The issue is that better coverage requires private insurance, mostly offered through corporations. Smaller companies can't compete, some people can't leave a bad job because of losing their plan, and others are limited to public options because they don't work. This is the overwhelming problem with USA healthcare. There aren't actually many choices because of this complex and outdated connection between jobs and benefits.
I know that today America has choice. But it leads to the highest healthcare costs in the Western World (to allow for middlemen healthcare companies to be some of the largest privatecompanies in the country), with the worst quality for the poorest people.
So the question is, how do you solve the problem of universal access while giving people the "choice".
> The issue is that better coverage requires private insurance, mostly offered through corporations
Not in the rest of the western world. We just simply don't have these companies. They don't need to exist. They are a form of corporate socialism transferring wealth from taxpayers to mediate something that can be handled directly.
Health insurance companies is a moral failure. I'm going to double down on my metaphor. Fire engines don't check your insurance to decide if they should put your fire out. That used to be how things worked 100 years ago.
The choice for better healthcare is limited and locked behind employment. That's the problem, instead of letting everyone have access to all plans, and the solutions are too complicated to discuss here. However insurance is not a moral failure, it's a financial and risk management concept. Just because your government manages somethings for you with your taxes doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I understand that when you're a fish it's hard to understand what water is, but the fact that employment plays any part into this whatsoever is a problem. Nobody in Canada or the UK or Luxembourg (some countries i have some experience with) would ever factor in healthcare in a decision to start or leave a job. It is absolutely not a variable.
Yes, I've said exactly this about half a dozen times now. It seems you're arguing based on myths and preconceived notions against the USA rather than actually responding to anything I've said. Let's end it here.
I just don't understand you acknowledging that healthcare choice being locked behind employment and insurance companies middlemen being a problem yet still wanting "healthcare choice." What does that mean to you if you don't have the others any longer?
And I especially don't understand how it doesn't lead to exactly the problematic outcome we are talking about which is that poor people can't afford access to quality healthcare.
You don't "choose" what level of fire department protection you need. How is healthcare different? I suppose you can always hire your own private firefighter/doctor...
So long as you give people the choice, and it's based on PERSONAL financial contributions rather than government-organized taxes, those with less means will have less access to a finite set of healthcare resources and result in systemic inequalities.
I suppose I can imagine that there is some "ultra deluxe" version of healthcare where instead of crutches you get a wheelchair, and instead of a shared recovery room you get your own, and I do support those with the means to pay extra for something like that. But the baseline HEALTHCARE access part needs to remain the same...