According to magats the gates of hell will open and demons will spew forth.
I’d probably go to the doctor.
I’ve got a bowel obstruction 2 years ago and i had to pay 6k for my deductible and my insurance paid 12k. I got a tube down my nose, some xrays and stayed a night. I currently know its going to happen again any day now and it almost happend two nights ago and I was in horrendous pain. I could go to the doctor and they could probably help me and stop it from happening again. However, I dont have 6k to spare to find out. So until it is debilitating, we’ll just have to see what happens.
That sucks.
Ive got shitty US insurance. Had to have the ol’ gallbladder removed. Hospital charged $40k. After insurance, my bill was less than $3k. Lots of people would be financially ruined by that math. Im thankful I had the $3k to pay.
It’s hard out there, but at least we’re letting gun owners carry into Hawaiian grocery stores.
People would have more job mobility. You could quit (or get fired) and not have to worry about becoming bankrupt due to healthcare.
People that don’t have insurance will be able to seek aid. Less people will die of preventable illness. People can focus on getting better without the stress of “how will I pay for this? I’m ruined”
Insurance companies would find some way to have record profits. No one spends money more frivolously than the US federal government. Most likely the government would make deals with preexisting medical care providers instead of building out their own national healthcare.
Many companies would lose profit. Many greedy fucks would not be able to afford their third yaht and fifth house.
I think initially there’d be a huge spike of people going to the doctor for problems they’ve just been living with because they can’t get it looked at. The healthcare system would get hugely overwhelmed because I’m sure they wouldn’t prepare properly for this.
Long term, wait times would be months to years like in the UK. The system would likely never catch up. You’d probably end up due to the huge demand with a private expensive sector to “skip the queue”, and a public free sector if you’re willing to wait 2 years. Oh look, it’s turned into Australia’s system.
We don’t really need speculation at this point because we already know what the pros and cons are. There would be huge economic and health benefits from health problems being prevented rather than letting them get bad. But people would go to hospital for a common cold and scraped knee or drug seeking behaviour, wasting precious healthcare resources. The costs would be astronomical, subsidised by the private sector. Etc.
The reason why australia and the UK’s public health has gone too shit is due to decades long chronic underfunding. Universal Health Care and long wait times don’t have to go together
Of course, but if more socialist countries struggle to justify increasing the funding of the already massive cost of healthcare, I doubt that the states would manage a well funded one. In fact it may even be sabotaged. But theoretically if it had good funding then yes most of those problems go away.
They aren’t socialist and the govs that oversaw the decline were conservatives.
But yeah, I agree it would be one hell of a logistical and political undertaking. I suspect they could try state by state. That might make it more politically managable at least.
It’s been joked that Australia is half socialist, and I kind of agree with it. Never been to the UK so I can’t say much about that.
“Months to years” is the exception not the rule in the UK, you’ve been fed bullshit corpo propaganda. I’ve always been able to see a GP within a day, and when I needed some minor physiotherapy it was about two weeks.
The only person I know who’s had to wait more than a couple months was an elderly relative who wanted some quite complicated ankle surgery in order to be more active, and ended up going private - which is just as much an option here as it in the US, only considerably less extortionate since instead of being a cartel they’re competing with free.
I’ve never been to the UK, I’ve only heard it’s similar to the situation in AU second hand from people who have actually lived there.
For example when I needed to see a psychiatrist it took 18 months, a rheumatologist took 24 months, and general medicine physician took 20 months. My ex’s psychiatrist took 12 and psychologist took 6, only because it was a critical emergency. I’m glad you had a good experience though
More entrepreneurship. Plenty more people would work for themselves or start businesses if they didn’t have to worry about healthcare.
This. I’ve said for years, it’d be a Renaissance of entrepreneurship and craftsmanship.
I’ve known so many people over the years that would have been fine getting by selling things they’ve made, or fixing others things, if they didn’t need employer based Healthcare.
UBI would be good for this also.
Urinary Balls Infection?
I feel that would get you off the couch and doing stuff at least?
But no. Universal Basic Income. I think it would encourage people to experiment more with self-employment to supplement the modest income they get through UBI.
Global warming would probably be solved, because hell would also have frozen over.
“Big news tonight. Congress has officially passed the Healthcare for All Bill with unanimous support, also, the Cleveland Browns have won the Super Bowl!”
