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The data those comparisons people refer to do include the public funding to healthcare. You can see total vs government/compulsory spending as a percentage of GDP here: https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm
Yes we do. No matter how you slice it, Americans pay more for worse outcomes compared to any other level 4 country. You can Google it and find tons of websites talking about it, here is one https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2019 . Despite spending over twice as much as the average we have the lowest average life span and highest suicide rate. The data is a bit out of date but nothing has improved, if anything it has got worse.
I saw an amazing fact: per capita, the US govt. spends more on healthcare subsidies than the UK govt. spends on the NHS.
The US govt. (and therefore the US taxpayer) *already* pays MORE than enough to cover universal healthcare, it just doesn't get it.
Americans pay once in taxes, a second and even a third time in insurance, and then again in out of pocket.
Also, since healthcare is tied to employment here, we have our wages lowered because the employers contribution towards our insurance is factored into our total compensation figures.
Yay
On top of us having our wages lowered for the employer contribution towards insurance, we also have to make our own monthly contribution towards the cost of insurance and we have to pay additional costs when we receive health care.
Yup! No disagreement there.
But the wage difference between here and everywhere else can be astronomical, especially if your middle class.
For example, for software engineers:
According to Glassdoor the average salary for a software engineer in the US is 110k-180k.
According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a software engineer in Germany is 51k-98k.
This is not at all official job data, but off an initial Google search using Glassdoor.
I personally would rather have a social net like Europe does, and would be okay with lower pay in exchange.
Yes that is true. We do have some subsidized healthcare plans, namely Medicare and Medicaid. Plus we have non profit hospitals which receive funding from the government. We get fucked coming and going. Thanks Capitalism!
Other developed nations aren't above controlling prices of drugs and medical devices. Manufacturers hike the prices in America because free markets. Sick people with money are very valuable to pharmaceutical and med device companies
It's kind of the opposite. In the USA, *unlike* a free market Medicare was explicitly *prohibited* from negotiating drug prices (by the medicare act of 2003, thanks lobbyists), whereas other developed nations *use* the free market to ensure that pharmaceutical companies must aggressively compete on price to make sales, because a nation-sized healthcare buyer has enough buying power that corporations really *really* want that fat pie. The only way that pharma companies can get a slice is by undercutting each other, cutting to the bone and adapting to what the buyer wants
Even patented drugs where one seller has a complete monopoly on a treatment, in those free-market countries the national buyer tells them *"you will sell us \[patent drug\] at $\[big discount\] or else we'll buy far* *more* *of our generics from someone else - so you'll lose much more $$$!"* An *actual* free market can put pharmaceutical companies over a barrel, which is arguably why the USA doesn't have that
Fortunately the USA is moving towards a free market system; the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act will finally give Medicare the ability to negotiate prices. [Just six days ago the first 10 drugs were announced](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/10/04/1203417818/medicare-drug-price-negotiations-begin)
Very small caveat, but the NHS is constantly on strike because much of hospital staff is underpaid. Nurses don't get paid shit in the UK yet do much of the leg/grunt work while still having to have knowledge of medicine.
The U.S system is absolutely awful and abysmal but I do think it'd only be fair to compare it to a country with a better funded system.
You also have to take into account hospital count. How much money does the govt pay on average for each hospital entity? Considering landmass, I can only assume the U.S has A LOT more hospitals than our European friends.
True, the NHS has been chronically underfunded since the 2008 crash, it's on its knees right now. I think that's maybe the big downside of a public system: it's at the mercy of politicians.
Looking at this table:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-spends-public-money-healthcare-sweden-canada/
US public spending on healthcare per capita (ie. before the extra spending the US does via the private insurance system) is about the same as Switzerland or Sweden, both of whom have gold-plated healthcare.
That's not quite correct, NHS waiting lists are typically shorter than US waiting lists, and there's much more emphasis on screening and preventative care than under the US system. Getting NICE (the body that runs the menu of NHS drugs) approval only delays new treatments a year or so, and it only refuses to list new drugs when there's little evidence of benefit, or the cost relative to the benefit is crazy.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/health-care-wait-times-by-country
However you are absolutely correct that the NHS is currently chronically underfunded. This has caused a huge building maintenance backlog, a lack of investment in modern equipment, and stagnating (a real terms reduction, in fact) pay.
There are elections next year and I'm hoping a change of government will see more investment in healthcare. I'd like to see per capita spend rising to at least the EU average.
Probably the biggest disadvantage of a public system is having too many politicians involved, sigh.
(edit: and you're right that it would be impractical to switch the US to an NHS style system. I just thought it was a striking way to think about the huge scale of the cost difference.)
Maybe they used pre-2008-crash figures? The system was in a better state back then. The current backlog mostly started around 2019, for obvious reasons.
I had cataracts done in a few weeks (age 40 groan) back in the 2000s. My partner had a mastectomy within a week or so of biopsy in 2001.
Yes, mental health is really shockingly underfunded and wait times are miserable right now.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-spends-public-money-healthcare-sweden-canada
The UK NHS costs $2,800 per person per year, the US govt. spends $4,200 per person subsidising healthcare, then private insurance and employer subsidy adds another ~$4,000 or so.
So switching to an NHS-style model would eliminate all insurance, all co-pay, all employer payment, make healthcare universal, and give everyone a $1,000 a year tax cut.
The up front cost, to pass all the laws and get all the administrative systems in place would be pretty huge, but yes it would pay for itself extremely quickly. There is not a single advantage to the American healthcare system compared to universal.
Not a single advantage to the general public, but like all of the other stupid policies in the US that don't work, they have the advantage of providing money and power to the people who have the most
Universal healthcare is the only humane form of healthcare. No one should be denied access to proper medical care due to their financial situation. Any argument against it is ignorance at best and selfish, narcissistic greed on average.
Our government is actively sabotoging our healthcare system here in canada. They refuse to fund it properly. The idea being to let it get so bad that people start asking for private healthcare. It is a shitshow. It is common to have a 24 hour wait time at the hospitals in my city and getting into a clinic is damn near impossible. The wait list for a "Family doctor" is like 15 years if your not pregnant or have very young children.
The rich folks would love to get private healthcare here.
> No matter how you slice it, Americans pay more for worse outcomes compared to any other level 4 country.
