Debating the Role of Universal Health Care: A Perspective on Financing and Responsibility!
It also goes to show how financially illiterate these types of people are despite basing their entire worldview around finance.
American health insurance is already doing what he describes. That’s how insurance works. You pay your monthly premium, and it pays for other people’s health care. Do they think their premiums just sit in a vault untouched until THEY need to go to the doctor?
That’s the thing, they’re opposed to government socialized healthcare but are completely fine with private socialized healthcare — where they have less control and there is for certain more profit motives and greed.
“I don’t want to have to pay $X for healthcare! I’d rather pay $(X+P) for healthcare so someone I don’t know gets their yacht subsidized!”
Like, is that even a serious take? It makes you wonder
They just haven’t thought about it that far. Or more accurately don’t allow themselves to think that far because they refuse to challenge their world view.
They’re way too wrapped up in whatever moral panic is taking place to consider the full consequences and implications of their policy positions. It’s a tale as old as time, racist idiots licking the boot on their neck to protect them from “the others”. An entire political stance based on rabid dogs kept hungry and scared by their owners.
Do they think their premiums just sit in a vault untouched until THEY need to go to the doctor?
Unironically, I think they do. Seeing as that's precisely how they view social security.
It's worse than it seems, the US government spends more on health care per citizen than any other country, including ones who give top quality health care for free. The money is just funnelled off to hedge funds and share holders.
It's not "how can we pay for that?" It's already paid a few times over and still billed at multiple times the cost. And nurses are still underpaid and overworked.
The government could save billions by building their own hospitals and disregard the private sector
What’s even more fun about that stat is that the US gov’t is spending more on average per person than those countries while not even spending ANY money on a huge chunk of its citizens whereas those countries pay for 100% of their citizens.
No, actually you pay your premium, and then the insurance takes that money and does what it can to get out of paying for other people's care so they can pay larger dividends to investors and line executives' pockets with bonuses.
I always just laugh
The US spends more on military, than the entirety of Europe, England, and Canada. COMBINED
And what is that military actually doing? They're not doing anything with Ukraine or Gaza
Take the money that's going to throw guns into storage for 50 years until they become obsolete, and use it to pay for medicine. Seems pretty damn simple
For your information, that military is working very hard to be unable to account for about half of its assets annually! It’s on a streak right now, 6th year in a row that it’s failed it’s budgetary audits! That’s only roughly $4 trillion in unaccounted for assets. Working very hard!
Big fan of your work Mr. Heller. Catch 22 was a favorite of mine.
Then you have a poor understanding of how the US budget. And simple solutions are often wrong.
The issue is not a lack of funding. The US health system is already one of the highest tax burdens the country has. In fact the US spends more on healthcare than any other country on the planet.
It’s a matter of regulation (or lack there of) not a lack of dollars.
The reason it costs twice as much as actually sane and efficient nations is that the US is fully for profit. The very name says it all - for profit care. For profit even comes first. It's for profit. Care is the activity used to get profit. Once you apply that logic to every step in the chain - everyone chasing profit - you wind up at 18% of the GDP, and a nation where 60% of all bankruptcies (last I checked) were caused by medical bills.
US healthcare is more expensive for the nation per capita than any nation out there, with shit outcomes, and 30 million people having to go without due to poverty.
It has nothing to do with regulation. It has everything to do with it being a way to make billions and billions over the corpses of Americans.
For profit anything is ugly and wrong. Health care, especially so.
Which hundreds of nations has already figured out a long time ago.
And you fix that, by the person to whom you responded to's suggestion, by regulating away the profit part. HMOs were originally intended to be nonprofit for instance. I'm glad you both agree on how to solve the problem, and I agree with both of you.
But regulating the profit away doesn't help when the extra costs are caused in part not by profitmongering but by the nature of private healthcare itself.
With private healthcare every tube, syringe, Tylenol, gauze pad, bandaid, glove, water cup, blanket, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. times 10,000 has to be meticulously tracked through the system and its cost assigned to the right payer. In Canada they just have boxes of gloves and tubes sitting at the nurse's station; the only tracking is for the patient's benefit (ie. inventorying sponges used during surgery or medicines at the pharmacy). I cannot begin to explain just how phenomenally expensive this tracking and bookkeeping is, except to point out that a 750-bed hospital in the US will have a billing department twenty to thirty times the size of a 750-bed hospital in Canada. And then add all the duplication of effort on each insurer's side, all the people hired by every insurer to weigh in on whether a procedure should be covered or not (the rules take up literal books with most US insurers but are literally one page long in most Canadian provinces), plus all the collections agents, lawyers, paralegals, etc. involved in collecting medical debt...
