5 ms·
The US does not have socialised medicine.
by krageon 5y ago
The US does not have socialised medicine.
- rm_-rf_slash 5y agoI believe parent referred to Medicare as a subset in American health care that is socialized, to some degree.
- krageon 5y agoI guess I am mostly alone in thinking that for a system to be socialised, it has to apply to everyone or almost everyone in a country equally. From the comments and the voting, I understand that having it apply to "almost" half the population is already socialised to this time slot :)
- refurb 5y agoSo by your definition much of Europe (which has a robust private healthcare system) isn’t socialized?
- krageon 5y agoEurope isn't a country and doesn't have uniform policies in this way. It also doesn't have things as an entity (except for a selection of laws that it's members implement differently in most cases). Because of those facts, I have trouble even formulating a response to your question - it doesn't make sense to me.
- refurb 5y agoMuch of Europe has a mix of public and private healthcare, hence by your argument, none of those countries have socialized medicine.
- notch656a 5y agoWe do, just for certain groups, such as elderly and the poor. Hell like 40% of births here are paid for by medicaid. But we have system here where only up to upper middle class (~$142k) of income is paid to social security tax, so middle class pays for both poor and themselves, while poor pays for no one and rich disproportionately only pay for themselves.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoThere is no income limit on Medicare payroll taxes, just social security.
- notch656a 5y agoAgreed, although that doesn't negate the presence of socialized health care.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoYes, but at least there is more equity between poor and rich in this regard.
- notch656a 5y agoMore like equity between middle class and rich. The poor are getting free stuff at expense of both.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoThe rich have more because they have more money, giving poor people free stuff actually increases equity, it doesn’t decrease it. SS isn’t very equitable because of the income limits, payroll taxes in general are less equitable because they aren’t (very) progressive.
- notch656a 5y ago
- merpnderp 5y agoA large subset of the US does have socialized medicine. Medicare (65 million people), Medicaid (75 million people), and the military health system (10 million people). That’s nearly half the US population.
- burmanm 5y agoThat insurance isn't socialized medicine. In Europe for example, the hospital is owned by the government/state/etc, the doctors are hired directly by the hospital, the medicine costs are directly set by the state and so on. No private parties at all.
- triceratops 5y ago> In Europe for example, the hospital is owned by the government/state/etc, Europe is a big place with many different types of systems. What you're describing sounds like the UK. But places like NL[1] or DE[2] are more like Medicare/aid for all (basic coverage) + Obamacare (mandatory private insurance, sometimes supplementary). The providers may be private practitioners. NB: I'm not an expert in these systems so I may have gotten some details wrong. My main point is that "European healthcare" isn't a monolith and it's not all state-owned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany