[Tainari88]

Literally thousands of people die each year in the USA because of a lack of access to medical care because of the costs of insurance.

It seems inhumane to say this is preferable than slightly longer wait times for elective medical treatments.

All you need to do is look at the people who show up for free dental and medical care in the USA. They only go there to the free clinics because they can't afford any other kind of care. Or they do not qualify for care.

The problem in the US system is that if you are covered by health insurance the deductibles have to be met first before the insurance kicks in. And you can have a dental plan in the USA but it covers very little of your needed treatments.

That is why there is massive dental tourism to Mexico because it costs about 66% to 90% less to get dental care in Mexico versus the USA and it is often of a higher quality. Especially dental implants, dentures and crowns, and root canals and more complex oral surgeries.

A typical freebie clinic in some rural part of Virginia gets swamped with people. It is like a war zone.

Why? Lack of affordability.

Reality is that health care in the USA is modern, and fully shiny and new. For the ones who can afford to pay those astronomical bills.

Most bankruptcies in the USA are about medical debt.

It is better than in many African nations though. You simply do not get any care or hospital treatment if you can't pay up front. It is in many ways for profit only medical care.

In the USA you can go and get the problem solved right away and well done and professional. But it is going to cost you 50% or more of your entire yearly salary or you will have to put up everything you own and your retirement income, to pay that bill. A lot just let it go to charge offs and collection agencies or be sued in claims court and make tiny payments for 70 years till you drop dead. You declare bankruptcy and live with no ability to get credit for a minimum of 10 years.

But you won't croak. You will be treated. Just never be able to move out of the USA, buy a home, a car, or get a decent interest rate on a credit card. I won't be able to leave the USA in terms of studying abroad. If you owe on a student loan or do you owe on high consumer debt? You will be denied the ability to leave the country.

Many people do not understand that.

Medical bills in the USA are payable by the upper middle class and above. Everyone else finds it highly unaffordable.

[wat0n]

There's also people who go do medical tourism in the US, particularly people stuck in long wait-lists and who'd rather pay to get care sooner or who need to do procedures than are available in the US but not their countries of origin.

Healthcare is complicated, the US healthcare sector (I won't say "system" because it's not really a proper system) has pros and cons. I'd rather address the cons while keeping the pros.

[Tainari88]

There's also people who go do medical tourism in the US, particularly people stuck in long wait-lists and who'd rather pay to get care sooner or who need to do procedures than are available in the US but not their countries of origin.

Healthcare is complicated, and the US healthcare sector (I won't say "system" because it's not really a proper system) has pros and cons. I'd rather address the cons while keeping the pros.

You solve the problem by creating a system of sliding scale and the people who work for a living make sure they have care that is available and efficient. Studies have been done over and over again on how to improve the system Wat0n. The problem becomes why the improvements are never made. The answer is simple. GREED.

People are assessed like a Wall Street investment. They do that in the insurance industry too. It is basically underwriters and risk assessments. Who is this patient? Pre-existing conditions. Will require x amount of meds, supplies, check-ups, nutritionists, physical therapists, internal medicine folk, gynecologists, possibilities of developing cancer is this, which means access to an oncologist, and cancer treatments....x amount of profit loss. DENY. Next!!!

Young person, non-smoker, does exercise, has a college degree, BMI is within very healthy limits, has no family history of alcohol abuse, and x or y mental health treatments, etc. Good investment. Take him on and give him a good rate for like broken bones due to too much physical activity. Do a high deductible so the rate looks good to him or her. Next!!!

The problem is that people are not machines or commodities and people who are ill, need care to then go back to society and be the best human person they can be.

If you are ill and unemployed and lose your health insurance due to being unemployed and you are an adult who is the only one who has a job that offers private health insurance and you pay more for it than you do your mortgage payment every month and you get laid off and your spouse and you and your kids are all left out to dry and hang when you got ill and the kid has a broken arm at baseball....etc. You are in deep, deep shit in the USA.

The ambulance costs about $5000, urgent care another couple of grand $2000, follow-up meds, etc another $100 or so. There went your savings for emergencies for the year.

