Why Can’t Americans Buy More Affordable Health-Care Plans?

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Rozdolna@reddit

Free universal healthcare would allow more small businesses to thrive since they wouldn't have to match the benefits packages provided by corpos

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ZincSuppsRopeMan@reddit

Everyone knows that "free" means "paid for by taxes", we can stop playing this pedantic game lol.

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Parabellum12@reddit

Nothing pedantic about it. Matter of fact that’s exactly the point.

The federal government currently spends ~$2 trillion every year on healthcare. Now imagine universal healthcare and what kind of untenable tax rate everybody would be subject to.

You’ll be paying for it one way or another, so saying “free” is a disingenuous way to support an argument that easily wins over lower IQ people because everybody loves “free”. It’s intentionally misleading.

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Rozdolna@reddit

Not true, my Grandma regularly gave me free chocolate chip cookies

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ItShouldntBe06@reddit

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, that’s for sure.

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Live_Taste_7796@reddit

Its not free, and that may be nice for small businesses (although there are better market driven alternative s), killing people due to rationing that universal government coverage leads to is not the moral option. If you bothered to even read the article, you wouldn't be promoting government healthcare.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wait-times-for-health-care-in-canada-2025

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Alan_Turings_Apple@reddit

Outcomes are better under universal systems. Like you can argue the philosophical desire to have a more free market system.

But people are healthier when they have access to cheap subsidized healthcare, this is an established fact.

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Nycmale9876@reddit

Name one US govt program that is run efficiently. By the way who is the largest medical insurer in the country. Give you a hint DC

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Live_Taste_7796@reddit

You did not read the article so i will copy and paste.

"Many Americans laud the low cost of Canada’s single-payer health-care system, which imposes a low level of consumption on everyone. It costs half as much per capita as America’s but rations access to specialty care and limits access to treatment with waiting lists, producing consistently worse outcomes for seriously ill patients."

Canada's produces worse outcomes for serious illness.

But people are healthier when they have access to subsidized healthcare, this is an established fact.

Actually no, your opinion is not an established fact.

It is an established fact that more free market healthcare provides better out comes for a more affordable cost.

https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-arent-there-more-free-market-surgery-centers-and-clinics

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rymden_viking@reddit

Logically speaking this is true. Doctors can find problems early, and treat them when they're small and cheap, when people see them for every little thing because it only costs a little. But when people wait the problems become exponentially more expensive to fix, many die leaving their debt on the hands of the hospitals/insurers. So the prices go up for everyone to compensate.

However single payer isn't the answer to making Americans healthier. Most Americans don't have/find the time to exercise or cook natural meals, and premade food is exceptionally bad for us. Hell, I work for a company that runs its own restaurant and feeds us lunch everyday. Grown ass adults eat the sodium-laden meat and the carbs, and throw away the veggies. I watch this every day. So we're still going to have worse health outcomes than other nations that prioritize home life, real food, and walking.

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Alan_Turings_Apple@reddit

However single payer isn't the answer to making Americans healthier.

We have more options then single payer. But I actually agree with your sentiment, its going to take a major culture shift for people to be willing to change their habits, though I see some progress in this area already.

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LanceLynxx@reddit

Ah yes the very libertarian position of big government

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Rozdolna@reddit

If we make the government big enough it'll die of a heart attack 😌

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Alternative_Pilot_92@reddit

It would also allow far more people to try to start small businesses because they wouldn't have to worry about going without employer insurance.

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Generic_On_Reddit@reddit

And it would allow people to switch jobs more often when their healthcare isn't being held hostage.

If you have a toxic or abusive employer, you risk not only your income but your health insurance is you leave that employer. Even hopping to another job - if you can find one - is a gamble because their health insurance may not be as good as the one you're leaving.

A universal option makes employers have to work harder at keeping employees rather than simply providing something that keeps them captive.

