Yeah, but how much would it cost in profits?
That's the only thing that matters in Amerika.
Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
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Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#92This is why it doesn't happen: politicians get bought. "Jeffries co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation between 2013 and 2021, but in August 2026, he stated he shifted his stance and stated that he no longer supports or co-sponsors the proposal." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakeem_Jeffries#Healthcare
Universal healthcare doesn’t happen in the US because a certain subset of the American population would rather have worse health outcomes than guarantee abortions, HIV prevention, and gender-affirming care. Also, ~150M people with employer coverage plus seniors on Medicare fear disruption more than they value expansion.
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Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
These types of studies, and the goals they aim to support, always frustrate me as solving a surface-level problem rather than root cause. The problem with US healthcare isn't who pays for it, its how damn expensive it is. As always there are multiple factors at play, my list would include corruption, lack of legal accountability/responsibility, and a population that is much less healthy than reasonable. Go after any…
Americans just consume a lot of healthcare services. Any substantial cost savings requires providing less healthcare service.
Citation needed (per capita please).
Given that people constantly, literally AVOID care because they can’t pay for it until it’s such an absurd problem that it’s very, very expensive, I struggle to believe this, at all.
And money amount doesn’t matter in this evidence because, again, Americans regularly avoid care until it’s catastrophic because they literally can’t afford it and/or have to wait for insurance to meet a certain harm level threshold where it literally can no longer be argued (emergency care)
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#94What about quality of care tradeoffs? In Canada, for example, you are forced to use the government system, and if it doesn't deem you important enough, there is no private option.
Interesting. In every European country I know of, the private option is still available. Just vastly cheaper and more beneficial due to having to compete with a public option which covers basic necessities, surgery etc.
Canadians can (and do) just cross the border and use private US health care. The vast majority of them live near the US border.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#95We've been down this road. ACA was predicated on studies like this, to no avail (it turns out that intense opposition chips away at it over time regardless of these studies). I'm of the opinion that, if your solution requires perpetual majority control of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, your solution is in fact a campaign slogan. I'm not saying that this is what is happening now , but I am saying that…
ACA is not Universal Health Coverage. So this would be different enough. And you don't need perpetual majority control, only sensible politicians for about a generation (like FDR/Truman/Eisenhower/JFK) to lock in a popular entitlement.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#96What about quality of care tradeoffs? In Canada, for example, you are forced to use the government system, and if it doesn't deem you important enough, there is no private option.
They have also started recommending patients just kill themselves too
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#97What about quality of care tradeoffs? In Canada, for example, you are forced to use the government system, and if it doesn't deem you important enough, there is no private option.
There are private options for lots of things in Canada, depending on the province.
Without data on what proportion of people are denied and what the consequences are, this isn’t a good faith argument.
On the flip side, cases that would get care in Canada are denied in the USA by private insurance. Private options are far outside the means of most people.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#98I'm honestly curious how we square this with the only experimental evidence we have on cost-sharing in the US, like the Oregon Medicaid Study and the RAND study which showed no impact on mortality or really any physical health outcomes at all.
UHC proponents are just excessively optimistic about impact on health outcomes.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#99What about quality of care tradeoffs? In Canada, for example, you are forced to use the government system, and if it doesn't deem you important enough, there is no private option.
I think the tradeoff is that in the US, on average one gets to spend about $4000 more per year and live about 3 years less when compared to Canada.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_vs_h...
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
$1 trillion more efficient in allocation of resources, freeing up money for consumer spending on everything.
Are you saying the government is an efficient allocator of resources?
Per the study we are discussing -- as well as the results from every single other developed country I believe? -- more efficient when it comes to healthcare, yes.