Hiku said:
Yes what a nightmare that in any modern nation aside from USA, people don't die from not being able to afford the highest healthcare prices in the modern world set by drug companies that can't be negotiated by the government. |
For one, let's start by understanding that American healthcare habits and uses are different than their European counterparts. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/why-do-other-rich-nations-spend-so-much-less-on-healthcare/374576/
Yes, Americans pay more for healthcare overall but that is for a multitude of reasons, and basically all of them can be tied back to government meddling. The phenomemon of employer provided insurance that many Americans are forced to utilize, for example, has its origins in tax law from the 1940s. Government institutions like the FDA and the AMA control the supply of doctors / care providers as well as which drugs do or do not make it to market (while also raising the costs significantly to produce drugs ... thus making so called greedy pharma companies jack up prices).
Remove this interference (and assuming the ACA is repealed) and create a true free market for healthcare and prices would drastically fall. Competition will reduce costs; just as it does for any other sector of the economy where it is allowed to exist.
You mentioned a number of apples to organges lists that compare the U.S. (a geographically large and ethnically diverse nation) to the likes of the U.K., Switzerland, Norway etc. (geographically small and incredibly ethnically homogenous nations). Wouldn't it make more sense to compare the U.S. on overall social progress / human rights / etc. with countires like China, Brazil, India, Indonesia etc? Population does matter on these lists as health care is just one amoungst other factors.
The reality is that Americans have different priorities and most would rather not experience sharp increases in income tax just for a universal healthcare system they may not even need (many of uninsured prior to the ACA were either young / healthy, or in a position to easily afford care; even still you had emergency hosptial room visits / etc and other options for the truly destitute).
As for the supposed utopian universal healthcare systems seen in U.K. , Canada, many European countries, etc. There is an often unreported ugly side to universal converage in the form of wait times as a result of rationed care in an effort to reduce costs: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2016-08-03/canadians-increasingly-come-to-us-for-health-care
This of course is not even getting into the moral argument about whether or not you have the right to steal from someone just because you don't like paying your medical bills. There is no such thing as free universal health care, someone is footing the bill somewhere. Americans have, historically, opted to not live in a tax hellscape where much of their income is funneled into terribly inefficient entitlement programs.
You get what you pay for, and even with the ugly mixed economy health care the U.S. has now, it is still preferable to high taxes and rationed low quality care. Especially when one considers how unhealthy and obese the average American tends to be, the idea of sitting on a waiting list to see a specialist becomes less and less appealing for the average person in the U.S.