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Alternative_Pilot_92@reddit

The question is how to implement it without it turning into the hell hole of wait times like Canada and the UK.

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humanist-misanthrope@reddit

Where I am in the US, new patient wait time is 3 months or greater. For established patient it can be quicker, but if you have to reschedule then it could be 3 months or more. Add to this, if I stray even a bit from my “network” nothing is covered.

I don’t know how that stacks up, but I have pretty decent insurance through my spouse’s employer. This has been the same throughout my adult experience save for the one time I had universal healthcare while serving in the military.

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Alternative_Pilot_92@reddit

That's not been my experience. I had to have heart surgery last year. Got into a specialist in 2 weeks who sent me to a surgeon and everything was done in about 2 months, including diagnostics. I supposedly live in a pretty bad part of the US for healthcare too.

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Logdale2@reddit

I CANT find an endocrinologist that is accepting new patients within 100 miles. Tell me again how it’s working so well now and we can’t change anything to try and improve the system.

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Generic_On_Reddit@reddit

We already have hellhole wait times longer than any country on earth. Wait time studies don't account for waiting that happens before ever contacting a doctor. My friend hasn't been to the dentist in years because he can't afford it. I've been putting off an issue with my back because I might spend a grand across 2 appointments WITH health insurance without even arriving a solution. This waiting keeps people from healthcare but won't be included in wait time surveys.

Our system that prices people out of healthcare unless it's absolutely life threateningly necessary is more severe rationing than any publicly funded system.

From an OECD study on waittimes across nations.

In traditional markets, prices are used to ration goods and services and bring together demand and supply. In the health sector, due to public or private insurance, people face zero or low co-payments and there is therefore very limited reduction in demand due to prices. Instead, in publicly-funded systems, rationing for non-emergency treatment occurs through waiting times.

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Rare-Bet-870@reddit

Small business would also thrive under less regulation and tax

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Rozdolna@reddit

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grey_wolf_al@reddit

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dark4181@reddit

Because the insurance companies bribed Obama to pass ACA.

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ZincSuppsRopeMan@reddit

The ACA was going to have a public option until it was killed by Joseph Lieberman, which would have reduced the cost of all private insurance by providing an artificially low price floor in the market. Joseph was lobbied by insurance companies in his state and threatened to filibuster unless the public option was removed, so it was. Now, under our current system, not only do your taxes go to medicare and medicaid, but they ALSO go to subsidizing health insurance companies that don't do anything except DENY you service. So you actually LOSE money by not having a public option, which Obama had in his original ACA.

The exact opposite of what you believe is true.

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dark4181@reddit

You assume the ACA was designed to do anything but collapse under its own weight to justify ushering in single payer by making it look attracting in comparison. The guy that wrote the bill admitted as much.

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IDrinkMyBreakfast@reddit

No they did not. They bribed congress. Each party had their respective sponsors

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Korvex3@reddit

Government.

The answer to why we can’t have nice things is always our government.

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ZincSuppsRopeMan@reddit

This is just objectively not true since we currently do not have a public healthcare option, which is one of the reason parasitic middlemen (the private sector) are able to collude to form an insurance cabal that works together to screw Americans out of health care. Every other developed nation has a public option. We have worse health outcomes than most of them. Time for us to take notes from what works

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dev-random12345@reddit

We love to place blame on the government but would the absence of government in healthcare really lower the price of healthcare? How do you prevent huge insurance companies to not work together to form some sort of corporate-oply? How do you get them to cover pre-existing conditions? How do you get them to cover your unique, expensive medical issues? Sure, we can sue them but we need money and time.

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Illustrious-Fox4063@reddit

Look at cosmetic surgery. Insurance is not involved and it is a competitive market. Costs have gone down. Is it exactly apples to apples no but better than comparing private healthcare to the VA.