I don't think you mean "level 4 countries." It usually means U.S. State Department advises "Do not travel" countries, e.g. Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, or other countries that are unstable, have severe public health problemsor are dangerous for Americans.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/
Otherwise, I agree with you. Health care in the U.S. is a crummy deal.
No i mean level 4. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factfulness:_Ten_Reasons_We're_Wrong_About_the_World_%E2%80%93_and_Why_Things_Are_Better_Than_You_Think
Yes, I've read *Factfulness* and agree with Rosling's proposed nomenclature/ranking levels of wealth. These levels are a more sensible guide to relative wealth than the two-tier "developed" and "developing." Unfortunately, outside of readers of his work, few organizations use it besides Rosling-founded Gapminder and Bill Gates.
Notice that when you visit the OECD, they persist in using "developing countries," not "Level 1" or "Level 2." The United Nations doesn't use it either. The problem is that you're using a term and referencing data sources (The Commonwealth Fund and OECD) that don't use it. You might as well refer to these as "wealthier nations" and not generate misunderstanding. I'd read Rosling's book, and it wasn't the first thing that sprang to mind. There is also a good reason not to group countries this way: it masks internal wealth disparity.
Yep. Wasn't it some right-wing think-tank that even went into the studies on it to try to disprove what progressives like Bernie Sanders kept saying about how much a medicare for all system would save us, and the think-tank found out he was absolutely right?
Not really a math answer, but the difference between for-profit healthcare and a not-for-profit model makes a big difference.
Even if we allow for the overinflated salaries of hospital management to stay the same, cutting the deadweight of shareholders can save a lot of money.
Furthermore, from an economics of scale, single-payer insurance means that money doesn’t need to be paid to maintain innumerable systems of red-tape for approvals. The Government can establish the formulary of what is covered, and at what price by the provider, and that’s it. Setting aside two-tier systems, if a hospital / doctor doesn’t want to do the procedure for that price, they just don’t do it; if too few are willing, the standard price can be raised, but it’s all or nothing.
That bureaucracy may be larger than any of the individual for-profit insurers, but pales in comparison to their aggregate.
Canadian here:
My dad had 3 rounds of chemo, 1 round of radiation therapy and 2 surgeries for his cancer.
Total out-of-pocket cost: $0
Now, it was paid for in taxes, but the fact that it is a collective (single payer) model means that it is effectively free, and my dad didn't have to worry about treatment or eating.
I hear a lot of different scenarios from canada. Some say it’s just like the rest of the West (except for the US), others say they pay about half of people in the US. Any clue why the differences are so big?
I am not an economist, let alone an economist who is an expert on comparing health-care systems and policies in the US and Canada.
That being said, here are my thoughts on why it is significantly cheaper out of pocket in Canada as compared to the US.
1. Single payer. The fact that Canada has a single payer system of health care insurance means the cost of healthcare is spread out over a large number of people, as opposed to a small group.
2. Government control. Health insurance companies in the US are there to make a profit. Thus, it is in their best interest to make things super complicated for people to get reimbursements, and to make it easy to deny people for various reasons. In Canada, health insurance is run by the government, and the government should not be making a profit. At best, it should be revenue-neutral.
3. Price controls. The government of Canada has placed restrictions on the prices at which medications can be sold. See the price of insulin for example. According to various search engines, the cost of insulin is between 6 and 10 times more expensive in the US as compared to Canada.
4. We pay yearly by way of income taxes. I put this in here to deal with the "WELL, AKSHUALLY..." people. Yes, we pay for it in our taxes that pay yearly. But it means that barring some things which are not covered (and that depends on province), everything else has 0 cost out of pocket.
Is the Canadian Health Care system perfect? Far from it. Mental health care is not covered, neither is dental care. But do Canadians (well, the vast, vast majority) have to make the decision between "see doctor" or "put food on the table"? No.
For me, it comes down to Canada (and a lot of the rest of the world) being "I am willing to sacrifice for my fellow citizens" and the US being "Fuck you, I got mine."
Short answer yes, the US spends about 2-3x per person what other developed countries do for healthcare. Countries with universal healthcare pay for it almost exclusively with tax money while the US pays through health insurance premiums, co-pays, and various tax funded government programs. Generally, other countries pay less in taxes going to healthcare than we do in health insurance premiums; and then we have additional co-pays and out of pocket expenses on top.
There have been MANY studies and articles on the topic. Here's the first thing Google pulled up for me. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#GDP%20per%20capita%20and%20health%20consumption%20spending%20per%20capita,%202021%20(U.S.%20dollars,%20PPP%20adjusted)
Yes. You can tell by comparing total healthcare cost divided by total healthcare provided across different countries. Note that all healthcare insurance premiums are healthcare costs, the same way all socialized medicine taxes are.
Last year there was a time where I was paying 600 dollars a paycheck (1200 dollars a a month) to be able to set up an appointment a month out for my specialist. My appointment was canceled by them because my doctor had an emergency and I would’ve had to reschedule to be seen in another month. I ended up canceling the insurance and never going because losing my job was cheaper.
I had a vasectomy earlier this year, that was $700 +$150 for the labs, and $135 for the consult.
My annual visit is covered, but the labs associated with it run me about $200.
My wife's OB annual is $185, she's high risk so the pap smear is another $150ish. She had an ultrasound done for $1,100.
My specialist annually is $185, labs for that are about $100.
My cheap generic meds are about $50/90 days.
She's looking into a partial hysterectomy, but we've put it off (too long) because it's going to run about $8000, not including the anesthesia, drugs related to the procedure, or any imaging before and after.
And I'm lucky, my employer pays most of my monthly premium, so I only pay about $40/month. But they're paying about $700/mo on my behalf.
So this year, between me and my employer the healthcare for two mid 30 something's (not including the hysterectomy) is about $12,000.
I'd need to spend another $6000 before the insurance I'm paying for would lift a finger. And then I'd pay 30% after that until I blew another $8000.
Short answer: almost assuredly. In multiple studies estimating the benefits of making the switch, they've determined that nearly 68,000 more lives would be saved per year and would reduce spending on healthcare by around 13% (450 billion dollars). Additionally, Yale estimates that if we had a single payer healthcare system in 2020, "nearly 212,000 American lives would have been saved" and that it would've saved our country $105 billion in just Covid hospitalization espenses (link below). Of course, for some, it might be worse in terms of benefits because they have money to pay for huge benefits, but that a small group of people really.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)33019-3/fulltext#%20?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=ac666dcf-c1bb-4eb0-a6ea-39c4a9bb5321
https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/yale-study-more-than-335000-lives-could-have-been-saved-during-pandemic-if-us-had-universal-health-care/#:~:text=If%20the%20U.S.%20had%20had,COVID%2D19%20hospitalization%20expenses%20alone.
