I live in EU country with universal healthcare and yet we have serious issues with availability of mental healthcare, and some people here would make use of something like this.
To be very specific about the availability - I couldn't find a psychiatrist for over 2 years.
im not saying the US system is perfect, far from it, but there is definitely a case of "grass is greener" going on, and people tend to focus extremely heavily on the bad things they see/experience locally, and are completely oblivious to negatives elsewhere
The problem is wider than the healthcare system.
Given current mental health needs in the US it's doubtful that we have enough therapists to meet those needs (note that most people cannot make appointments in the 9-5 time slots so most people are competing for 6-9 or 5-7).
If you look at how some of the nordic countries have approached mental healthcare it becomes clear that making mental healthcare available is dependent on a widespread social safety net that really gets in people's business in a way many in the US would oppose.
Many people's health problems really come down to things like "I have to work 70 hours a week to make ends meet" or "I'm broke because no one will hire me because I'm a felon". Therapy can help a little for these people, but in practice reducing load on the healthcare system means solving their problems which is politically harder than just healthcare reform.
But the NHS does have an anchoring effect on the price of private care. You can find decent therapy for $50-$70/hour.
>What happens to such people who are to poor to afford the ~$170 per hour fee for professional psychologists?
This is a failure of a country's healthcare system. I can access it all day long in the UK. I'm not even saying "Rule Brittania", we have plenty of problems with our healthcare system due to underfunding, yet spaffing countless billions away on projects that amount to nothing.
The missus's family live in America. Access to psychiatric and physician adjacent medical services due to what insurance will cover is something I think about regularly. Your many assumptions about what I apparently think says a lot about you, and also tells me that you didn't read my other comments about this not being fit-for-purpose in terms of safety.
Virtue-signalling and assumptive to imply that I don't treat people with kindness and understanding. Bold of you to assume that every commentor on HN is responding from an America-centric POV.