But. But.. all those jobs!
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People will have to administer the universal healthcare. Those jobs will shift to public sector jobs.
Disabled, chronically ill, those who care for them full time, or dead people from otherwise preventable medical care can’t work jobs either
Then the right question must be "Why is healthcare so expensive in USA?"
From the opening monologue of Newsroom:
We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies.
The numbers may have shifted a little bit in the last 15 years, but we still spend an obscene amount of money being the world's police.
The US already had the highest healthcare cost in the world. Throwing more money at it wont help. It needs a different system.
It's almost like auctioning off healthcare to the highest bidder isn't a great way to deliver affordable healthcare services.
It's worse than that. We spend more on are military than the next 7 -8 top country's combined lol
I'm going to quote stuff. I hate that. Please don't get mad.
The US spends more on military, than the entirety of Europe, England, and Canada. COMBINED.
In terms of absolute dollars, we do, no question. Thing is, we could afford that AND healthcare (and education, and infrastructure, etc) if our tax rates were rational. People attack the largest piece of the discretionary budget without really acknowledging that the discretionary budget is a joke compared to our economy.
All that being said (and I stand by all of that), Europe sort of shoving all of their defense spending off on us is really a problem as well, especially with Russia trying to swing it's little dick around. They need to pay for their own national defense, and we shouldn't have to outspend the hell out of them to maintain the balance of power in the world. That's a real problem, and I'm not okay with them benefitting from our protection while bitching about how much money we spend on the military.
Europe has actually fully ramped up it's national defense spending because they're worried about another Trump presidency. If he wins (and an act of Congress passes) he can fully withdraw from NATO.
With the looming threat of Russia it just makes sense. All of NATO is in a proxy war with Russia right now. Remember how the US became a powerhouse in the first place? The military industrial complex. We made so many factories to build bombs that when we didn't need the bombs anymore we converted the factories to build other shit. They want to head that direction too. Many countries have ramped up their military budgets by as much as two to three hundred percent and that's just starting figures. They can't rely on the US to be there anymore.
At best, if we keep following the current trends, the US will become nothing more than an arms dealer to other nations. We already basically are to many, look at Israel.
NATO is spending $380 billion in 2024. That meets the 2% target. They aren’t freeloading.
Thing is, we could afford that AND healthcare (and education, and infrastructure, etc) if our tax rates were rational.
You could afford all of that AND healthcare and pay less money.
In exchange, USA's dominance is never challenged by Europe. It is a good deal for USA.
I look at the numbers of my minimal coverage+high deductible that I basically have to pay and it always feels like such a raw deal.
It would be cheaper for the US as a state and it would be cheaper for healthcare recipients. The only ones losing out would be insurance companies, and they are bribing politicians to make sure that never happens.
That's the big joke about American healthcare. It's not good, but at least it's really eypensive 🤡
You don't even need a rare disease to do that.
Clearly Trent doesn't understand how insurance works
Yup. You’re literally paying for other (insured) people’s care because that’s how shared risk works. AND you’re paying prices inflated by the hospital to cover the care of uninsured patients who can’t pay.
We literally HAVE socialized healthcare…it’s just run by 50 separate middle-man companies trying to make a “rent-seeking” profit rather than treating it like a natural monopoly and tackling it in an efficient manner.
We as Danes just got an open letter in the newspapers from Bernie Sanders.
Asking that we demand from Novo Nordisk that they should lower their price on the new diabetic/weightloss medicine.
And you just nailed it. The medicine sold in US is cheaper than here in Denmark. But you have so many middlemen profiting off it. Before the end user gets it.
How much is it in Denmark?
One hundered billion dollars!
Wow, so still cheaper than North America 🙄
More expensive than Canada
I suppose I might have been being a bit glib haha
Jerry McGuire hasn't been made yet
Starting at 2500 Dkr up to 8000 Dkr. Depending on how you are extra insured.
Or how much you make in salary. (Max 50% off 8000 from the government. And another 50% private extra insurrance)
Or if its nessecary to live. (Minimum 60% off 2500 and 50% if you have private insurrance)
Or if you just want to loose weight. (Full price 8000)
That's always the big one. Granted private insurance is a personal responsibility, but either way, both systems are based on everyone paying into a pot that pays out (hopefully) when you actually need it. Everything else is somebody being greedy and selfish somewhere. Either people despise the idea that they're "paying for other people's problems" (even though with private insurance you still literally are), or you're the insurance company that doesn't want this sweet, profitable ride to end anytime soon.
A previous place I worked had a mandatory course on insurance and enrollment because they had so many people not understanding it. One employee that used as an example declined insurance but then called up HR after being in a car accident saying he needed insurance now because he was in the hospital. He apparently thought you could just enroll when you had medical expenses to make someone else pay for it.