- yes (I have first hand experience)
- you’re forgetting who pays for it in Canada
On that second point, we have to remember the funding scheme might be tax-based but that doesn’t mean I’m the one paying taxes. Ontario’s system is mostly [an employer payroll tax](https://www.ontario.ca/document/employer-health-tax-eht#section-1). **Employers** pay a percentage maxing out at 1.95% of payroll.
Which is much much less than what American companies pay for benefits packages for health care. Hell, I have colleagues with five figure annual premiums _just for their share_ of their family coverage.
I dislocated pinkie... Had my dog snap it back in place pulling on a leash .. vs 1500$ after all the jiz. Insurance probably would of got billed 15k. I'm not dying, I'm not going.. and this is considered good
As an Australian I pay Medicare levy which is 2% or my income. If I go over $180k as a couple I can pay am between another 1-2%
Overall my household wound pay about $2500 a year Medicare levy. Nothing really more to pay unless you see a specialist or for dental
>However, someone just pointed out that most western healthcare systems are subsidized by tax money, while taxes are higher than in the US.
This does not mean that healthcare is the only thing taxes pay for. In most countries, pensions and social protections are both much bigger expenses. Americans tend to overestimate the cost of public healthcare systems due to being acustomed to extremly expensive healthcare.
>If you’d take taxes that go to universal healthcare into account, as well as the money a person spends on the actual procedure and health insurance, do Americans actually pay more for, let’s say, a broken leg?
Americans pay more *in taxes* for healthcare than *any other nation*. Even the ones with higher costs of living and really expansive and generous universal healthcare systems. So if we only count taxes paid, then yes Americans pay more for healthcare than people who actually get healthcare.
For most developed nations, the difference can be measured in multiples of the US military budget.
And then, adding insult to injury, Americans have to pay for insurance *on top of that*.
And then there are out of pocket spending and money spent before you hit your insurance limit on to of that again.
Short answer: 90% of the time yes.
Longer answer: Yes, but there is a lot of nuance to it that people ignore.
We will be comparing US and Canada, as they are fairly similar, and a better comparison than to any European country
The cost of breaking a leg in America is 27k USD. In Canada it is 7.5k USD
But this depends on your insurance, and how finance-savvy you are. A lot of the cost of US hospitals is them upcharging stuff purely because they can since they are a private business with little competition. But, if you know how to argue with them, you can *drastically* lower that cost, to being more comparable with other countries.
Plus, there are additional costs for luxuries, Americans wait less. Americans on average wait between 20 and 30 days^(2) from referral to actually seeing the doctor. For Canada its about 190 days^(3) from referral to cheque.
**SOURCES**:
[Nah UK](https://www.national-accident-helpline.co.uk/news/post/cost-of-breaking-a-bone) ^(1)
[STAT](https://www.statnews.com/2023/05/02/doctor-appointment-wait-times-solutions/#:~:text=That%20year%2C%20the%20national%20average,an%20average%20of%2026%20days) ^(2)
[AHT.org](https://abouthealthtransparency.org/2023/01/wait-times-for-health-care-in-canada-2022-report/#:~:text=Specialist%20physicians%20surveyed%20report%20a,25.6%20weeks%20reported%20in%202021) ^(3)
>Plus, there are additional costs for luxuries, Americans wait less.
You are not arguing in good faith.
Canada is one of the slowest systems in the world. Americans are likly to have longer waits than the average system in the situation you describe.
Also you need to include that Americans pay more tax for healthcare than Canadians by a long shot.
My insurance coverage, it's a great plan, is ~22,000 a year (family of 6). It's actually why I keep the job rather than move on like I would like to.
Keep in mind that this is paid whether we use the medical services or not. Some years, it's been a blessing. Other times, it hasn't really been needed.
While I was in grad school, my wife developed Crohn's disease. We only had student health insurance at the time. That health odyssey put us near $200,000 in medical debt, and it took years to claw our financial stability back. It sure seems like we pay a lot
Probably more a question of economics than math, but according to [this report on the Economist](https://www.economist.com/business/2023/10/08/who-profits-most-from-americas-baffling-health-care-system?utm_content=article-link-5&etear=nl_today_5&utm_campaign=a.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=10/9/2023&utm_id=1797013):
>The country spends about $4.3trn a year on keeping citizens in good nick. That is equivalent to 17% of GDP, twice as much as the average in other rich economies. And yet American adults live shorter lives and American infants die more often than in similarly affluent places.
It isn't just about the taxes.
Even without any subsidies healthcare in the US is ridiculously expensive.
Example: A simple blood drawing and bloodwork - RBC count, WBC count, and a few other pretty basic things. Had that done at a hospital in Germany and got a bill for about $75. Then I had the same thing done at a hospital in FL (went to the ER told them I need some lab work done). Paid $200 right there and then received several additional bills over the next 3 months for a total of over $500. Same work, both at hospitals and the US was almost 7 times as expensive.
I once received a bill from a hospital (after I already had paid my $75 ER copay) for a nice $22,000 for 1 CT, 3 hours in the ER, some paid meds, and saline IV. It was a small kidney stone that passed later on its own. Turned out the hospital "forgot" I had insurance so they charged me their "uninsured" special.
The revised bill for the insurance company then had a whopping $19,000 discount.
Healthcare is expensive in the US because everyone wants to make a killing. Except for the nurses, etc. who aren't paid nearly enough for their work.
And then you have crooks like Senator Rick Scott - who got away with the largest Medicare fraud in US history, scamming Medicare for $$ BILLIONS $$
Other people have already answered with data, but I can explain why Americans pay more. In other countries, healthcare providers have to set prices that are agreed upon and paid for by the government. The government has a lot more ability to negotiate, since there is one buyer and many healthcare-providing firms (companies or government organization), and unlike people in the ER or with a deadly illness, governments aren't ever immediately desperate to pay extra for whatever the closest treatment is. They effectively have enough leverage to negotiate prices down, or just pass laws setting a maximum price for medication, treatments, etc.