I don’t know why people think universal healthcare is the end all be all. There are also some really bad aspects to it, it isn’t all amazing. It also isn’t “free” in counties that have it, unless you’re unemployed.
I do think the US healthcare system does need to the majority checked though. Probably regulated pricing and such.
There are also some really bad aspects to it,
no. no there aren’t
propaganda got your brain
I can’t believe I’m reading this. Obviously universal healthcare is not without flaws, and there are many variations on the theme. Some work better than others.
But for a developed, “rich” country not to provide it to their citizens is a crime. Of course, the people most affected by the lack of healthcare are they working poor, while middle class people are generally insulated by employer-provided insurance, and the rich naturally have the best health care on the planet.
I think that this is another case of the majority of Americans not being able to conceive what life outside the greatest country in the worldTM is like. Ask anyone from another country if they would prefer us-style healthcare, and you will get a resounding “NO!”
Health care alone would be enough of a downgrade for Greenland never to want to be part of the US.
American here, can confirm. Drank the “greatest country” kool aid as a kid, then started to travel in young adulthood.
I’m still struggling with the fact that I feel least “at home” and most isolated in the place I call home. Every single place I’ve ever been outside the US (7 countries and counting, 4 in the EU) has seemed more welcoming, interconnected, simple to get around, and vibrant. Let alone a more reasonable cost of living and a much better safety net.
About half the US would declare civil war because they are so fucking stupid?
If healthcare were decoupled from employment, Americans could protest in much larger number and for a longer period of time.
A general strike would become viable.
and suddenly many people who have been wanting to start their own businesses, make that career move, or move to where the jobs are would finally feel secure enough to do so. I suspect this would boost the economy everywhere in ways it would be hard to predict.
Curling the monkey paw a little bit…
A single payer system will likely try to look for some efficiencies since they can track everyone. One thing I expect will happen is that care will shift regarding the homeless population.
A small minority of homeless often rely on hospitals as a shelter of last resort in cases of severe weather. There are also cases where homeless only interface with the emergency care system since it is the only care they can get.
I can easily see a government run system pushing these people into “more cost effective” options, including the immediate movement from emergency rooms into “specialty facilities” for “long term care”.
Things happening to you medically would stop defining your life. I called for a check on something, get a date in 2 days and be scheduled for a radiology, all 100% free.
In Canada it’s more like 30 days or more, and you could expect a US single.payer system to be less efficient since it hasn’t been refined for several decades
The US would be switching to an entirely different system, but wouldn’t be able to “refine” it? What a bunch of unprovable bullshit.
Also, if you think the US doesn’t already have waiting lists for specialists, then I honestly do not know what to tell you. Wait times are not a uniquely socialized medicine thing.
The US would be switching to an entirely different system, but wouldn’t be able to “refine” it? What a bunch of unprovable bullshit.
Not 10 minutes after they implement it, no. Canada has a mature system that’s been worked on for decades. Are you suggesting the US would be automatically better just because it’s the US? What are you, a MAGA?
Also, if you think the US doesn’t already have waiting lists for specialists
I’ve been to a variety of specialists, it’s never taken anywhere near a month. My understanding is that in Canada a month is the norm, sometimes longer.
Yep, I’ve seen 6+ month wait times in the US for some of the specialists my kids have needed. Some of those were fairly urgent issues
While I entirely agree with all the benefits posted under here, we’d also be subject to the tyranny of regressives. That face eating leopard would feast on those red state seniors focussed on cutting health insurance to “those” people.
Take education as an analogy. That’s mostly run by individual states, and there is a huge range of outcomes. Massachusetts is typically rated as or near the best education system but we pay for it. We recognize it as something valuable and as a good investment. Meanwhile many states/locales seem to see education as only a cost to be minimized. This is one of the reasons I live where I do. But if it were national, we’d lose that choice. One downside of universal healthcare would be that we’d no longer have the choice of investing in something better
I work in tech and have better health insurance than most. I want the same for everyone, not less for everyone, even when that comes with voting for higher taxes
Universal healthcare doesn’t mean you can’t pay for private healthcare. The UK has both. Jobs can often come with health insurance. It’s typically much cheaper as well because it doesn’t cover emergency services.
