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In Brazil, health is a constitutional right. Brazil has free, universal, and unlimited healthcare. Public hospitals in large cities are on the same level as pri
by maronato 2y ago
In Brazil, health is a constitutional right. Brazil has free, universal, and unlimited healthcare. Public hospitals in large cities are on the same level as private hospitals, and both are excellent.
If you want faster non-emergency care from a private hospital, you can purchase health insurance. Doctors don’t need approval from the insurance company to perform treatments or prescribe drugs. If the drug or treatment is listed on the insurance’s website as covered, it’ll be covered if prescribed by a doctor.
Since public hospitals offer almost all treatments and drugs for free, private hospitals and insurance companies are forced to offer lower prices and support more treatments to compete.
Non-essential surgeries like LASIK are very rarely supported by health insurance in the US, but are covered by most in Brazil.
Despite all of that, the average Brazilian only pays 27.5% in income taxes vs 37% in the US. The US government’s health expenditure per capita is $12k, versus $1.2k in Brazil.
It isn’t perfect, but people in Brazil don’t go bankrupt because of health problems. They don’t have to fight the insurance companies for coverage, they don’t die untreated of cancer, they aren’t afraid of calling an ambulance, and they pay less taxes for it.
- mgraczyk 2y agoThe therapy described in the article would not be allowed in Brazil https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/12/7/2672 https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/12/7/2672
- maronato 2y agoThat’s not what the article says. It says patients have access to the treatment for free, but sometimes delivery can be delayed by a few months due to shortages. The study only considered people without health insurance and says people with health insurance don’t face the same supply shortages. > Most patients (n = 172, 83.9%) reported at least one failed delivery of biological medicine in the last year, with a single shortage in forty-two patients (24.4%), at least two shortages in forty-seven patients (27.3%), and three or more shortages in seventy-eight patients (45.3%). The average time to regularize the distribution was up to 1 month in 44 cases (25.6%), up to 2 months in 64 cases (37.2%), and more than 3 months in 56 patients (32.6%)