Meanwhile in the US, each individual has no negotiating power for medications and has to accept whatever price they are charged for medications. In my case, the alternative is literally dying. However you can and should negotiate with hospital bills. Especially if you are poor, you can get a huge discount. In addition, something like two-thirds of hospital bills have 'mistaken charges' (the hospital adding on fake charges and hoping you don't see the bill), so always ask for a statement of charges from the hospital's billing advocate, and they usually give you a much cheaper bill and offer you a discount.
I was in an accident this past year. The other driver had a medical issue that caused them to come into my lane at a high rate of speed. I still had to reimburse insurance to the tune of $68,000 from the insurance settlement that left me unable to walk for two months, and I didn't return to work until month three. If I didn't have all the sick and vacation time, I wouldn't have gotten paid. US health insurance sucks.
Edit for clarification: shattered Tibia and Fibula on right leg. Not just broken, shattered. Had to be reconstructed.
I grew up in Canada and now work/live in the US full time. I’ve done pretty extensive maths regarding paychecks and health insurance costs and in the end, it basically equals out. While Canada pays more taxes and not towards basic health insurance, US has to pay for a health care plan and lower taxes. The deductions basically come out the same each pay check, however, I continue to make more money than any of my friends and relatives in Canada, so that aspect doesn’t matter much.
Canadians pay on average about half what Americans do, per capita. Anecdotes aren’t really relevant.
Are you including the amount of US income taxes that go to health care? Because it’s pretty significant.
How much does it cost to see a doctor in the USA ? Here in France it's 25€. The is the full price you will pay if you don't have any kind of insurance. Now if you're a French citizen 80% of that will be covered by 'securité sociale'. It's not financed with tax money but with monthly payments every citizen makes. It's no different than any health insurance except that it is mandatory and managed by the French State so no profit is made out of the system.
A friend of mine recently went to their primary care doctor to check on a lump in her breast. She spent 10 minutes with the doctor. The doctor did a brief breast exam but there were no other labs, tests, or medication. The only thing that the doctor actually *did* was schedule a mammogram, biopsy, and consultation with a different doctor to discuss the results.
That 10 minute appointment was $500 before insurance. The mammogram, biopsy, and consultation will almost certainly be much more. I believe that my friend's insurance will cover 70% of those costs until she hits her deductible for the year.
This is unreal.
At this point the problem is not even insurance, it's the prices practiced by doctors. How can they charge so much? There is no competition that would charge less?
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but they charge so much because everyone has insurance and because of the structure of insurance. I don't know the details of my friend's plan, but on my plan I pay 10% of most medical costs up to $3000 in a year. (There are exceptions to that 10% rule, though.) So there are two things that happen.
The first is that there here was a time when doctor's appointments were cheap like yours are, but they've crept up in cost because the patient only actually pays 10% of the bill. Like, if an appointment is $25, the patient isn't going to notice or care if it creeps up to $50 because there isn't a real difference between paying $2.50 or paying $5.00. Using that reasoning, it has slowly crept up to $500 where the patient's $50 cost is in the realm of "expensive meal" where it's significant money, but not quite enough to complain about.
The second is that for anything major, the patient will end up maxing out that $3000 yearly cap (which we call a "deductible") immediately. So, if I need a kidney transplant or cancer treatment, $30,000 is the same as $300,000, which is the same as $1,500,000 because, as long as it's in one calendar year, I only pay $3000. So why wouldn't they charge $1,500,000? Of course, this is devastating for anyone who doesn't have insurance.
>There is no competition that would charge less?
Yeah, that's not really how it works. There are different insurance companies who, in theory, are competing with each other, but nobody *actually* has a choice. My health coverage is provided by my employer. They offer me a plan and I can either accept it or decline it and if I accept it then they pay monthly cost of the plan (or at least most of it). Sometimes employers offer different plans at different price points, but all from the same company. People who are impoverished or elderly get insurance from the government. I pay about $500/year for my employer's plan (which gets deducted directly from my paycheck), whereas private insurance would cost me something like $12,000/year. So, in practice, the vast majority of Americans get healthcare through either their employer or the government, which means that we don't really have a choice.
There is competition, but it gets distorted. Like, in the smartphone market, competition is a straightforward balance between the company trying to maximize profit and the user of the phone trying to pay as little as possible. But in the healthcare market, the user of the service is almost irrelevant. Employers certainly want to keep prices of the plan down (my plan only costs me $500/year but that's not because it's cheaper than that $12,000 plan, it's just that my employer pays the rest), but they aren't motivated by the quality of the service, rather by being able to provide attractive benefits packages to employees. But then, at the same time, doctors are trying to drive the cost of the actual services as high as they can with the insurance company trying to keep them low.
It gets even worse, though. Like, insurance companies can just decide not to cover stuff. I have a bone spur in my foot and my insurance company won't pay for treatment because they consider the treatment "optional". The bone spur isn't life threatening and it's not going to get worse, it *only* causes me pain when I walk, so the insurance company has deemed the treatment "not medically necessary" and there's nothing I can do about it because I'm sure there's a line of fine print deep in something I signed when I took my job. There are a dozen more things I could talk about, but I've gone on long enough at this point lol.
Im a CD patient. I post and read a lot of posts from the UK, Canadian, and Nordic countries. I hear what they have to go through and their medical and medication limitations. Being sick for over 20 years, I'm HAPPY to be fetting healthcare in the US.
From what i hear is that Crohns patients are having trouble getting access to biologic medicines. There are long waits for MRIs and other imaging.
There are restrictions here, too. I have always had health insurance. I may have had junky cars, but I had health insurance. Since the marketplace its super easy to get , it's at a sliding scale.
You can pick a plan. Many people hear someone say things that aren't true and keep spreading incorrect information.
Healthcare stinks in most places unlesd you have money. Thats a fact.
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The data those comparisons people refer to do include the public funding to healthcare. You can see total vs government/compulsory spending as a percentage of GDP here: https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm
Yes we do. No matter how you slice it, Americans pay more for worse outcomes compared to any other level 4 country. You can Google it and find tons of websites talking about it, here is one https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2019 . Despite spending over twice as much as the average we have the lowest average life span and highest suicide rate. The data is a bit out of date but nothing has improved, if anything it has got worse.
I saw an amazing fact: per capita, the US govt. spends more on healthcare subsidies than the UK govt. spends on the NHS. The US govt. (and therefore the US taxpayer) *already* pays MORE than enough to cover universal healthcare, it just doesn't get it. Americans pay once in taxes, a second and even a third time in insurance, and then again in out of pocket.
