People with low income or some other qualifications are covered by Medicaid: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid This includes about 75 million people and reportedly pays for about half of all births.
There are gaps and I agree 100% that we need to continue closing such gaps, but the US actually does have a significant amount of socialized healthcare. Some of the proposals include simply expanding some of these programs to cover the remaining 8-9% of the population without healthcare.
The idea that the US doesn’t have any socialized healthcare is a bit of a myth. The reality is that we do have socialized health care, it just doesn’t cover everyone.
The headlines about insulin costing thousands of dollars per month are also misleading. Insulin is $25/vial at Walmart and you don’t even need a prescription from a doctor to get it. The expensive products are more recent, patented insulin analogs that are longer lasting but obviously shouldn’t be prescribed to someone without insurance who can’t afford them. The $25/vial insulin is equivalent to the generics you read about in headlines like this one.
Sort of. The conversations are mostly about expanding our existing socialized healthcare plans that cover over 1/3 of the population already.
Americans over 65 and those with some disabilities are covered by Medicare: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States) This includes about 60 million people.
People with low income or some other qualifications are covered by Medicaid: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid This includes about 75 million people and reportedly pays for about half of all births.
The affordable care act also subsidized health insurance plans for those with incomes up to 400% of the poverty level: https://www.healthinsurance.org/obamacare/the-acas-cost-shar... These subsidies go to another 9 million people or so.
There are gaps and I agree 100% that we need to continue closing such gaps, but the US actually does have a significant amount of socialized healthcare. Some of the proposals include simply expanding some of these programs to cover the remaining 8-9% of the population without healthcare.
The idea that the US doesn’t have any socialized healthcare is a bit of a myth. The reality is that we do have socialized health care, it just doesn’t cover everyone.
The headlines about insulin costing thousands of dollars per month are also misleading. Insulin is $25/vial at Walmart and you don’t even need a prescription from a doctor to get it. The expensive products are more recent, patented insulin analogs that are longer lasting but obviously shouldn’t be prescribed to someone without insurance who can’t afford them. The $25/vial insulin is equivalent to the generics you read about in headlines like this one.