Submitted by Thegreatcornholio459 t3_1267104 in explainlikeimfive
Jf2611 t1_je7vwjl wrote
Universal healthcare is publicly provided and funded healthcare. Free and accessible to everyone.
The critics of this type of system argue that the quality of the care is subpar because there is no profit in it for the provider to give good care only the basic level.
Proponents of it argue that other countries that have it do not have any issues with the level of care they receive.
It would be a difficult thing to implement in the US because the insurance and healthcare industries are so large at the present time. A lot of large companies would suddenly not be needed, which would cause a very large number of people to be suddenly unemployed.
Chromotron t1_je80s6w wrote
> A lot of large companies would suddenly not be needed, which would cause a very large number of people to be suddenly unemployed.
This is the worst reason ever. The true reason why the US cannot change is that those huge companies lobby the sh*t out of politicians and spend billions on spreading propaganda such as that.
Jf2611 t1_je81w0h wrote
I didn't say that it was the right system, only that this is one of the realities of doing away with healthcare for profit.
If the US government suddenly banned privatized communications, and everyone had to use a new national internet and cell phone network - wouldn't a lot of people doing redundant jobs at ATT, Verizon, TMobile and other telcoms be suddenly out of work?
Not acknowledging that aspect of making a change over to universal healthcare is to only see the forest for the trees.
Manofchalk t1_je81iit wrote
> Universal healthcare is publicly provided ... healthcare
Not necessarily.
Australia's healthcare system incorporates a lot of private healthcare providers, on the lower level (GP's, dentists, etc) to my knowledge it is mostly private.
Private providers negotiate with the public insurer, Medicare, for how much they are paid per medical procedure and any extra they charge to the patient or any supplemental private insurance they might have. Some aim to charge entirely within what Medicare provides (called Bulk Billing services) while others charge more.
Jf2611 t1_je8297v wrote
Very good point. There is a lot of complexity to the issue, but this is ELI5, so I thought it best to keep it simple.
Fortressa- t1_je958iy wrote
Just to clarify, private providers do not negotiate with Medicare. The Medicare Benefits Schedule is set and the provider can take it or leave it. There are tweaks and new items and occasional indexations, but the rate is the rate. Docs can charge whatever they want, and the patient will only get back what the MBS says.
Spinaccio t1_je7x4tv wrote
But, wouldn’t the new administrator need most of the same people to manage the system?
Jf2611 t1_je7yn4n wrote
Not even close. There is a whole industry within the industry. Insurance companies have sales teams who are responsible for bringing in new hospitals to be "in network" as well as bringing in new employers and private citizens to use their insurance over someone else's. Then think about every insurance company and the amount of people in leadership roles that would no longer be needed - thousands of C level and VP level executives who "run" the various companies that wouldn't be needed anymore.
Then you have all of the customer service agents who answer questions about coverage to customers. Then you have a whole bunch of folks, like my wife, whose sole job is to verify that your insurance will cover the procedure you just scheduled for yourself.
Then you have all of the various ancillary jobs associated with those roles, admin, IT, etc. Not to mention all of the people that work for drug and equipment companies who "lobby" the insurance companies to cover certain drugs and what the costs would be.
Then you look at how many companies are in the industry to make a profit - drug companies for example. You start dictating to them at the government level how much they can charge for a drug or piece of equipment, suddenly they don't have an incentive to innovate and so people are laid off.
Medicine is a big business machine in the US.
Look up largest employers by state, so many of them are hospital networks. A lot of those jobs are admin related to dealing with the insurance companies.
Spinaccio t1_je804j3 wrote
That is a lot I didn’t know, thanks for answering. Do the countries with single payer insurance have similar networks?
Jf2611 t1_je8129c wrote
Not even close to the same scale. Single payer is a type of universal healthcare. In a nutshell, it means that a single entity is contracted to provide healthcare. They would need some admin, but nothing to the scale that the US system has. With a single payer system, there wouldn't be the need to verify insurance coverage, determine costs, etc. It is what it is.
Spinaccio t1_je81x7r wrote
So, would switching to a single payer system require a whole set of other programs to employ all these talented people? Like a New Deal? Seems like our gornment would have to do a lot of work to plan and administrate something so massive. Like, do their job.
Jf2611 t1_je82sky wrote
There would be a need for jobs, for sure. But there would be a lot of redundancy if your goal was to give everyone a job in the new system.
Let's say there are 10 insurance companies and we suddenly had to get down to one organization. So that's 10 CEOs down to 1 - what jobs do the other 9 get? The further down the chain of command the more redundancy you get. You could probably run the new administration with the headcount from two of those 10 companies, maybe even less since one system would allow for streamlined optimizations of policy and admin work.
Manofchalk t1_je8321u wrote
Would it require, no.
Would it be a good political move to do so, probably. Though attempting to cut down the US for-profit health insurance industry with its massive lobbying arm is already unhealthy for a political career so maybe the ire of thousands of unemployed middle managers and cubicle workers wont matter.
GermaneRiposte101 t1_je84ib3 wrote
A major advantage of Universal Health is that the they can use their size to reduce the cost of medicine, sometimes by several orders of magnitude
throwawaydanc3rrr t1_je89o91 wrote
Often this is done with rationing the care by wait lists.
In the United States it is (mostly) rationed by price.
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