Called "preexisting conditions" in healthcare insurance. Coverage of which is one of the "benefits" of Obamacare.
https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/pre-existing-conditions/
This is why we have enrollment periods and insurance doesn’t pay for what happened before the plan becomes active. It is absolutely a benefit, no quotes needed.
Let's face it, insurance is you gambling that something bad will happen to you. You lose if you never have to claim, but you probably don't feel like a winner if you have to.
Christ rock coining it as In-case-shit-happens will live in my mind forever.
Insurance is a bet you want to lose.
Brandolini's law in action. Its crazy how talking points that have zero basis in reality stick in people's brain and cannot be removed from discourse by any amount of fact presentation.
People are so afraid of paying for their neighbor's healthcare via a public option that they'd rather pay for their neighbor's healthcare via a private option and pay for the salary of a bloodsucking middleman whose sole job is to find a way to tell you 'no' when you need healthcare.
The US spends more tax dollars per capita on socialised healthcare than the UK spends per capita on the NHS. That’s not including private healthcare insurance at all.
So Americans are already spending their taxes on it, they’re just getting a really shit return on that spending compared to most other 1st World Countries.
“I don’t want my money to pay for other people’s problems, I want it to pay for other people’s problems and finance a holiday home and new super car for an insurance ceo”
$1.8 trillion paid for by US taxpayers last year. It's such a joke that these people don't understand how things work. Whatever the idiot box tells them is the truth.
If you pay your monthly health insurance premium and make no claims, your premium is being used for other people's claims.
With universal healthcare, it's the same thing, except that instead of health insurance premiums, you're paying more in taxes.
But with universal healthcare you don't have to worry about fighting your insurance company to cover your claims or worry if they're going to find a reason to get out of paying. You'll no longer have to worry about dealing with that bullshit the next time you have a medical emergency or avoiding treatment because you can't afford the deductible.
Universal healthcare allows you to focus on what's best for your health instead of worrying about finances. There's a reason the majority of 1st world nations have some form of universal healthcare. It simply makes sense.
Which most estimate would cost less overall than the private insurance you are paying for anyway, especially because then everything could be regulated.
Of course, I don't expect to see this in my lifetime. In my 40 years, I've only watched greed and selfishness win, along with increasing messaging making sure no one tries to think too hard about how much they're being screwed all the time.
And the country as a whole has more bargaining power against giant pharma corps. America's mishmash of insurance patchwork makes it much more susceptible to price gouging and lobbying. It maximizes corporate profit and minimizes the public good of a healthy population.
Aaaaaaand also not paying dividends to shareholders.
This comment reflects a strong viewpoint on the concept of universal health care and taxation.
Implying personal responsibility in these scenarios overlooks the broader societal benefits of collective investment in public welfare.
I pay my taxes. It’d be great to use it for paying for my healthcare.
Maybe we need an Army Corps of Healthcare Workers or something. Convince the conservatives that it’s patriotic to “fight” injuries and disease with training and preventative medicine
Ironically the US military is one of the biggest socialist organizations on the planet. Government gives people (who might otherwise struggle to find employment) jobs, housing, clothing, food, and healthcare.
I love bringing that up with right wingers.
They just say that you should have joined the military.
Thankfully in my country military service is mandatory, so I can just deadpan: I did.
Then say that you are not a socialist.
Funny how most people who advise people to join the military never served themselves.
And all for the low, low, price of possible getting killed in some far away land. And if you don't get killed and get out, the government just doesn't care about you anymore if need them for anything.
Most roles in the military are never going to see combat. Only around 15% of military personnel see combat. Your chances of getting hurt or killed in the us military are pretty low.
Though that is statistically true, its like saying you only have a 1/6 chance of dying in Russian Roulette.
Or saying "the World was a safe place during WW2", only an additional 50 million out of 5 billion died.
It buries the lede.
If you were enlisted during the wars in afghan/Iraq you still 6 times safer than if you were a logger.
From what the CDC says the average fatality rate for U.S. workers is 7 per 100K, the military during 01-10 was 27 per 100K, Logging is 164 per 100K.
Obviously the military is more dangerous than working a 9-5, but it isn't a fraction as dangerous as most people imply it is.
Heck this year the on duty fatality rate for the army was 1.3. Almost 3x lower than the national average for workers.
I'd probably be more worried about all the injections they give you or the potential cancer from the burn pits though.
Remember kids, If you need to join the military join the Navy or the Air Force. Maybe Space Force, but I don't know crap about em.
