https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/preventive-care-benefits...
About 4% of bankruptcies are from medical bills.
the fraction of people filing for bankruptcy who happen to have substantial medical expenses.
The only factor they considered was the proportion of people who filed for bankruptcy by years before/after hospitalization, which they found was about 4% of total bankruptcies - for non-elderly adults.
we estimate that hospitalizations cause only 4% of personal bankruptcies among nonelderly U.S. adults, which is an order of magnitude smaller than the previous estimates described above.
It is also notable that the study was focused on patients at a single Californian hospital -
we therefore selected a sample of people who were admitted to the hospital in California
Our study was based on a random stratified sample of adults 25 to 64 years of age who, between 2003 and 2007, were admitted to the hospital (for a non–pregnancy-related stay) for the first time in at least 3 years
We have found that hospitalizations cause: *increased out-of-pocket spending on medical care*, *increased medical debt*, and decreased employment and income
Americans always toss this out like it means something. If you're not in queue because you can't afford it, then you are in the queue it's just infinitely long but you're not counted.
Your entire culture here is so broken you are fundamentally incapable of even beginning to understand how other countries discuss these metrics: when they discuss wait times it's for everyone who needs it - no one is unable to afford it or being denied it by their health insurance. "The queue" is triaged against available resources - i.e. patients needing urgent care will get it earlier then those who are stable.
Could it be shorter? Of course it could, but it also includes everyone who needs it. And if you don't like the queue the gasp you can still pay to be treated privately and receive prompter service under most systems.
Your system is so broken you literally can't comprehend the wording of complaints about other systems because you contextualize it through your own. Built into the entire model is that "the queue is long and also we already kicked a bunch of people out of it, which is not what anyone is talking about in regards to the NHS, or Australian Medicare or any other system.
It's pretty common to see affluent Canadians come to the US as medical tourists and pay out of pocket for procedures like MRI scans or joint replacement surgery. This is a real thing that happens all the time. Depending on your perspective that might be acceptable in the name of fairness and cost control but there are always trade-offs.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/Quarterly_Es...
It's easy for populists to demonize health insurance companies. But even if we somehow magically cut all payer profits to zero that would only marginally reduce total system costs. Much of what they do in fighting against doctors by negotiating lower reimbursement rates and denying claims that don't meet coverage rules actually helps to control costs for their main customers, the large self-insured employers that purchase health plans for their employees. At the national policy level, one change that would probably help would be breaking the linkage between employment and health plan coverage in order to better align incentives.
Other countries that spend less on healthcare also have lower provider wages, longer queues for advanced treatments, rationed care based on QALYs (or similar metrics), and less innovation in drugs and medical devices. Maybe that would be better overall but let's not pretend that there aren't severe trade-offs. You can't have your cake and eat it too.