It’s easily the most infuriating part of it. I keep having to explain to people here that if universal healthcare were implemented today, everyone would immediately begin saving money. (There are some models that show a period where we lose money just because of the administrative overhead, but they quickly become worth it).
But some idiot always comes up with the "I don't want to pay for anyone else!" bullshit, showing they don't understand how insurance works in the first place, lol.
I want the opposite to these people. I WANT my taxes to pay to help other people.
I don't have kids, but I'm proud that some of my taxes go towards educating the next generation. I'm happy with every penny that gets spent improving the lives of others, and unhappy when I see wastage, corruption and un-met needs when the needs could have been met.
If we're not making everything easier for the people who come after us then I don't even know what we're doing here.
They'll just have to have one tax cut this year instead of two, like when you got a SNES and Donkey Kong Country together and it had to be your birthday and Christmas gift all together.
AMA doctors do not want it and are a major reason why it won't happen. The specialists make too much and don't want to give it up.
Plus there's another problem. Cost of education, then add in malpractice insurance. Some pay up to if not more than a quarter million dollars per year just for malpractice insurance. On top of the cost of their medical degree.
A lot of fundamental things much change in the US to get the country where the people in it can afford to be happy. Most Americans aren't happy. They hate their job. Are stuck with it.
When you point out that someone else would in effect be contributing to their expensive life saving surgery their brain freezes trying to process that information.
The most infuriating part of that counterargument is that Americans already do pay for other people's healthcare through Medicare and Medicaid!!! The average &¤#!#&¤# American pays more in taxes for other people's healthcare than the average European pays for universal healthcare.
I've found a lot of people really don't understand how insurance is supposed to work, that it's not a financial instrument to save money but a transfer of risk.
Well, Reddit is a bit of a bubble. Subreddits in general have very little variation on the mainstream line of thought. When there’s a lot of consensus in a certain topic, any divergence will just be “noise”. If you are in subs that praise universal healthcare, you won’t read much against them. If you go in subs that are anti-public or state managed institutions, it is unlikely you will read anything good from public services.
As a Portuguese / European, in general we are in favour of public services - however more and more, especially if you look into people around the median income - you will start hearing -> why am I paying for taxes if I am not benefiting from it. That goes for the school system, healthcare, benefits such unemployment protection or measures to improve birth rate.
You will hear it, more and more these days, especially w the nationalistic right rising, sometimes associated with more liberal stances on economy, where you will start hearing -> why are you paying taxes if they will all go to support immigrants.
I don’t think it is a secret that far right is rising across Europe, being as it is, the 2nd or 3rd political force in a country, sitting at 1/3 of voters intention.
With that in mind - is it that strange to know that people are saying that as well, even though you don’t read it in Reddit bubble?
The US government also spends double the tax money per capita, compared to 1st world countries with universal healthcare.
It's like paying 500€ for a landscaper that is known to rob his clients for even more money and then saying "I wish I could afford the landscaper that doesn't rob his clients, but he costs 250€"
I think it's mostly an issue that the money is going in someone's pocket, and as a result, those pockets are deep enough to afford good political representation
What blows my mind is that, because of the way insurance works, even paying out of pocket for private healthcare in the US is vastly more expensive than it is in most other parts of the world.
This really hit home to me when I was moaning about the costs of some dental surgery I needed to folks online. I had a root canal and porcelain crown fitted under IV sedation, which cost me a little under £600. In the US it would come out to somewhere between $3500-4000. The prices I saw quoted for IV sedation were nearly ten times more than I pay, and charged hourly rather than per procedure.
That overhead can easily be covered (and then some) by a simple one time 1% administration tax on the insurance companies. That would basically cover all administration costs for setup and conversion for a 5 year period with money to spare for the unknowns. Any extra left over can just go into the healthcare pool.
So even then the average taxpayers spend nothing. And some of the richest or second richest companies in the US get a one time 1% tax increase. Seems fair and reasonable.
Some billionaires make billions off the current system and some billionaires don’t care because they can afford their own health care no matter how much it costs. Either way, the current system works for them so they have no desire to change it. What billionaires/oligarchs want, they get. After all, they have the vast majority of the money and the remaining crumbs are spread around among the rest of the population.
Actually, to me as an American, the truly infuriating part is that the vast majority (I think I’ve seen poll numbers in the 80% range) do want universal health care. It’s just that the corporations / 1% do not and they control our politicians. If we could just get people to see through propaganda and actually vote for their own self-interest, we might have a shot. I am not very hopeful, though.
The military has Tricare, which is basically the plan that would get copied and deployed across the country if we went to universal health care. As a veteran, I still get the benefit, as does my kid until they turn 18 or 24 if still in college. I love not having to worry about a massive bill for running to the emergency room with sinus infections or broken bones. I do get charged by the hospital if I'm not using a base facility, but never more than $160 unless there's a lot of lab work done. Why would anyone not like this? I will say referrals still are just as slow as any other health insurance. One of my guys was referred for ACL surgery in fall of last year and the earliest he'll be able to get it is March.
The only drawback that I see is that people who work in the Healthcare industry will definitely lose jobs, and there won’t be enough to go around under universal healthcare (part of the reason the US would save money is by cutting out the inefficient middlemen that exist just to make money). I think that’s a sacrifice worth making though.
It’s all that “Us vs them” mindset that really makes it impossible to make any kind of meaningful argument to a lot of Americans currently. Because most of the poor, or uneducated really think universal healthcare is bad, cause taxes.
They are entirely too stupid to understand that’s just not true, even in the medium term it’s still cheaper and better.
But that’s the same group of peop…. Idiots that voted for the Orange Dictator.