Though this is not a competition of who can die the most; the point is logs dont fight back.
War is like a cancer. If things go wrong, that stat goes from 15% of combatants, to 100% of the world. In fact, "war" means things have already gone wrong, and WILL go to a 100% until someone steps in.
When a logger fails, someone wont get their wooden floors delivered until next week.
When a "warfighter" fails, "danger" becomes an everyone problem.
I'd probably be more worried about all the injections they give you or the potential cancer from the burn pits though.
See, this is where your argument falls apart.
Fatalities is a cherry-picked stat and ignores a lot of other aspects of post-military life. What about permanent disabilities and impairments? What about mental health issues like PTSD? What about the suicide rate among veterans?
Typically redditors thinking they're being smart with the "uuuhh ackshuallyyyy logging is more dangerous than war!", when in reality they're too stupid to even follow the basic point.
You shouldn't be blackmailed into going to war just to get a basic living standard, especially in the richest country in the world. That's the point people were making. Not "if you were forced to go to war or be a logger, which is better?" Literally nobody asked that.
Well then, let me just roll the dice on getting shot or permanent health problems all for the chance to get a college degree.
Found the recruiter!
But in the case of my country, hasn’t gone to war in like 100 years, and apparently the most death are happening during “obligatory service” (don’t know how to translate that to English ) because of the negligence of the instructors
Conscription is the English term.
I’m not a recruiter. I don’t have any interest in joining the military. I just think this narrative of “oh you’re trading all these perks for potentially getting killed” is a little overblown. Most likely you’ll never see any combat if you join the military in the US. Probably true of most militaries around the world.
That's a whole ass mood. When I got out of the Marines it took 2 years for me to start receiving my disability pay, even though they had access to my medical records and could see the gradual decline in my health that started after my first year in. Had to jump through so many hoops just for them to honor their word.
... 'government doing things' isn't what socialism is. Government provision of jobs, housing, clothing, food, healthcare is not what past socialists have advocated for. Sweet Jesus. Bismarck instituted such programs, you know, the whole german imperialist and notable antisocialist?
Socialism is worker control of the productive bits of society. Direct control, not by some other group. Some folks have tried to argue that control by some other group by proxy counts but that has been seen as a fraud (for example, by striking miners in the USSR who discovered that no, a distant group of bureaucrats in the capitol do in fact have different interests than rural miners in the caucasus and so control by bureaucrats does not in reality amount to direct control by workers).
The US is not at all socialism. The US today is the quintessential capitalist political and economic system. Trying to call the US military socialist amounts to erasure of what socialism actually is, deliberate misinformation.
No wonder, in Europe the social welfare system is based on Prussian military veteran welfare services. Also I think Americans would specifically like the German healthcare system where there is no central state healthcare but a state mandated framework on required services and costs which has the side effect of making healthcare contributions tax deductible since it is not a tax.
Maybe we need an Army Corps of Healthcare Workers or something.
Too young to have been around for National Service and my feelings about it are mixed/conflicted. However, after a previous life where I worked as a Carer for a few years, I'm playing with the opinion of a "Care" focused National Service for school leavers. Maybe coupled with Uni for those that want to/can?
While we're at it, how about a D.A.R.E. program for illness?
"Say No To Cancer"
Sorry best we can do is more subsidies to multi-billion companies.
Way, way better than using it to blow up brown kids
In Canada and most European countries do this
We know, but you didn’t have a massive campaign to prevent it from happening in your country. You weren’t brainwashed into believing that everything is better when we commodify it.
Oh don't worry we're working on getting that last part.
Yeah, a reminder, enjoy hospitals charging you $100 for OTC cough drops, 25,000 for a hip replacement, and half a million for open heart surgery (and have to pass credit checks before you’re allowed onto the list)
I’d rather taxes go to healthcare than a fly-over by the Blue Angels at a half-time show.
Funny thing is, we can have both.
America already spends 50% more on healthcare than the next highest spending country.
And why is that? Because most is covered by insurance companies. BIG insurance companies.
I got broken in to, father's gold watch was stolen. Went to the jeweller, found a watch, asked for the price "We could do that one for $6k" "I need that in a quote for insurance" "ohh insurance... ...that'll be $8K" I was astounded "Its insurance. What do you care?"
Now that's just for a watch. How much are you prepared to pay for your health? I'm in Oz, we have universal healthcare. If you NEED it, you can get it via public health. Yes, there can be wait times for somethings, but if it's needed you get it AND we have Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Many years ago our government sat down with the BIG pharmas and told them 'Our country, our rules' certain approved medications are price capped and for low income individuals, prescriptions are capped at less than $10/prescription. The pharmas hate it. They can't charge exorbitant amounts for prescription medications here. In fact a few years back they tried to take the govt to the international court for unfair practices. It was thrown out of court. If they want access to the Australian market they have to play by our rules.
