Re:Life expectancy in the U.S. is declining for middle-aged ...
by cookieswumchorr on Monday December 02, 2019 @10:42AM
(#21683334)
in Germany, the actual doctors office that treats you may be a for-profit, but they get the cash from your (mandatory) insurance, and the law regulates what kind of treatment is essential and therefore included in the mandatory healthcare plan.
You can have a private healthcare plan that gets you extra treatment, or pay yourself for it. But it's really Stuff you can live without.
another example, in Russia, you have _theoretically_ the same system, but the level of treatment covered by the mandatory insurance is totally insufficient by any reasonable modern standards, so you have to pay all the way. And it's not about debt, it's often about not getting live-saving treatment before you cash out.
While private health care exists in all of those countries, and in some of them it's a significant part of the system, a lot of what exists isn't actually _for-profit_.
For instance, in Ireland we have a dual public and private system (primary care is private unless you're old, very young, or low income, private hospitals exist as an option), but most of the private system is either outright non-profit (most private hospitals, the statutory VHI health insurer) or is heavily constrained by the existence of the non-profit portion and regulation (private insurers have to compete with the VHI, and are not allowed charge risk-based rates for most customers).