Free Universal Healthcare

[diebitter]

I've been listening to comments about Michael Moore's new film, Sicko, and one criticism this side of the Atlantic is it tries to show UK (and other) Universal Health Care systems as fantastic. They aren't that; often there's long waits for necessary operations, there's disputes about what things are covered at the extreme ends (where care is particularly expensive and verging on cosmetic rather than health, where the person was a heavy smoker and brought it on themselves) etc.

But it isn't bad, to be fair. Emergency services are pretty good. MY son, broke his foot a few months back, we went straight to a walk-in medical centre, he got x-rayed and diagnosed, plastered, and out in less than 2 hours. All free.

He put too much weight on the plaster, and 2 days later we went back, got it redone and he was out again - less than an hour this time. All free.



I wondered what you Americans (and any others) thought about "free" universal healthcare?

[DrewDevil]

No, dear God, no. Please move to politics before I go on life tilt.

"Free Universal ______________" is always a recipe for having crappy ___________ that is not universal and not free.

[4_2_it]

Please define "free". Seems like you are paying high taxes for a service that is mediocre at best.

[ChipWrecked]

I don't believe in any right to health care. There certainly wasn't one defined in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution.

But then I'm such a bastid I think EMTALA should be eliminated also; that opinion built during the hours spent in ER waiting rooms during my wife's difficult pregnancies while [censored] indigent illegal aliens used the ER as their general practitioner's office. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

[Blarg]

I love the idea, and so do my friends and relatives in Germany and France. There's always a trade-off, but they view it, as I do, as one of the fundamental things a modern government should do and is capable of doing.

Here in America, being underinsured or even uninsured is extremely common. Having health insurance with limited coverage or that is too expensive to pay for is a poor to non-existent solution. Typically, people in lower income classes very rarely go to the doctor, as they can't afford it. This means that when they do get to a doctor, their conditions tend to be far advanced. This changes them from fairly minor and inexpensive matters to sometimes costly and, despite that, still fatal or crippling matters. As treating someone with an advanced condition for even a few days can be enormously expensive compared to the cost of preventive medicine, regular check ups, and minor medical care, we have a kind of "false savings" here that doesn't really come out in the wash.

And, we have a greater chance by far of families with one less earning parent. In an America whose social mores encourage single-parenthood, this can mean no parent at all, with the resultant social and economic costs.

I predict this thread will be filled with bad behavior too long, though, because healthcare got pinned to Hillary Clinton in the public mind, and is one of those knee-jerk, scream till you're blue in the face, America-does-everything-right issues that there's really no talking about. Politically, it's also dead in the water, like changes in social security or the mortgage tax deduction, because few people want to either admit the real costs or think much about having to pay them, and the people most negatively affected are trivially easy to ignore.

Good luck on the subject. But I suspect we're due for vastly more heat than light.

[katyseagull]

I went back and forth on this issue for a long time. Initially thought it was a bad idea. After all, I was one of the lucky ones so I didn't really need universal health care. And there were a lot of scary stories about mediocre services and long waits associated with Univ. healthcare.

However, now that the news is reporting more and more employers are eliminating health insurance from their benefit packages (seriously) and other employers are severely limiting their coverages I think we will all feel the effects.

Ever know someone who didn't have health insurance? Just devastating to them and their extended family when they get seriously injured or come down with cancer. I know a lot of people without any coverage at all. I worry for them.

[CharlieDontSurf]

free mediocre health care is better than no heath care

[MrWookie]

Yeah, Blarg, I think all the mods are going to have to watch this one closely for animosity. That said, so far, so good.

DB, before you or anyone that "free" health care from the state is a better solution than private health care, you'd have to offer up an estimate of how much the "free" health care system costs you in taxes. Is it true that the UK has a better health care system than the US? Perhaps. Did they get that better system because they're paying more money for it than the US is? This is also pretty likely.

[diebitter]

well, I've no idea, but I guess the major difference in what our taxed go in is health care. With indirect taxes lumped in, I guess about 30-40% of earnings go to taxes. What is it in the US?


I might try and find more accurate info later, bit busy right now.

[Blarg]

Actually, the US spends far more for healthcare, at least so I've seen in a great many newspaper stories and t.v. news stories over the years, than do nations like France and England.

I'd suggest at least one strongly contributing factor is, again, that preventive medicine, outside of during pregnancy, is much too expensive for very significant portions of the American populace. It's a lot cheaper to be prescribed a baby aspirin a day and get warned to cut back on salt and red meat, even for hundreds of patients, than it is to be taken care of after a heart attack, both immediately and in terms of the cost of long-term prescriptions and therapy.

Like many men I know, I will only go in to the hospital for things that must be dealt with absolutely immediately, like an out of control infection, broken bone, etc. Virtually any pain, no matter how suspicious or frightening, so long as I get through it, is fine and cause for no further action. The many poor and marginal people I've known and worked with are the same way. They simply can't go to the doctor unless there's no choice. They don't have the savings and often can't even afford to take the time off. If they find they have a chronic condition, it can often mean being fired by unscrupulous employers who don't want their health insurance costs raised, or to face possible workers' compensation costs.

So the only way people like that -- and like me -- show up at the doctors is if it's going to cost a lot of money. And, sooner or later, EVERYONE gets sick. In some systems, that means patients who don't necessarily cost much to fix up, little lost productivity, and a small chance of bearing the enormous economic and social costs of the loss of a life, particularly the life of a parent. In our system, it means incredible cost and a pretty good chance of a drastic outcome that was really completely unnecessary.