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Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

economist.com

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Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#11
post #9

From the Hackernews guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." This post is clearly political and calls for universal health care have been around for decades.

Universal health care helps startups.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#12
This article conflates public "essential health" services with universal, state-run healthcare. It also uses nondescript graphs, in image form and with no link to source data, to make sweeping, "correlation equals causation" points about universal health care and life expectancy.

This is an article trying to make an ideological case rather than to discern truth.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#14
post #9

From the Hackernews guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." This post is clearly political and calls for universal health care have been around for decades.

It's only political to a certain segment of Americans. For pretty much every other major country, it's just the natural, correct state of things.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#15
There are lots of problems you can avoid when you are able to regularly get a checkup from your doctor.

Also not everything is only a cold and having someone who can check early for complications might save a lot of lives or prevent people from far worse conditions.

Last but not least: Access to mental health services like cognitive behavior therapy that replace or supplement only eating pills might help a lot of folks with addiction and raises productivity.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#16
post #11
post #9

From the Hackernews guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." This post is clearly political and calls for universal health care have been around for decades.

Universal health care helps startups.

And helps people feel empowered to try to start their own company.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#17
post #11
post #9

From the Hackernews guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." This post is clearly political and calls for universal health care have been around for decades.

Universal health care helps startups.

It would also help most big companies with spiraling health care costs, as well as lower paying jobs that can’t afford to provide benefits anyways.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#18
Universal health care is a euphemism for the poor and sick getting their medical care subsidized by the wealthy and healthy.

Morally, caring for the sick seems like the right thing to do, but it's like when I hear Bernie Sanders call for "free college education": he doesn't mean free, he means the wealthy subsidizing it for others.

Universal health care implies just distributed costs, but the focus should be on bringing down costs so the payments don't have to be so astronomical.

For example:

-Nurses could do a lot of things doctors do now, and for a lot less money, but MDs refuse to cede any authority.

-Medicare should be allowed to negotiate drug prices.

-Hospitals should pre-publish costs upfront before you accept care rather than saddle you with 100K in bills later on.

All of these things would help bring down cost but for political reasons we don't do them. Instead it's just about making wealthy people (which, for the record, I am not) pay more to cover for it.

Even if caring for the sick is just it shouldn't be accomplished just by a wealth transfer (to be fair, the ACA had some provisions to bring down the cost of care, but not nearly enough).

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#19
post #13
post #5

We should think of healthcare (not insurance, care) as our #1 national defense priority.

I get your sentiment, but I personally feel that education should be our #1 defense priority.

No need to fight over which one gets to be called number 1. Both are components of a whole vision; a healthy, thriving populace, building off the successes of one another to create a better experience for everyone, rich and poor alike.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#20

Universal health care is a euphemism for the poor and sick getting their medical care subsidized by the wealthy and healthy. Morally, caring for the sick seems like the right thing to do, but it's like when I hear Bernie Sanders call for "free college education": he doesn't mean free, he means the wealthy subsidizing it for others. Universal health care implies just distributed costs, but the focus should be on bring…

> Nurses could do a lot of things doctors do now, and for a lot less money, but MDs refuse to cede any authority

Nurse practitioners are actually increasingly common in the American health care system.

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