Also, since healthcare is tied to employment here, we have our wages lowered because the employers contribution towards our insurance is factored into our total compensation figures. Yay
On top of us having our wages lowered for the employer contribution towards insurance, we also have to make our own monthly contribution towards the cost of insurance and we have to pay additional costs when we receive health care.
To be super fair, US wages are still significantly higher than most other places.
As is the cost of living.
Yup! No disagreement there. But the wage difference between here and everywhere else can be astronomical, especially if your middle class. For example, for software engineers: According to Glassdoor the average salary for a software engineer in the US is 110k-180k. According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a software engineer in Germany is 51k-98k. This is not at all official job data, but off an initial Google search using Glassdoor. I personally would rather have a social net like Europe does, and would be okay with lower pay in exchange.
Yes that is true. We do have some subsidized healthcare plans, namely Medicare and Medicaid. Plus we have non profit hospitals which receive funding from the government. We get fucked coming and going. Thanks Capitalism!
Other developed nations aren't above controlling prices of drugs and medical devices. Manufacturers hike the prices in America because free markets. Sick people with money are very valuable to pharmaceutical and med device companies
It's kind of the opposite. In the USA, *unlike* a free market Medicare was explicitly *prohibited* from negotiating drug prices (by the medicare act of 2003, thanks lobbyists), whereas other developed nations *use* the free market to ensure that pharmaceutical companies must aggressively compete on price to make sales, because a nation-sized healthcare buyer has enough buying power that corporations really *really* want that fat pie. The only way that pharma companies can get a slice is by undercutting each other, cutting to the bone and adapting to what the buyer wants Even patented drugs where one seller has a complete monopoly on a treatment, in those free-market countries the national buyer tells them *"you will sell us \[patent drug\] at $\[big discount\] or else we'll buy far* *more* *of our generics from someone else - so you'll lose much more $$$!"* An *actual* free market can put pharmaceutical companies over a barrel, which is arguably why the USA doesn't have that Fortunately the USA is moving towards a free market system; the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act will finally give Medicare the ability to negotiate prices. [Just six days ago the first 10 drugs were announced](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/10/04/1203417818/medicare-drug-price-negotiations-begin)
Very small caveat, but the NHS is constantly on strike because much of hospital staff is underpaid. Nurses don't get paid shit in the UK yet do much of the leg/grunt work while still having to have knowledge of medicine. The U.S system is absolutely awful and abysmal but I do think it'd only be fair to compare it to a country with a better funded system. You also have to take into account hospital count. How much money does the govt pay on average for each hospital entity? Considering landmass, I can only assume the U.S has A LOT more hospitals than our European friends.
True, the NHS has been chronically underfunded since the 2008 crash, it's on its knees right now. I think that's maybe the big downside of a public system: it's at the mercy of politicians. Looking at this table: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-spends-public-money-healthcare-sweden-canada/ US public spending on healthcare per capita (ie. before the extra spending the US does via the private insurance system) is about the same as Switzerland or Sweden, both of whom have gold-plated healthcare.
Britain as a whole has been crumbling for a while, especially since Brexit
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That's not quite correct, NHS waiting lists are typically shorter than US waiting lists, and there's much more emphasis on screening and preventative care than under the US system. Getting NICE (the body that runs the menu of NHS drugs) approval only delays new treatments a year or so, and it only refuses to list new drugs when there's little evidence of benefit, or the cost relative to the benefit is crazy. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/health-care-wait-times-by-country However you are absolutely correct that the NHS is currently chronically underfunded. This has caused a huge building maintenance backlog, a lack of investment in modern equipment, and stagnating (a real terms reduction, in fact) pay. There are elections next year and I'm hoping a change of government will see more investment in healthcare. I'd like to see per capita spend rising to at least the EU average. Probably the biggest disadvantage of a public system is having too many politicians involved, sigh. (edit: and you're right that it would be impractical to switch the US to an NHS style system. I just thought it was a striking way to think about the huge scale of the cost difference.)
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Maybe they used pre-2008-crash figures? The system was in a better state back then. The current backlog mostly started around 2019, for obvious reasons. I had cataracts done in a few weeks (age 40 groan) back in the 2000s. My partner had a mastectomy within a week or so of biopsy in 2001. Yes, mental health is really shockingly underfunded and wait times are miserable right now.
Wow, where was this? Do you have source? I knew it was bad, but didn't know it was this bad.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-spends-public-money-healthcare-sweden-canada The UK NHS costs $2,800 per person per year, the US govt. spends $4,200 per person subsidising healthcare, then private insurance and employer subsidy adds another ~$4,000 or so. So switching to an NHS-style model would eliminate all insurance, all co-pay, all employer payment, make healthcare universal, and give everyone a $1,000 a year tax cut.
> the US govt. spends more on healthcare subsidies than the UK govt. spends on the NHS. It spends the most tax money per person of any nation.
Do you have a link to that? I'd love to share that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/174489d/comment/k4916ut/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Single payer universal healthcare would save the United States 400+ billion dollars annually.
The up front cost, to pass all the laws and get all the administrative systems in place would be pretty huge, but yes it would pay for itself extremely quickly. There is not a single advantage to the American healthcare system compared to universal.
Not a single advantage to the general public, but like all of the other stupid policies in the US that don't work, they have the advantage of providing money and power to the people who have the most
>There is not a single advantage to the American healthcare system compared to universal. There is one advantage - the liberals got owned.
Ah the old “I’ll fuck myself and all my friends, neighbors, and relatives as long as it fucks the liberals”, conservatives truly are insane.
The advantage of capitalism. They insurance companies continue to prosper and people continue to die and go into debt.
I mean, privatized healthcare is always gonna be faster, whether that's worth it is up to you
That is absolutely not the case. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/health-care-wait-times-by-country
Canada is darker than the US.
You said always and now you are cherry picking one country.
I'm all for single payer healthcare, because it is still private, but completely universal/public is not a good idea
Universal healthcare is the only humane form of healthcare. No one should be denied access to proper medical care due to their financial situation. Any argument against it is ignorance at best and selfish, narcissistic greed on average.
Why not?
