all this because I was born in a country where all medical treatment is free for everyone. Guess what? It's super low quality. Doctors got paid less than in McDonald's. If you have a serious problems you literally have to search for a right doctor. It might be someone not even in your large town. And, you pay upfront! So, I'd rather live broke than die because no one even treats me.

tokai 6y ago
There is a middle ground between the two dysfunctional extremes that works well in a lot of countries.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  It's not a just matter of finding a 'golden mean' on the spectrum of nationalisation/privatisation, there's another dimension: competence of execution.
hnlmorg 6y ago
I'm sorry to read that but just because that system sucked it doesn't mean the US system doesn't also suck. Other countries have better healthcare systems both in terms of cost and actual quality of service. America should be modelling themselves after the best in the world rather than comparing themselves against the worst and saying "at least we're not that bad"
Delk 6y ago
I'm sorry the quality was so poor in the country you were born in, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's (only) because the service was free (there could be other reasons), or that poor quality is a necessary consequence of healthcare being paid entirely or mostly with public funding. Public healthcare isn't entirely free where I live, but the fraction of the cost paid directly by the patient is small enough that it qualifies as mostly free to most people. Complaining about public healthcare almost seems like it's a national sport, and it's true that you can get shorter queues and faster response in non-emergency cases if you go private, but the quality of public healthcare as a whole still doesn't suck, and especially emergency care and treatment for serious conditions is still pretty good. Doctors get paid less than e.g. in the U.S., but they're still among the most well-paid professions. What I think leads to disaster is if funding to public healthcare is poor and the quality is low, which leads to people not appreciating the service and thus towards further devaluation of the public system, which becomes a vicious cycle. It may also make sense to not have healthcare entirely free so that people don't start going to see a doctor too easily for reasons not requiring a doctor, but I think a system where it's potentially way too expensive does at least as much damage. I don't claim to know what happened in your country of birth, but there could be factors other than just free healthcare.

tokai 6y ago

There is a middle ground between the two dysfunctional extremes that works well in a lot of countries.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
It's not a just matter of finding a 'golden mean' on the spectrum of nationalisation/privatisation, there's another dimension: competence of execution.

hnlmorg 6y ago

I'm sorry to read that but just because that system sucked it doesn't mean the US system doesn't also suck. Other countries have better healthcare systems both in terms of cost and actual quality of service. America should be modelling themselves after the best in the world rather than comparing themselves against the worst and saying "at least we're not that bad"

Delk 6y ago

I'm sorry the quality was so poor in the country you were born in, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's (only) because the service was free (there could be other reasons), or that poor quality is a necessary consequence of healthcare being paid entirely or mostly with public funding. Public healthcare isn't entirely free where I live, but the fraction of the cost paid directly by the patient is small enough that it qualifies as mostly free to most people. Complaining about public healthcare almost seems like it's a national sport, and it's true that you can get shorter queues and faster response in non-emergency cases if you go private, but the quality of public healthcare as a whole still doesn't suck, and especially emergency care and treatment for serious conditions is still pretty good. Doctors get paid less than e.g. in the U.S., but they're still among the most well-paid professions. What I think leads to disaster is if funding to public healthcare is poor and the quality is low, which leads to people not appreciating the service and thus towards further devaluation of the public system, which becomes a vicious cycle. It may also make sense to not have healthcare entirely free so that people don't start going to see a doctor too easily for reasons not requiring a doctor, but I think a system where it's potentially way too expensive does at least as much damage. I don't claim to know what happened in your country of birth, but there could be factors other than just free healthcare.