Seriously, or the healthcare of others. I honestly have never understood the objections.
Universal healthcare is easily in the top five best uses of taxes possible. Infrastructure (sewage, electricity, roads, city staff, etc.), education (incl. libraries), firefighters, social welfare, and healthcare.
Imo, anything else can receive whatever is left once those five things are covered.
bUt MuH bIlLiOnAiReS
They used the slippery slope argument to bamboozle your parents, then pushed the propaganda of, “government doesn’t do anything right.”
There's truth to it. Look at the post office where a certain political party actively sabotages the service
Government doesn't work. Elect us and we'll prove it!
-the mantra of a certain political party
Every G7 nation , except one does exactly that.
The crazy thing is, the US spends 4 times per capita what the UK does. It could provide absolute top notch care, free at the point of use. The only problem with that is, they wouldn't be subsidising the whole medical insurance industry.
But private insurance health care is the same. They collect money from multiple people and then gope tye make a profit by making sure most of then will never need their money
It's also a broad and selfish position, assuming that everyone's medical "problems" are their own fault. What about cancer, genetic conditions, mental illness, etc. that we literally had no responsibility for? People who need insulin or other medications to not die? And eventually any of us could be seriously ill or injured, so sooner or later, even those so despising "paying for other people's problems" will suddenly be the one with the problems. And you bet without blinking an eye, they'll suddenly be so receptive to any help they can get.
You really wanna own this stance? Next time you're in the hospital, refuse any insurance, grants, charities, whatever, and pay 100% out of pocket at cost.
I honestly wish society overall implemented more of this across the board. "You don't want to pay in? Fine, we don't have to pay out for you then. Have a good life."
It also highlights how people have a fundamental misunderstanding of how private insurance works.
It's a pool of people, helping to finance other people's problems. But that company also invests that pooled money for profit, which they don't share with the people in the pool. Oh,and they can not pay your for your medical needs and just drop you for any reason.
But I'm sure Trent will say that's not how it works.
Trent will say "well my house has never burnt down" and unironically agree that you shouldnt have to pay for Trent's fire fighters.
Trent probably believes that other people's suffering is the righteous punishment for sin, and Trent's suffering is god testing him because he forgot to punish others for their sin.
Because Trent is a narcissist with the emotional intelligence of a rutabaga.
This comment is screaming AI to me, like you asked GPT to summarise the contents of this post and give one possible counterargument
That’s a trend I noticed a lot recently.
There’s a picture and a comment will just straight up describe what’s going on in it.
The dead internet theory seems increasingly relevant lol
I agree with this human.
Upvotes if you also agree!
High-five with our normal hands!
Seriously how is no one else noticing??
The way people keep upvoting and replying to it😭
this post is bot garbage but what's scarier is that most people don't even notice or care (or they're bots too for all i know)
The title also looks CGPT-generated. It's weird because the rest of the activity on this account doesn't look like this.
This. This exactly.
The US military provides healthcare, housing, and education to its service members and their families because it's rightfully seen as a force readiness issue. A sick soldier can't fight, a soldier who has problems at home isn't focused on the task at hand, a soldier who's too stupid to do anything but hold a rifle isn't useful if the shit hits the fan, and so on. It's an investment to make sure the military can get the most out of its servicemembers, plain and simple.
Now replace "force" with "workforce." Same principle applies.
Workforce readiness might be exactly the wording needed to sell this to those more worried about the economy than the people
I don’t have kids, but I don’t mind paying taxes so we can have good public education. Why? Because I understand that having a well-educated citizenry is good for the country and benefits me in the long run.
And yes, I understand that there’s much to criticize about public education, but imperfection does not mean we should abandon public education either.
guys this is ai generated
It's wild how selfish people can be. It's so sad for all of us.
It's also literally how every single form of insurance works.
personal responsibility
When they say this, what they really mean is "you are on your own".
Personal responsibility means getting together to solve problems. They are actively against that.
So fun fact, in ancient Rome, Marcus Licinius Crassus operated a fire brigade. He would take said fire brigade and stand in front of burning buildings and offer to purchase the building from the owner for a fraction of its value. If the owner agreed to a sale, they would put the fire out. If not, they would just let it burn.
That's literally the reason we have public services funded by taxes today. So people can't extort you when you are in a dire situation like a house fire.
People could save thousands a year with universal healthcare, but they would rather hurt the people they don't think are worthy.
The amount of things that Americans encounter every day that are products of socialistic policies would blow Trent’s mind. Did you drive on a road today? Breathe clean air? Drink clean water?