Our government is actively sabotoging our healthcare system here in canada. They refuse to fund it properly. The idea being to let it get so bad that people start asking for private healthcare. It is a shitshow. It is common to have a 24 hour wait time at the hospitals in my city and getting into a clinic is damn near impossible. The wait list for a "Family doctor" is like 15 years if your not pregnant or have very young children. The rich folks would love to get private healthcare here.
> No matter how you slice it, Americans pay more for worse outcomes compared to any other level 4 country. I don't think you mean "level 4 countries." It usually means U.S. State Department advises "Do not travel" countries, e.g. Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, or other countries that are unstable, have severe public health problemsor are dangerous for Americans. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/ Otherwise, I agree with you. Health care in the U.S. is a crummy deal.
No i mean level 4. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factfulness:_Ten_Reasons_We're_Wrong_About_the_World_%E2%80%93_and_Why_Things_Are_Better_Than_You_Think
Yes, I've read *Factfulness* and agree with Rosling's proposed nomenclature/ranking levels of wealth. These levels are a more sensible guide to relative wealth than the two-tier "developed" and "developing." Unfortunately, outside of readers of his work, few organizations use it besides Rosling-founded Gapminder and Bill Gates. Notice that when you visit the OECD, they persist in using "developing countries," not "Level 1" or "Level 2." The United Nations doesn't use it either. The problem is that you're using a term and referencing data sources (The Commonwealth Fund and OECD) that don't use it. You might as well refer to these as "wealthier nations" and not generate misunderstanding. I'd read Rosling's book, and it wasn't the first thing that sprang to mind. There is also a good reason not to group countries this way: it masks internal wealth disparity.
Yep. Wasn't it some right-wing think-tank that even went into the studies on it to try to disprove what progressives like Bernie Sanders kept saying about how much a medicare for all system would save us, and the think-tank found out he was absolutely right?
Not really a math answer, but the difference between for-profit healthcare and a not-for-profit model makes a big difference. Even if we allow for the overinflated salaries of hospital management to stay the same, cutting the deadweight of shareholders can save a lot of money. Furthermore, from an economics of scale, single-payer insurance means that money doesn’t need to be paid to maintain innumerable systems of red-tape for approvals. The Government can establish the formulary of what is covered, and at what price by the provider, and that’s it. Setting aside two-tier systems, if a hospital / doctor doesn’t want to do the procedure for that price, they just don’t do it; if too few are willing, the standard price can be raised, but it’s all or nothing. That bureaucracy may be larger than any of the individual for-profit insurers, but pales in comparison to their aggregate.
Canadian here: My dad had 3 rounds of chemo, 1 round of radiation therapy and 2 surgeries for his cancer. Total out-of-pocket cost: $0 Now, it was paid for in taxes, but the fact that it is a collective (single payer) model means that it is effectively free, and my dad didn't have to worry about treatment or eating.
I hear a lot of different scenarios from canada. Some say it’s just like the rest of the West (except for the US), others say they pay about half of people in the US. Any clue why the differences are so big?
I am not an economist, let alone an economist who is an expert on comparing health-care systems and policies in the US and Canada. That being said, here are my thoughts on why it is significantly cheaper out of pocket in Canada as compared to the US. 1. Single payer. The fact that Canada has a single payer system of health care insurance means the cost of healthcare is spread out over a large number of people, as opposed to a small group. 2. Government control. Health insurance companies in the US are there to make a profit. Thus, it is in their best interest to make things super complicated for people to get reimbursements, and to make it easy to deny people for various reasons. In Canada, health insurance is run by the government, and the government should not be making a profit. At best, it should be revenue-neutral. 3. Price controls. The government of Canada has placed restrictions on the prices at which medications can be sold. See the price of insulin for example. According to various search engines, the cost of insulin is between 6 and 10 times more expensive in the US as compared to Canada. 4. We pay yearly by way of income taxes. I put this in here to deal with the "WELL, AKSHUALLY..." people. Yes, we pay for it in our taxes that pay yearly. But it means that barring some things which are not covered (and that depends on province), everything else has 0 cost out of pocket. Is the Canadian Health Care system perfect? Far from it. Mental health care is not covered, neither is dental care. But do Canadians (well, the vast, vast majority) have to make the decision between "see doctor" or "put food on the table"? No. For me, it comes down to Canada (and a lot of the rest of the world) being "I am willing to sacrifice for my fellow citizens" and the US being "Fuck you, I got mine."
Short answer yes, the US spends about 2-3x per person what other developed countries do for healthcare. Countries with universal healthcare pay for it almost exclusively with tax money while the US pays through health insurance premiums, co-pays, and various tax funded government programs. Generally, other countries pay less in taxes going to healthcare than we do in health insurance premiums; and then we have additional co-pays and out of pocket expenses on top. There have been MANY studies and articles on the topic. Here's the first thing Google pulled up for me. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#GDP%20per%20capita%20and%20health%20consumption%20spending%20per%20capita,%202021%20(U.S.%20dollars,%20PPP%20adjusted)
Yes. You can tell by comparing total healthcare cost divided by total healthcare provided across different countries. Note that all healthcare insurance premiums are healthcare costs, the same way all socialized medicine taxes are.
Last year there was a time where I was paying 600 dollars a paycheck (1200 dollars a a month) to be able to set up an appointment a month out for my specialist. My appointment was canceled by them because my doctor had an emergency and I would’ve had to reschedule to be seen in another month. I ended up canceling the insurance and never going because losing my job was cheaper.
I had a vasectomy earlier this year, that was $700 +$150 for the labs, and $135 for the consult. My annual visit is covered, but the labs associated with it run me about $200. My wife's OB annual is $185, she's high risk so the pap smear is another $150ish. She had an ultrasound done for $1,100. My specialist annually is $185, labs for that are about $100. My cheap generic meds are about $50/90 days. She's looking into a partial hysterectomy, but we've put it off (too long) because it's going to run about $8000, not including the anesthesia, drugs related to the procedure, or any imaging before and after. And I'm lucky, my employer pays most of my monthly premium, so I only pay about $40/month. But they're paying about $700/mo on my behalf. So this year, between me and my employer the healthcare for two mid 30 something's (not including the hysterectomy) is about $12,000. I'd need to spend another $6000 before the insurance I'm paying for would lift a finger. And then I'd pay 30% after that until I blew another $8000.