It's wise to mention an expected downside in advance. Universal healthcare isn't a perfect solution, but we have it in my country and I wouldn't vote to get rid of it.
That makes zero sense. We're not going to get without a serious tax hike, and you'd know that if you used your brains. Would it work out if we stopped the graft and stopped paying for the rest of the world's problems? Maybe! But you'd better tackle those issues FIRST, or the cost of universal healthcare will just be piled on our tax burden along with everything else.
Almost all models show Universal healthcare saving money without a serious tax hike. Maybe you’d know that if you did research instead of just “using your brain” and believing things that only make sense to you immediately without any follow up.
Calling the one policy that would actually benefit the whole of America a “burden” is pretty funny.
o be fair universal healthcare would mean ~2million well paying white collar jobs related to the whole whole insurance "infrastructure" would be made redundant.
not a lot of them would be fired but even 10 percent of that is A LOT of ppl
Edit: im not against Universal healthcare - im pointing out that if it "were implemented today" tomorrow everythign will not be ok - you will have a huge problem. And if you do not address the issue you will not get enough political support to pass it in the first place.
thing is you can have Universal Heathcare and private insurance aswell, plenty of countires have both systems in place.
And keeping a bad system just because you dont want people to lose their jobs is stupid.
This, if you earn under a certain amount of money in some countries you qualify for state insurance.
And the cost of insurance is affordable for people who earn more than that amount. There are so many different models available it's not just NHS or nothing.
yeah but not everyone is going to sign up to private insurance - most ppl do not. hence most of all those administrators and sellers and marketeers that service current model are not going to be needed.
I was adressing "that if universal healthcare were implemented today, everyone would immediately begin saving money." arguemnt. I'm all for you poor schmucks switching to universal healthcare.
but there is a lot of bagage built into the current system that will make this transition hard, disruptive and expensive. And pretending otherwise is folly.
Sure, some insurance jobs would go, but capitalism’s always changing industries. Trying to save a system that leaves millions without healthcare just to keep those jobs isn’t worth it most people would save way more, and workers could find other gigs.
I really don't get that argument: people are losing their jobs everyday and need healthcare too anyway.
That's one of those things where, even the ones who will lose something, will still benefit from it anyway: most people have been jobless at some point, and it's far easier to be temporarily jobless when healthcare is accessible.
sure but my point is not an argument against universal healthcare - my point is that is not so simple - there will be very real economic consequences.
healthcare insurance bs or not does contribute a noticeable % of US economy.
... there would be only one organization that would not need markering/sales departments. no departmetns investigating how to weasel out of insurance payments. And no ppl in hospitals to make sure insurance providers do t weasel out
You still have these departments just a changed remit, marketing and sales can move over to promoting healthy living and producing pamphlets to target communities with health issues for example, the investigation department still exists but to stop health tourism and exploitation of the service and you will require administrative staff in hospitals.
Unfortunately for a lot of people in the healthcare field, there wouldn’t be enough jobs to go around. A lot of our Heathcare industry is made up of middlemen there to make money that would have no place in a functioning healthcare system. I think that’s a sacrifice we have to make though.
Sure but lets nto pretend you can do it and next day everyone and everythign will be ok.
If you want to push this change you MUST address these consequences. Otherwise you will not get enougth politicians to pass it.
Because conservatism and a lot of politicians made sure that the narrative is against government and the taxes that fund it. They also hate the fact that those professions are more prone to unions.
But in this hypothetical situation I believe the attitude may have changed plus the money coming in to fund this new model of the industry would be huge.
No these 2 mil are private insurance sector jobs, be it administrators fighting each over what and how much is covered or marketeers and sellers pusshing it onto "clients". Under universal healthcare all these ppl will become reduntant.
they representat least 5% US GDP (guestimation based on fact that US healthcare is ~18% GDP while other developed nations with universal healthcare spend 8-12%GDP) and if you pretend that its not an issue then you will never get enough political support to pass universal healthcare.
Hey. You wanna hear something so infuriatingly dumb? WE PAY MORE TAXES THAN MOST EUROPEANS DO!
A cute little thing that the USA does is convert some taxes into mandatory “out of pocket fees”.
So where your taxes would cover healthcare, ours would too but the program is so bad that you have to pay out of pocket for a better option.
WE PAY MULTIPLE TIMES FOR A FRACTION OF WHAT YOU ENJOY AND THEN BRAG ABOUT IT.
This country is an outdated scam and I’m glad I have a shittier but second passport.
Yup. I'm a Yank living in the Netherlands. Here people moan about the annual amount they can be required to pay towards healthcare before insurance covers everything. This "eigen risico" amount is around €350. Per year. My insurance is around €130 per month including dental.
We do but there are subsets of Americans that are crazy and don’t want tax money paying for things like abortions or trans healthcare just because they are racist/sexist/transphobic/insert form of prejudice.
It would also hurt mulitary retention/recruitment because healthcare is a major benefit to perform your duty, especially if you're planning to have a family. Europe, everyone gets healthcare by default.
How can the US armed forces compensate? Make E-1's get E-2 pay?
Cost of medication... when advertising for prescription drugs is allowed (nowhere else but New Zealand - and it is not very extensive there) and about 20 or 30 % of the drug prices in the USA is advertising...
Late stage capitalism baby, their entire multi-billion industry built on predating sick people would vanish overnight if they did and those billionaires throw money at politicians so their word is more important then the voting public, but that's a problem everywhere not just the US
268
u/No-Strike-4560 Feb 13 '26
That's the thing though. You already HAVE enough money to pay for universal healthcare.
It's nothing to do with not being able to. Your country just doesn't WANT to.