Well republicans want to remove the last two through cutting the EPA and other environmental regulations
Nestle's CEO said that clean water is not a right, it should be marketed and sold.
Seriously, playing Outer Worlds is laughable at how simple it is to portray evil corporations as idiots
In that case having your abdomen remain unstabbed is also not a right.
That’s literally how the economy and society works in general. We all agree on a value given to funny green papers. We all agree to not kill and destroy each other. The products we buy finances the company to produce and research more products that’s available to others. We pay into this contract with each other so that we don’t have the whole burden of surviving in this world alone.
Communists by nature, Capitalists by choice.
I feel like no one understands/cares about a basic, fundamental community anymore.
Or that promoting basic, preventative care before things get out of control would greatly benefit the country. I feel like if the government paid for basic preventative and checkup care, it would eliminate those costs for insurance, and then insurance can be for actual catastrophic issues beyond basic preventative care, like cancer, car accidents, etc. This is obviously not inclusive of everything, like people with autoimmune diseases like my wife, but operating off this basic premise and building on it from there would seemingly work for everyone. It makes sure we have a healthy workforce, which is more productive, which benefits ownership class, shareholders, and everyone else trying to make money off the system.
"Human beings are the only species that won't save themselves because its not cost efficient" Kurt Vonnegut
I also love people who devoutly “back the blue” but also think taxation is theft and why can’t we pay police from the giant free money tree?
Yeah this is so bizarre . Taxation and welfare is evil unless for police ?
It's fascism. Greed unless you're paying state forces to jail those you don't like. It won't make logical sense because it's not based on logic, but on emotion. Right-wing positions are usually based on two emotions, in my experience: Fear and anger. Both of those can and do override logical thought.
This is why the debates are endless and we feel like we're never getting anywhere. Because you can't debate someone out of what is just a fear response. They will always think you're wrong and that the fear is right.
Fuck the American Healthcare System. Long waits, expensive as hell, making claims fucking sucks. It’s all terrible. Also the biggest freaking con is that it’s tied to employment. Fuck capitalism.
yeah but if you happen to be a senator or one of the 500 filthy rich people you're medical care is unparalleled; wont somebody think of the oligarchs?!
These stupid dipshits don’t realize that insurance pools are universal health care with an industry rakeoff and higher prices. Paying insurance premium while well = participation in free enterprise. Paying taxes into UHC while well== getting ripped off by socialist freeloaders.
In Arkansas, they’re now using public tax dollars to fund private schools. But sure. Handouts.
That’s insane.
Arkansas politicians are absolutely useless to the needs of its citizens
Here’s the thing too. You’re already paying for the medical expenses of people who contribute nothing to society. You’re just doing it in a more expensive way. When some dipshit with no job or money blows up his trailer cooking meth and his friends manage to drag his burnt ass to a hospital the medical staff doesn’t just say, “He can’t pay. Throw him in the dumpster.” They should do that if we are going to really have for-profit free market healthcare. But they aren’t evil, heartless robots. So the hospital spends half a million dollars treating him and then charge you $150 for two Tylenol. But good news, your awesome private insurance paid half so you only owe $75.
It’s not like this hasn’t been done in the (a little distant) past.
Far more recent than that
Despite some reciprocal arrangements, firefighting units would often ignore burning buildings which were not covered by their own insurance company. To overcome this issue, in 1833 a group of 10 fire insurers united to form the London Fire Engine Establishment (LFEE). It was London’s first fire service, and it was entirely funded by the insurance industry.
It's so weird there are Americans who want to pay MORE to a for-profit insurance company which has as its ultimate goal to charge you as much as possible, and deliver as little as possible.
Here is a simple chart showing the U.S. pays more for healthcare than any other country.
Our high healthcare costs starve other American businesses of your cash. Because there are so many medical bankruptcies which spread debt over the entire American population, we are already all paying for each others' healthcare bills - like single payer - but in the most complicated, expensive and cruel way possible.
Oh, and for anyone interested, we could cover ALL Americans cheaper, rather than leaving out the 20-30 million Americans who aren't covered. Because they can't access preventative care, you the taxpayer will foot the bill when they go to the emergency room at great cost. To you. Republican President Ronald Reagan socialized medicine this way. Why did Reagan do this? "Up until 1986, in the USA, hospitals could turn a dying person away at the door if they didn’t have money, or refuse to treat."
Don't want socialized medicine? You're voting for murder.
glad I dont live in the US
Imagine having co-pays on top of INSANE premiums coming directly out of your paycheck every single month, and somehow not hating private insurance. There is no use even talking to these people. They've got free time and free will and every reason not to, yet still they waste it all shilling for private insurance that they should despise. Like any thinking person.
