Just because Universal Healthcare didn't catch on the first time doesn't mean it's dead forever.
It'll happen eventually. Maybe in 4 years, maybe in 40.
The poor person obviously cannot afford that bill so the provider eats it and the result is increasing costs for everyone else. So unless the solution is just to let the poor and their children die, providing everyone with access to health care would probably be a net benefit. Not to mention universal health care would provide for incredible bargaining power meaning drugs such as insulin would not cost an individual hundreds of dollars a month.
Everyone with new health insurance is not going to go all at once, I doubt there will be any significant increase in wait time to see a doctor. Finally, people are not units of exchange, they are people and poor or rich they deserve at least a shot at a decent life for them and their family and universal health care goes a long way towards providing that.
This is exactly what Americans like briandear want, and the political tug-of-war between people like him and people like you is much of why the US healthcare system is the mess that it is.
I'd say briandear proved my earlier point completely: Americans do not want anything like universal healthcare, and no, we really can't do better (by your definition of "better"). Too many Americans are like briandear for that to happen.
No, it just means that people who are rich can afford healthcare and those who aren’t can’t.
> It’s logical, but politically tough because those that generate little value outnumber those that produce high value — and those low value people vote.
Should they not?
In the minds of many Americans, yes. We even have many mega-churches here whose doctrine states that rich people are rich because God loves them more. This is why American Evangelical Christians overwhelmingly support Trump.
> an electrical engineer is more useful than an unemployed cashier.
And then we jumped into the Randian deep end. Peace, I'm out.
Maybe some poor don’t get the best care quickly
an electrical engineer is more useful than an unemployed cashier
low value people
It’s logical
I live in Canada as an immigrant, love it here, would never move, and USA health/insurance system frankly baffles me, even having lived there for a year previously. Don't even remotely understand why people put up with sheer complexity and opaqueness.
But I appreciate people like the GP [briandear] that eloquently and clearly help me understand alternative perspectives different to my own. I think it's a very valid, very core discussion of values and goals: is it equal care for all, or do we prioritize it? And I agree with GP [briandear] that shying away from this core discussion muddles the issue. Sometimes it feels like USA builds ever more complex systems to mask the goals and direction of its health care system, rather than a simple system that would fess up and do whatever it's meant to do efficiently :-/
No, we can't. If we could, we would. Things are like this because we want them to be like this: it's reflected in how we vote. We've had candidates pushing for "Medicare for all", universal healthcare, etc., and who gets elected? The candidates promising to go the other direction. Clearly, American society and its voters do not want this.