I was a medical case manager @wat0n. One patient I had with HIV was a hemophilia patient. She cut herself at age 12 by mistake and in the mid-eighties, no one knew that HIV was really bad and contagious. It was still a weird virus. They gave her a blood transfusion that was infected with HIV because a lot of heroin needle addicts would donate blood to get their next fix and they would sell that blood to hospitals. She got a contaminated blood supply and she had hemophilia and HIV both. For the rest of her life. The K shots (to coagulate the blood so she did not bleed to death if she cut her finger on something sharp at work or school or at home... cost about 1,000,000 MILLION dollars a year to cover. No private insurance company would touch that fucking bill with a ten-foot pole. Her HIV meds like Truvia, and so on cost back then about $36,000 US dollars a year. For repressing the viral load.

So? Medicare was the only thing she could get. That could pay her bills. Related to her health status. But? They have rules. You have to live on an extremely low income to qualify for it. No one earning some middle-class salary could make that middle-class salary and retain their Medicare benefit.

So she was relegated to extremely low-skill work with restricted hours of work. She could not afford steak dinners out or any real expenses out of food bank food and basics. She was very bright. She got accepted to a prestigious medical school in Colorado. Could not take courses full time because it meant if she graduated and applied to become a pediatrician which was her dream? It would kick her off of Medicare and cut off her life-saving drugs.

She was pretty too. Rubita y linda. No boyfriend. She was too embarrassed to tell her boyfriend that she was HIV positive and had to use a condom and her viral load had to be near zero and she could not guarantee he might not catch HIV. Nothing is 100% positive. So no sex life either.

She would sit and tell me 'Tainari, I just want some nice guy to take me out for pizza and a beer, and then a movie. Hold my hand. And we can go and watch videos at home. Or to the park. Wouldn't that be special? He does not have to kiss me you know...'

Se iba esa muchacha de la oficina y me ponía a llorar yo como una Maria Magdalena. Me partía el corazón. What was her fault in all that shit about her health conditions.

The government needs to fucking stop putting price tags and restrictions on who has access to health care.

Let people study to become doctors, nurses, and dentists, and not have mountains of student loan debts, and people with a talent for life and all their dreams shattered over a lack of recognition that socialist models are better models than for-profit models. Fix the issues with the GREED.

It will never be a profit model if people get ill. But humans are not machines, and they are an important part of families, workplaces, schools, clubs, sports, etc. They are valuable people. Regardless of their ability to pay or not.

I do not see how anyone can see only dollar signs when they see people. It is inhumane.

[Pewty]

You pay for it via taxes. Government makes you paying taxes so overall well being of society decrease because of being forced to pay for everyone else's doctor visits and medical care.

Healthcare is a serrvice which you have to pay for it. It doesn't matter if government subdies it or not. You pay for it somehow. But free markets and technological innovation makes it affordable for you.

Sure, but it doesn't bother me that I'm healthy, and my neighbour isn't, and we both pay the same taxes.

[Godstud]

@wat0n I have to intervene and say that @Pants-of-dog is completely right in regards to Canadian Healthcare. The people on waiting lists are usually people who are getting elective surgeries or who are waiting on something not life threatening. Even in the USA a person waiting for a needed surgery next week, could die. That's dying on a waiting list.

Canada's healthcare system, for all its flaws, is still better than that of the US in both cost and application. Canadians don't have a higher life expectancy because of something in the water, but because you can seek aid when you need it, and not just when you can afford it.

Note: Paying healthcare through taxes means we actually pay LESS.

[wat0n]

You solve the problem by creating a system of sliding scale and the people who work for a living make sure they have care that is available and efficient. Studies have been done over and over again on how to improve the system Wat0n. The problem becomes why the improvements are never made. The answer is simple. GREED.

People are assessed like a Wall Street investment. They do that in the insurance industry too. It is basically underwriters and risk assessments. Who is this patient? Pre-existing conditions. Will require x amount of meds, supplies, check-ups, nutritionists, physical therapists, internal medicine folk, gynecologists, possibilities of developing cancer is this, which means access to an oncologist, and cancer treatments....x amount of profit loss. DENY. Next!!!

Young person, non-smoker, does exercise, has a college degree, BMI is within very healthy limits, has no family history of alcohol abuse, and x or y mental health treatments, etc. Good investment. Take him on and give him a good rate for like broken bones due to too much physical activity. Do a high deductible so the rate looks good to him or her. Next!!!