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dev-random12345@reddit

I would argue that cosmetic surgery is not a necessity in most cases, therefore patients can just wait and shop for the best price. But if you have cancer or need a speciality doctor, you don’t really have a choice. It’s a run against time. Why would I, a specialty doctor, who’s rare in the field, offer a cheaper price for you, when I have no competition? Why would I go into this field when the rarity of this special disease is non-existent.

I think this is where the government should step in and provide that solution.

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t0rnAsundr@reddit

Why are you a rare doctor? Perhaps there are some controls on how to become a doctor that distorts the market?

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Ya_Boi_Konzon@reddit

>We love to place blame on the government but would the absence of government in healthcare really lower the price of healthcare?

Without a doubt yes. There're so many things that the gov does that just completely mess up healthcare. Here's a "short" list of some of them: https://ibb.co/GRqXgX5

>How do you prevent huge insurance companies to not work together to form some sort of corporate-oply?

The same way we prevent it in every other industry: competition. Healthcare isn't some mystical thing that ignores the same laws of economics that apply to everything else. Besides, huge insurace companies are already doing this under the current regulatory regime -- in fact corporate favoratism on the part of the government is the exact thing that enables it.

>How do you get them to cover pre-existing conditions?

That's a whole can of worms, but really, pre-existing condition coverage isn't actually insurance. The gov forces insurance companies to cover it, but that's essentially a form of indirect welfare. By making it the domain of insurance, it causes premiums to rise. You can totally argue that we as a society should pay for the treatment of people with pre-existing conditions, but this should really be a separate program, outside of the insurance industry.

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Korvex3@reddit

To answer your questions in order

Yes, removing govt from every single industry it’s got its dirty tentacles in always lowers consumer cost by increasing competition, and removing barriers for corporate entry.

You prevent corporate-oply through deregulation allowing smaller private insurance companies to compete, and you allow cross state line competition.

If companies refuse to cover any preexisting conditions it means that will have almost nobody to insure, because who doesn’t have those? If a Pvt ins company doesn’t cover anything, who would choose to buy it? Nobody buys your product no matter how necessary your business goes under.

Supply and demand always wins

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bt4bm01@reddit

Actually the aca made it so you can’t sue them.

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dev-random12345@reddit

That’s not true. You can still sue but you need to do appeals and other shit they put in, probably from Insurance lobby. I’m not arguing for ACA. Fuck ACA.

But my point is, maybe we need a government Medicare plan that competes with private, un-subsidized market. Maybe? I dunno. Whatever we have now needs to change.

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Susbirder@reddit

Insurance companies know they thrive in this corrupted system and they work hard to prevent us from having a free market for healthcare (note I said "healthcare" and not "healthcare insurance").

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AlphaTangoFoxtrt@reddit

People are always shocked when you get a doctor bill, and negotiate saying:

What's would you accept if I could pay in full, right now.

Not having to deal with all the bullshit insurance companies force on you, much of which was pushed by law, drastically lowers the price and makes the system more efficient.

I know people who do billing, someone had to sit on the phone for an hour fighting a claim insurance refused to pay. They refused to pay because when the claim was sent over someone in data entry on their end typo'd the "billing code" so insurance was adamant the $200 test, which they'd only pay $100 for, was not covered. Absolute waste of time.

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FriendlyArachnid6000@reddit

"accidentally" couldn't confirm insurance I paid for months, 3 different clinics (identified through the insurance website) would not accept it until I forced a conference call between a receptionist and an insurance agent. Both parties just stood pointing the finger toward the other.

"Accidentally" advertised the FSA funds as usable at POS. Instead every spend required a receipt entered online for reimbursement; which they immediately found bullshit reasons to reject.

The level of scamming is going up with some plans.

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Adventurous_Focus994@reddit

Bingo. This has been very hard to explain to people who don't consider themselves libertarian (friends of mine).. This is always my main point..

Also, how many doctors visits could you circumvent if there was no drug war, and you could self diagnose, and get the pharmas you need for the lint in your pocket.

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