News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Profiles of people living in homeless encampments, rarely... by buescher on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @06:52AM (#31568067)
No. Most proposals for universal healthcare by the American left would ban private insurance.

Most actual universal healthcare does not ban private insurance.

>Basically, every single country with universal coverage also has private insurance,” says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies international health systems. “I don’t think there is a model in the world that allows you to go without it.”

https://www.vox.com/health-care/2019/2/12/18215430/single-pa...

Re:Profiles of people living in homeless encampments, rarely... by sudosysgen on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @11:17AM (#31570527)
You're making the exact mistake I was anticipating when I talked about duplicate insurance. Sure, you can get private insurance, but it cannot legally cover anything that is covered by public insurance. This is the standard worldwide.

You're conflating private insurance and duplicate private insurance, and ending up on a very mistaken conclusion because of it.

Re:Profiles of people living in homeless encampments, rarely... by buescher on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @12:21PM (#31571420)
Nope. There is no such "standard worldwide". Read the article I posted. In most countries private insurance either replaces public insurance (in countries whose system uses an individual mandate like the original ACA) or as the article puts it, "complements it", for "faster access to specialty doctors or elective procedures."
Re:Profiles of people living in homeless encampments, rarely... by sudosysgen on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @12:54PM (#31571839)
In the vast majority of countries it "complements" or "supplements" it. There are very few countries where private healthcare is allowed to replace public care. Israel, Slovenia, the Netherlands and few developing countries are the only cases.

There are other countries with a system between complementary and duplicate where private insurance may also pay for duplicate care, but you still aren't allowed to not subscribe to the public healthcare plan.

Duplicate healthcare insurance is deeply toxic and

Re:Profiles of people living in homeless encampments, rarely... by ceeplusplus on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @02:22PM (#31572987)
> Duplicate healthcare insurance is deeply toxic

Wanting better coverage - lower wait times, higher quality doctors - is deeply toxic? Getting higher quality doctors who don't want to get paid pennies by the public system is toxic? (for example Medicare pays substantially less than most private insurance in the US today to care providers, which is one of the biggest reasons why many doctors don't take Medicare patients)

I don't see how being able to have a private plan isn't a win-win for doctors and patients. Doctors get paid more by private insurance, and patients get better care. If you want to use the public system you have the option of doing that.

What happens in the long run if you force doctors to exclusively get paid public system rates? Doctors make less and less smart people want to become doctors. Why do you think the federal government can't hire top tier software talent? It's because they pay pennies on the dollar compared to private companies. You can't regulate your way out of a market. The Soviet Union found that out the hard way.

Re:Profiles of people living in homeless encampments, rarely... by buescher on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @01:03PM (#31571953)
> the only cases

You left out Germany and Switzerland, probably others. Hardly "developing countries".

So you agree that universal healthcare systems do not almost always ban duplicate coverage, and you agree that there is no "worldwide standard" of banning duplicate coverage though private insurance.

You're just in favor of banning private insurance and are willing to engage in sweeping hyperbole toward that end.