But what if Trent also pays the taxes? In that case he is getting the services he already paid for.
That said, Trent is a prick.
I wouldn't even bother giving these turds attention. They're just online hypocrites, their mind will change as soon as their needs change or as soon as trends change. They don't actually have a personality of their own, they're literally flesh bots that act based on online trends.
Counterpoint: if they get sick and go broke, we're all gonna be covering their far more expensive healthcare. Better to allow coverage before it gets bad.
And it benefits you too, Trent. The selfish, zero sum game that conservatives play still blows my mind.
also get your own security service instead of relying of socialized police force that is funded by other people.
Trent be the kind of name that already insinuates he doesn’t understand he already pays for those people healthcare. You think it’s not already subsidized, Trent?
He's a Mormon Missionary. Spreading the love of Jesus by refusing to take care of those in need. What a guy.
What douchecanoes like Trent don’t get is we’re already paying for people who don’t have healthcare.
Every time someone without healthcare has a situation where they have to visit the ER because they couldn’t afford preventative care, that cost eventually gets passed down to us through higher premiums as hospital costs increase.
If we’re already paying, we might as well get something of value for it.
Also, we shouldn’t create a country where we’re all one major illness away from financial ruin.
It's not a handout if you paid for it. That's what your taxes are supposed to be for...your benefit, not bailouts and subsidies for billionaires who refuse to pay their fair share.
People who were born with money tend to know the least about how things work.
These analogies never make a bit of sense. Yet the pleabs think it’s some gotcha moment. Trent already paid for the FD, why would he not call them? Is Trent getting his money back that he already paid or something? Or is this just another comeback that isn’t clever and is a n fact just a stupid take by a stupid person?
Trent sounds like someone who would be very consistent in this logic and be a staunch supporter of defunding the police! /s
Idiotic American!
Don’t even get me started on those freeloaders who use the police, roads, coast guard, military, embassies, etc.
If you get kidnapped by pirates, and dropped into Somalia without a passport that’s not my problem! Call around and illegally cross the boarder like those immigrants who pay their dues to get here!
Most Canadians pay less then $200 per month to finance our healthcare system, now compare that to the insane insurance premiums charged in the US.
You guys need free health care
I am a Canadian. My family and I are covered by a universal health care plan. I couldn’t be bothered with my tax dollars helping others.
That's right, keep fighting about it. Keep your tax money for yourself and keep paying the crazy high amount of medical bills. Here in the netherlands we all pay above 18, so i pay a max of around 150-170 a month. i have to pay a maximum of 385 per year if something is not regularly insured.
Ya Trent, fuck off
We already spend more on healthcare than it would cost to run universal healthcare. That money just goes to health insurance companies and pharma companies who then charge us even more after their tax subsidies
You already finance people's healthcare, you moron. It's called Medicare. Also, Medicaid. Also, Social Security. You've been paying into these programs your whole working life every time you pay taxes.
A Single-Payer system would greatly reduce the healthcare expenditures of the entire country on average, as assessed by the Congressional Budget Office.
Universal healthcare is the bare minimum to qualify as a modern and decent nation.
If he lives in a floodplain and receives federal disaster relief funds after his house floods, why should my tax dollars pay for his fucking house?
In America there are unfortunately places where firefighting is a subscription service. Happened in 2010 when a Tennessee man’s house burned down because he didn’t pay his $75 firefighting fee
Do they not know how insurance works?
My favorite Onion Headline:
"Libertarian reluctantly calls fire department."
On point. Trent is a magat douche for sure.
😂 outstanding
those that forget the past are fucking stupid pieces of shit that should be kicked around for about an hour
Roads, power infrastructure, schools, libraries, etc…
These idiots like to think they’re roughing it out in the big wilderness, pulling themselves up by they’re bootstraps when in reality they’re entire existence is curated and supplied by a huge network we call “civilization”.
I’m seriously getting tired of this shit, isn’t the point of this big human experiment to find a way to take care of everyone?
Currently, we are paying for billionaires to live lavish lives. It's like TRUMP. He could have paid Stormy for sex, $5k, and that would have been the end of this. Nooooooo, instead, he includes lawyers, NDA's, $130.000K hush money after-the-fact, using funds paid by...TAX PAYERS which were legally and politically earmarked strictly to pay political costs. Screwing a porn star is not a political cost. INSURAN E EXECUTIVES are identical to DUMBASS DONALD and those who think it's right for executives to be paid billions instead of shared costs across the board...you are full of shit and venom.