I would like to point out that the two need not be connected. We could unmarry healthcare and jobs by making it a law that you could cash out your healthcare coverage. This would open the market for more competitive nealthcare administrators as the people using the insurance would be the ones choosing. I think it would also increase the popularity of paying direct for the simpler stuff and only carrying insurance for the big stuff. This I think is an important step as it would realign what medical care actually costs when you take out all the middlemen taking their cut. And then, when you do move to universal healthcare, the prices would be more accurate. Otherwise we are going to end up with nationalize anthem or united healthcare for determining what medical care you get, which will be a nightmare.
Can you not? My ex has always opted out of health insurance because mine was much better. Now that she needs her own, she had to choose between getting it through her employer and getting it through the ACA marketplace
So my point was if they just go straight to universal, it will end up underpaying doctors, which will lead to further shortages of doctors. So by doing it in two steps, we can hopefull preserve the doctors we have, and maybe even make it a progession people want to be in again.
But why is your ex getting insurance through her employer now bad. Neither path is going to change the current system before that happens.
You said people should be allowed to cash out of their employer provided healthcare, but you can already opt out. My ex has a smallish employer with expensive plans, so even after the employer contribution, it wasn’t clearly better than marketplace plans. We already are at a place where you can choose the public option.
Or do you mean specifically bringing the employer contribution with you? That would destroy the marketplace for people who can’t bring their employer contribution. It’s also likely to result in employers very quickly giving up those benefits
There is also the HSA which arguably could be called a step in that direction. Employers providing much less of an insurance plan but in conjunction with savings that can be used for medical care. The problem with the current implementation is it doesn’t serve well the people who need it most. People with existing conditions can not afford them without savings and people with lower incomes can’t save.
But yeah, thinking about that more, that may be a path. Allow/define a bare bones high deductible insurance plan which can eventually become universal, then encourage employer HSA contributions, including with fairness tests. Now basic and catastrophic care is covered for everyone universally and the employer benefit is on top of
By cashout, I meant employers pay cash to people who choose not to have the insurance. It would require some rules that set mins, and for large companies say the value has to be based on the plans people who are using the insurance choose to avoid them creating a shit option just to cash out less.
HSA’s aren’t what they appear to be. They are actually retirment saving plan for those who can afford to fund them and not use them. They grow tax free, can be invested in the market, and you don’t pay any tax if you spend them on medical expenses years down the line. It is also designed to transfer cost from the employer to the employee. Some employers will put money in the hsa to soften the transfer, but many do not.
The only reason I suggest the middle step is to try and protect the numbers of medical professionals. If we just swap to universal, the gov will try to lowball everything. That will cause smart people to avoid the profession. And of course they will probably make striking illegal, so the balance of the union will be mostly gone.
I disagree with HSA being a retirement plan, but yes, they give the person more control, something for the long term. There are some tax advantages to building it as retirement savings that streamers like to focus on, but that really should be a second priority to covering a lifetime of healthcare
Last time looked closely, the tradeoff in my company was that for an identical cost for me, I could choose
- Traditional ppo with low copays and deductibles
- High deductible health plan (HDHP) plus HSA to fully cover the annual deductible
That made it very compelling: the coverage should almost always be equal for equal cost. But unusually we don’t need that much medical care so I’d have something left over to help pay for next year. If we were able to start with just a couple healthy years, it would really make a difference in health costs. If you started young, it’s true that you build up a lot of savings for retirement, but it would only take a few healthy years at any age to cover, say a major operation (always in conjunction with HDHP). Or I don’t know if you could use it for COBRA if between jobs, but if you had enough you could cover even uninsured healthcare. The trick of course is how do you keep making an optional contribution when money is tight?
Think of it this way. What is the difference between putting money in a savings accout vs an HSA.
First it is pretax money so you get some savings there. Second no tax on growth.I am sure you can guess which is a bigger financial gain overall.
But now think about this. You have a $1000 medical bill. Do you pay it from the hsa or you savings account. Well both are getting interest, but the HSA is probably getting a higher rate if invested in the stock market. And the HSA has tax free interest unlike the bank account. So the correct financial answer is to pay it from your savings account, and leave the money in the HSA for retirement. Thus it’s really a retirement plan. The key thing is that only people who have the extra money can afford to use it. So poorer people don’t get any benefit from it at all.