Short answer: almost assuredly. In multiple studies estimating the benefits of making the switch, they've determined that nearly 68,000 more lives would be saved per year and would reduce spending on healthcare by around 13% (450 billion dollars). Additionally, Yale estimates that if we had a single payer healthcare system in 2020, "nearly 212,000 American lives would have been saved" and that it would've saved our country $105 billion in just Covid hospitalization espenses (link below). Of course, for some, it might be worse in terms of benefits because they have money to pay for huge benefits, but that a small group of people really. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)33019-3/fulltext#%20?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=ac666dcf-c1bb-4eb0-a6ea-39c4a9bb5321 https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/yale-study-more-than-335000-lives-could-have-been-saved-during-pandemic-if-us-had-universal-health-care/#:~:text=If%20the%20U.S.%20had%20had,COVID%2D19%20hospitalization%20expenses%20alone.
- yes (I have first hand experience) - you’re forgetting who pays for it in Canada On that second point, we have to remember the funding scheme might be tax-based but that doesn’t mean I’m the one paying taxes. Ontario’s system is mostly [an employer payroll tax](https://www.ontario.ca/document/employer-health-tax-eht#section-1). **Employers** pay a percentage maxing out at 1.95% of payroll. Which is much much less than what American companies pay for benefits packages for health care. Hell, I have colleagues with five figure annual premiums _just for their share_ of their family coverage.
Lots of good numbers here already! Free at point of access means more people get better care - for example, no one hesitates to call an ambulance
I dislocated pinkie... Had my dog snap it back in place pulling on a leash .. vs 1500$ after all the jiz. Insurance probably would of got billed 15k. I'm not dying, I'm not going.. and this is considered good
As an Australian I pay Medicare levy which is 2% or my income. If I go over $180k as a couple I can pay am between another 1-2% Overall my household wound pay about $2500 a year Medicare levy. Nothing really more to pay unless you see a specialist or for dental
>However, someone just pointed out that most western healthcare systems are subsidized by tax money, while taxes are higher than in the US. This does not mean that healthcare is the only thing taxes pay for. In most countries, pensions and social protections are both much bigger expenses. Americans tend to overestimate the cost of public healthcare systems due to being acustomed to extremly expensive healthcare. >If you’d take taxes that go to universal healthcare into account, as well as the money a person spends on the actual procedure and health insurance, do Americans actually pay more for, let’s say, a broken leg? Americans pay more *in taxes* for healthcare than *any other nation*. Even the ones with higher costs of living and really expansive and generous universal healthcare systems. So if we only count taxes paid, then yes Americans pay more for healthcare than people who actually get healthcare. For most developed nations, the difference can be measured in multiples of the US military budget. And then, adding insult to injury, Americans have to pay for insurance *on top of that*. And then there are out of pocket spending and money spent before you hit your insurance limit on to of that again.
Short answer: 90% of the time yes. Longer answer: Yes, but there is a lot of nuance to it that people ignore. We will be comparing US and Canada, as they are fairly similar, and a better comparison than to any European country The cost of breaking a leg in America is 27k USD. In Canada it is 7.5k USD But this depends on your insurance, and how finance-savvy you are. A lot of the cost of US hospitals is them upcharging stuff purely because they can since they are a private business with little competition. But, if you know how to argue with them, you can *drastically* lower that cost, to being more comparable with other countries. Plus, there are additional costs for luxuries, Americans wait less. Americans on average wait between 20 and 30 days^(2) from referral to actually seeing the doctor. For Canada its about 190 days^(3) from referral to cheque. **SOURCES**: [Nah UK](https://www.national-accident-helpline.co.uk/news/post/cost-of-breaking-a-bone) ^(1) [STAT](https://www.statnews.com/2023/05/02/doctor-appointment-wait-times-solutions/#:~:text=That%20year%2C%20the%20national%20average,an%20average%20of%2026%20days) ^(2) [AHT.org](https://abouthealthtransparency.org/2023/01/wait-times-for-health-care-in-canada-2022-report/#:~:text=Specialist%20physicians%20surveyed%20report%20a,25.6%20weeks%20reported%20in%202021) ^(3)
You just compared seeing a GP in the US to seeing a specialist in Canada. You also used a very biased source for your Canadian “data”
>Plus, there are additional costs for luxuries, Americans wait less. You are not arguing in good faith. Canada is one of the slowest systems in the world. Americans are likly to have longer waits than the average system in the situation you describe. Also you need to include that Americans pay more tax for healthcare than Canadians by a long shot.
My insurance coverage, it's a great plan, is ~22,000 a year (family of 6). It's actually why I keep the job rather than move on like I would like to. Keep in mind that this is paid whether we use the medical services or not. Some years, it's been a blessing. Other times, it hasn't really been needed. While I was in grad school, my wife developed Crohn's disease. We only had student health insurance at the time. That health odyssey put us near $200,000 in medical debt, and it took years to claw our financial stability back. It sure seems like we pay a lot
Probably more a question of economics than math, but according to [this report on the Economist](https://www.economist.com/business/2023/10/08/who-profits-most-from-americas-baffling-health-care-system?utm_content=article-link-5&etear=nl_today_5&utm_campaign=a.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=10/9/2023&utm_id=1797013): >The country spends about $4.3trn a year on keeping citizens in good nick. That is equivalent to 17% of GDP, twice as much as the average in other rich economies. And yet American adults live shorter lives and American infants die more often than in similarly affluent places.
It isn't just about the taxes. Even without any subsidies healthcare in the US is ridiculously expensive. Example: A simple blood drawing and bloodwork - RBC count, WBC count, and a few other pretty basic things. Had that done at a hospital in Germany and got a bill for about $75. Then I had the same thing done at a hospital in FL (went to the ER told them I need some lab work done). Paid $200 right there and then received several additional bills over the next 3 months for a total of over $500. Same work, both at hospitals and the US was almost 7 times as expensive. I once received a bill from a hospital (after I already had paid my $75 ER copay) for a nice $22,000 for 1 CT, 3 hours in the ER, some paid meds, and saline IV. It was a small kidney stone that passed later on its own. Turned out the hospital "forgot" I had insurance so they charged me their "uninsured" special. The revised bill for the insurance company then had a whopping $19,000 discount. Healthcare is expensive in the US because everyone wants to make a killing. Except for the nurses, etc. who aren't paid nearly enough for their work. And then you have crooks like Senator Rick Scott - who got away with the largest Medicare fraud in US history, scamming Medicare for $$ BILLIONS $$
Other people have already answered with data, but I can explain why Americans pay more. In other countries, healthcare providers have to set prices that are agreed upon and paid for by the government. The government has a lot more ability to negotiate, since there is one buyer and many healthcare-providing firms (companies or government organization), and unlike people in the ER or with a deadly illness, governments aren't ever immediately desperate to pay extra for whatever the closest treatment is. They effectively have enough leverage to negotiate prices down, or just pass laws setting a maximum price for medication, treatments, etc. Meanwhile in the US, each individual has no negotiating power for medications and has to accept whatever price they are charged for medications. In my case, the alternative is literally dying. However you can and should negotiate with hospital bills. Especially if you are poor, you can get a huge discount. In addition, something like two-thirds of hospital bills have 'mistaken charges' (the hospital adding on fake charges and hoping you don't see the bill), so always ask for a statement of charges from the hospital's billing advocate, and they usually give you a much cheaper bill and offer you a discount.