Psssch! Why would I pay for some poor's Healthcare when I can pay for a CEO's 3rd vacation home???
Healthcare is the responsibility if a society for itself. Failing to do so is a failiure of the society itself.
Sounds good. Let's privatize everything. Not to mention, over half of all firehouses in America are run and staffed by volunteers according to FEMA
they just don't get it. "It" being the basic contract of living in a society with communal assurances of safety and wellbeing. Like, that's why humans have always lived in groups lol, we're not all "rugged individualists" despite what your Ford F150 commercial told you about yourself.
Same kind of person who supports "Judeo-christian" values, but doesn't understand Jesus' love for the poor and sick.
Insurance is already a tool to socialize costs. We’ve just allowed it to be taken over by capitalists so now we’re all getting fucked. People in favor of for profit insurance are literally asking to be scammed. But sure, own the libs harder. Dumb bitches.
There's a simple answer for these morons.
A successful nation is healthy and educated. They produce more, live longer, and get that GDP up there, because they can work longer.
None of these idiots should have a problem with cranking out more shit to sell to other countries, since they're all so Pro USA. I mean, I'm pro USA myself, but these morons live and breathe that shit.
You literally pay more taxes without universal healthcare than with. There are situations where a hospital legally and ethically cannot turn away someone without insurance. But someone still has to pay for the treatment. And the patient isn't gonna pay off the whole bill at once. So who do you think is picking up the slack OTHER than the taxpayer???
Amongst the many lies told by deregulators, perhaps the most egregious is that a single payer system would be a downgrade in the quality of care.
As it currently stands, your insurer is the one with the actual power in the doctor/patient/insurer relationship. A doctor may recommend you for treatment, but your insurer can say, “no way are we paying for the thing the expert in this decision says you need.” They can also say, “mhhh…we’ll pay for it, but only if you do these other 10 potentially painful, extremely difficult, and/or redundant treatments first.”
Even if they do approve your doctor’s recommended treatment, they can also decide that the cost of your doctor’s work is too high, and rather than reimburse the doctor for the full cost, they might give em 75%. Practices like this are why small, physician-owned general healthcare practices, what used to be the literal basis of our medical system, are going the way of the dodo.
Doctors literally can’t afford to do business independently, and instead have to join a monopoly care system. None of this yields better healthcare outcomes, as the U.S.’ mortality rates illustrate. Instead, it helps to explain why our costs are so out of control. It is exclusively about profits for the insurer and the usually “nonprofit” hospital. It’s literal blood money.
So sad how easily people are manipulated into literally wanting a worse life for themselves.
When will people realize that taxes are inevitable? I would rather it help the community than making rich people richer?
Maybe I'm missing a something, but isn't very nearly EVERY FORM OF INSURANCE "financing other people's problems" - you know, in case one day they become YOUR problems? If I lose my house it's going to cost the insurance company way more to re-build it than they've collected from me in premiums. Gosh, I wonder where they find that money?
“I don’t want to pay for someone else’s medical expenses” says the person who’s insurance pays for other people’s medical expenses and shareholder value
Well, Trent is a fucking idiot.
if we all work together and spread the cost to everyone its cheaper and its helps people not worry about medical debt.
Thats why universal health care should be available for everyone, maybe this guy can be left out.
Social security and other welfare benefits are handouts… to the rich!! Stop the bullshit. If we forced all employers to provide the bare minimum (wage + retriement + healthcare), the only person losing out is billionaires and the uber rich who own a majority of the stock market. The reason they are so rich is because the governement pays for so many people making crap these welfare benefits. If their business had to pay those costs, their bottom line would be lower and their market value as well. If they paid for it out of their businesses, you and I wouldn’t need to pay for them.
True story. 13 year old Honduran with abdominal pains. In a “free” healthcare country Get to ER. Guy next to me has a knife in his head. Another dude has two elbows on the same arm. When we get checked in, staff says they won’t be able to see me for days. Told to go home. Go home, I get worse. Mom takes me to a premium hospital, one that you pay for. I was literally hours away from my appendix from rupturing.. Thank God, they saved my life.
Free healthcare can suck my balls. Ask Canada. Remember if it’s free, you get what you pay for.
House Insurance is something you opt into though.
In some rural counties, we pay a subscription to a county fire department in Tennessee.
If I pay the subscription, and I need them, I’m covered.
If I don’t pay the subscription and I need them, they still come but I then get a bill for their services.
It always drives me nuts when people say, "How could we pay for this?!"
I pay out the ass for health insurance that doesn't cover half what it should. I'd be fine with that money going to a public healthcare system where I don't have to worry that I'll get some super rare disease and eat through all my savings despite the amount I pay for healthcare already.