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TheGillos t1_jamigyn wrote

Typical "I got mine" psychotic mentality.

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william-t-power t1_jamk403 wrote

Psychotic? That seems a bit extreme. What I am describing is a typical experience with private insurance. Most of the time people describe health insurance in the US like only 10% of people have it.

Plus, if someone figures out how it works well, doesn't that interest you?

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TheGillos t1_jamx7jd wrote

> Try getting that QOS in a socialist system.

I mainly mean this line. You got your good(?) insurance, forget the social safety net!

I just did a quick check "Roughly 30 million Americans of all ages had no health insurance in 2021"... that's a lot. Not to mention the people who have crappy insurance that isn't nearly as good as the free options in other countries.

The US healthcare system suck for everyone except the well-off, which is a seemingly ever-shrinking amount of people.

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william-t-power t1_jamyx82 wrote

Criticizing the socialist alternatives is fair game IMO, and I was thinking moreso of Canada and England's systems. The detoxes and rehabs I brought up because those can literally be life changing and the lack of quick access to them can be a life or death thing. It's an area where I have a lot of personal experience. I once talked to someone in England who was an alcoholic who decided they needed help. They said they were approved for rehab but they'd have a bed in 8 months. Compared to next day or next week for private insurance, I think it's fair to call out the differences. There's obviously a lot of other differences too. Criticizing a system isn't a black or white thing, where doing so means you want it entirely annihilated and disavowed.

30 million is a lot. In a country of roughly 330m people that accounts for about 9%. That's pretty good in that it indicates that 91% do have insurance. The remaining 9% need options too, but ripping out something that works pretty well for 91% to accommodate the 9% is not a good strategy. Better to consider how to approach that small percentage instead while working in the existing structure, which is certainly doable. The problem is, people don't get elected for good, simple, boring solutions, they get elected for declaring they're going to rip everything out and bring utopia for us all.

For one thing, when I was in rehabs there were some people there who were under "scholarships" as the administration put it. They had no insurance and were there for free. It was because someone who cared for them reached out and described the situation to the facility, kindly asked if there was anything they could do, and they opted to take them in at no cost out of compassion. That only works though when it's a small percentage, they need to sustain the system with the majority of people who have insurance paying their way.

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TheGillos t1_jan2a8w wrote

Sorry, your healthcare comparatively sucks. Find one of the many articles titled something like "US Health System Ranks Last Among High-Income Countries" to learn more.

It might be working for YOU, and it might not be working for 1 guy in England (who knows his circumstance), but that doesn't mean much to me.

> The remaining 9% need options too, but ripping out something that works pretty well for 91% to accommodate the 9% is not a good strategy.

My point is it's not working for MANY of the 91% and 9% uninsured is a failure anyway... That's 30 million people. I think it's better to put it that way because it doesn't dehumanize them behind a small percent number.

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william-t-power t1_jan5kws wrote

As you can see from my comment, I didn't dehumanize them. I did put them in context, though. Also, you're mistaken about our Healthcare. Our Healthcare is some of the best in the world. One great stat of ours is cancer survival rates, it's one of the top. People fly to the US all the time for complicated procedures for a reason.

Our health insurance system is problematic. People confuse the two fairly often.

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TheGillos t1_jan7bt9 wrote

> Our Healthcare is some of the best in the world.

Find one of the many articles titled something like "US Health System Ranks Last Among High-Income Countries" to learn why you're wrong.

But you sound like you'll never be convinced because you're happy and "you've got yours".

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william-t-power t1_jan8atq wrote

Judging an entire healthcare system is not a trivial thing and what constitutes "great" is not straightforward. This is why I brought up our cancer survival rates. Cancer is a notoriously hard thing to treat and is a very complex thing. Doing well in that is a very good sign. Additionally, we have world class medical institutions like the Mayo clinic and John's Hopkins, which drive a lot of excellence and innovation in the US health care system. There's quite a lot of travel to the US for medical procedures, which certainly suggests quality in comparison to others.

It doesn't appear that you're open to any challenging evidence given how you flippantlty dismissed the example I gave with no analysis.

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