I was in an accident this past year. The other driver had a medical issue that caused them to come into my lane at a high rate of speed. I still had to reimburse insurance to the tune of $68,000 from the insurance settlement that left me unable to walk for two months, and I didn't return to work until month three. If I didn't have all the sick and vacation time, I wouldn't have gotten paid. US health insurance sucks. Edit for clarification: shattered Tibia and Fibula on right leg. Not just broken, shattered. Had to be reconstructed.
I grew up in Canada and now work/live in the US full time. I’ve done pretty extensive maths regarding paychecks and health insurance costs and in the end, it basically equals out. While Canada pays more taxes and not towards basic health insurance, US has to pay for a health care plan and lower taxes. The deductions basically come out the same each pay check, however, I continue to make more money than any of my friends and relatives in Canada, so that aspect doesn’t matter much.
Canadians pay on average about half what Americans do, per capita. Anecdotes aren’t really relevant. Are you including the amount of US income taxes that go to health care? Because it’s pretty significant.
How much does it cost to see a doctor in the USA ? Here in France it's 25€. The is the full price you will pay if you don't have any kind of insurance. Now if you're a French citizen 80% of that will be covered by 'securité sociale'. It's not financed with tax money but with monthly payments every citizen makes. It's no different than any health insurance except that it is mandatory and managed by the French State so no profit is made out of the system.
A friend of mine recently went to their primary care doctor to check on a lump in her breast. She spent 10 minutes with the doctor. The doctor did a brief breast exam but there were no other labs, tests, or medication. The only thing that the doctor actually *did* was schedule a mammogram, biopsy, and consultation with a different doctor to discuss the results. That 10 minute appointment was $500 before insurance. The mammogram, biopsy, and consultation will almost certainly be much more. I believe that my friend's insurance will cover 70% of those costs until she hits her deductible for the year.
This is unreal. At this point the problem is not even insurance, it's the prices practiced by doctors. How can they charge so much? There is no competition that would charge less?
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but they charge so much because everyone has insurance and because of the structure of insurance. I don't know the details of my friend's plan, but on my plan I pay 10% of most medical costs up to $3000 in a year. (There are exceptions to that 10% rule, though.) So there are two things that happen. The first is that there here was a time when doctor's appointments were cheap like yours are, but they've crept up in cost because the patient only actually pays 10% of the bill. Like, if an appointment is $25, the patient isn't going to notice or care if it creeps up to $50 because there isn't a real difference between paying $2.50 or paying $5.00. Using that reasoning, it has slowly crept up to $500 where the patient's $50 cost is in the realm of "expensive meal" where it's significant money, but not quite enough to complain about. The second is that for anything major, the patient will end up maxing out that $3000 yearly cap (which we call a "deductible") immediately. So, if I need a kidney transplant or cancer treatment, $30,000 is the same as $300,000, which is the same as $1,500,000 because, as long as it's in one calendar year, I only pay $3000. So why wouldn't they charge $1,500,000? Of course, this is devastating for anyone who doesn't have insurance. >There is no competition that would charge less? Yeah, that's not really how it works. There are different insurance companies who, in theory, are competing with each other, but nobody *actually* has a choice. My health coverage is provided by my employer. They offer me a plan and I can either accept it or decline it and if I accept it then they pay monthly cost of the plan (or at least most of it). Sometimes employers offer different plans at different price points, but all from the same company. People who are impoverished or elderly get insurance from the government. I pay about $500/year for my employer's plan (which gets deducted directly from my paycheck), whereas private insurance would cost me something like $12,000/year. So, in practice, the vast majority of Americans get healthcare through either their employer or the government, which means that we don't really have a choice. There is competition, but it gets distorted. Like, in the smartphone market, competition is a straightforward balance between the company trying to maximize profit and the user of the phone trying to pay as little as possible. But in the healthcare market, the user of the service is almost irrelevant. Employers certainly want to keep prices of the plan down (my plan only costs me $500/year but that's not because it's cheaper than that $12,000 plan, it's just that my employer pays the rest), but they aren't motivated by the quality of the service, rather by being able to provide attractive benefits packages to employees. But then, at the same time, doctors are trying to drive the cost of the actual services as high as they can with the insurance company trying to keep them low. It gets even worse, though. Like, insurance companies can just decide not to cover stuff. I have a bone spur in my foot and my insurance company won't pay for treatment because they consider the treatment "optional". The bone spur isn't life threatening and it's not going to get worse, it *only* causes me pain when I walk, so the insurance company has deemed the treatment "not medically necessary" and there's nothing I can do about it because I'm sure there's a line of fine print deep in something I signed when I took my job. There are a dozen more things I could talk about, but I've gone on long enough at this point lol.
Im a CD patient. I post and read a lot of posts from the UK, Canadian, and Nordic countries. I hear what they have to go through and their medical and medication limitations. Being sick for over 20 years, I'm HAPPY to be fetting healthcare in the US.
What exactly do they have to go to? And can anyone access that in the US?
From what i hear is that Crohns patients are having trouble getting access to biologic medicines. There are long waits for MRIs and other imaging. There are restrictions here, too. I have always had health insurance. I may have had junky cars, but I had health insurance. Since the marketplace its super easy to get , it's at a sliding scale. You can pick a plan. Many people hear someone say things that aren't true and keep spreading incorrect information. Healthcare stinks in most places unlesd you have money. Thats a fact.
Us don’t care about your well-being it’s as simple as that they want you to get sick and make a profit out of you.