The point was that you can't guarantee positive rights, since positive rights require some commitment.
>Stories from the great US paid healthcare system
Did I said it is great? Why you emphasize "paid" when any healthcare system is paid?
Your services are flawed in a typical American way, i.e. overregulated crony mess where all the burden lies on an avg Joe since he has no leverage on a political system while lobbyists do.
I bet my head that if you implement a universal healthcare, you would end up in a mess like that which Russia have, rather than something more decent.
However the true result is presented to wall street: If the insurance company is making more than a very meager profit we're getting screwed out of what should be universal affordable care.
First, I'm not sure if you're aware, but the price of a procedure in the US is not necessarily related to its cost. There's been several news articles showing the same procedure can cost 100x more in one hospital vs the other in the same city. Hospitals literally pull prices out their ass and justify it by saying "no one pays that price". Then they bludgeon people with these completely fictitious numbers when insurance doesn't play ball.
What you're also failing to realize is the US does have a universal health care system, it's just really shitty and inefficient: its called the emergency room. Doctors can't just leave people to die if they can't pay.
Stories from the great US paid healthcare system:
When my wife had to get her gall bladder removed. The hospital charged us $25k for 1 hour use of the surgery room, and $20k for 1 hour use of the recovery room. It took insurance almost a year to resolve, and in the meantime both sides kept bothering us. Hospital told us not to worry though because things usually get resolved once both sides start threatening eachother with lawsuits. I asked what happens if insurance still doesn't pay it, and they said that the hospital usually writes it off. Sounds GREAT!
The above was on top of ~10k other general hospital bills, plus 3.6k anesthesiologist, 25k surgeon, and a couple k in post operation followup. Total charged price for one of the most common operations in the country: about 85k. Completely sustainable.
In another instance, we needed something done that we thought wasn't covered by insurance. When trying to figure out what the price would be, it took several weeks worth of phone calls, and tens of hours on the phone to figure out with our local hospital what it would cost. Then when we got there, someone said it didn't include something. But it was OK because insurance covered the whole thing for various reasons. We said OK. They were wrong though, insurance still didn't cover it. This is important because medical places usually have an "insurance price" and a "cash price", and we got screwed out of the cash price by going through insurance.
We also had a close friend deliver her own baby in a hospital hallway and get charged $30k for the delivery.
My sister was charged $1.2k for the removal of a cotton ball from her ear while waiting in a line.
My brother had a $5k ambulance ride.
I always think twice before interacting with the healthcare system in the US.