The problem is that people are not machines or commodities and people who are ill, need care to then go back to society and be the best human person they can be.

If you are ill and unemployed and lose your health insurance due to being unemployed and you are an adult who is the only one who has a job that offers private health insurance and you pay more for it than you do your mortgage payment every month and you get laid off and your spouse and you and your kids are all left out to dry and hang when you got ill and the kid has a broken arm at baseball....etc. You are in deep, deep shit in the USA.

The ambulance costs about $5000, urgent care another couple of grand $2000, follow-up meds, etc another $100 or so. There went your savings for emergencies for the year.

I was a medical case manager @wat0n. One patient I had with HIV was a hemophilia patient. She cut herself at age 12 by mistake and in the mid-eighties, no one knew that HIV was really bad and contagious. It was still a weird virus. They gave her a blood transfusion that was infected with HIV because a lot of heroin needle addicts would donate blood to get their next fix and they would sell that blood to hospitals. She got a contaminated blood supply and she had hemophilia and HIV both. For the rest of her life. The K shots (to coagulate the blood so she did not bleed to death if she cut her finger on something sharp at work or school or at home... cost about 1,000,000 MILLION dollars a year to cover. No private insurance company would touch that fucking bill with a ten-foot pole. Her HIV meds like Truvia, and so on cost back then about $36,000 US dollars a year. For repressing the viral load.

So? Medicare was the only thing she could get. That could pay her bills. Related to her health status. But? They have rules. You have to live on an extremely low income to qualify for it. No one earning some middle-class salary could make that middle-class salary and retain their Medicare benefit.

So she was relegated to extremely low-skill work with restricted hours of work. She could not afford steak dinners out or any real expenses out of food bank food and basics. She was very bright. She got accepted to a prestigious medical school in Colorado. Could not take courses full time because it meant if she graduated and applied to become a pediatrician which was her dream? It would kick her off of Medicare and cut off her life-saving drugs.

She was pretty too. Rubita y linda. No boyfriend. She was too embarrassed to tell her boyfriend that she was HIV positive and had to use a condom and her viral load had to be near zero and she could not guarantee he might not catch HIV. Nothing is 100% positive. So no sex life either.

She would sit and tell me 'Tainari, I just want some nice guy to take me out for pizza and a beer, and then a movie. Hold my hand. And we can go and watch videos at home. Or to the park. Wouldn't that be special? He does not have to kiss me you know...'

Se iba esa muchacha de la oficina y me ponía a llorar yo como una Maria Magdalena. Me partía el corazón. What was her fault in all that shit about her health conditions.

The government needs to fucking stop putting price tags and restrictions on who has access to health care.

Let people study to become doctors, nurses, and dentists, and not have mountains of student loan debts, and people with a talent for life and all their dreams shattered over a lack of recognition that socialist models are better models than for-profit models. Fix the issues with the GREED.

It will never be a profit model if people get ill. But humans are not machines, and they are an important part of families, workplaces, schools, clubs, sports, etc. They are valuable people. Regardless of their ability to pay or not.

I do not see how anyone can see only dollar signs when they see people. It is inhumane.

As I've said before, Wall Street would very much rather have people being forced to get insurance and also to make healthcare cheaper more generally.

@wat0n I have to intervene and say that @Pants-of-dog is completely right in regards to Canadian Healthcare. The people on waiting lists are usually people who are getting elective surgeries or who are waiting on something not life threatening. Even in the USA a person waiting for a needed surgery next week, could die. That's dying on a waiting list.

Canada's healthcare system, for all its flaws, is still better than that of the US in both cost and application. Canadians don't have a higher life expectancy because of something in the water, but because you can seek aid when you need it, and not just when you can afford it.

Note: Paying healthcare through taxes means we actually pay LESS.

It's not just elective surgery. I have a friend who was waitlisted in Canada for diagnosing whatever he had (eventually decided to get it sorted out in Chile).

The US system sucks, but the best one isn't the Canadian one. The best systems are those in the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.

[Tainari88]

Sure, but it doesn't bother me that I'm healthy, and my neighbour isn't, and we both pay the same taxes.

It better bother you. Because if you have to pay one damn penny more than you have to? To make sure some unknown person gets treated? You are terrible.

Don't know you know that looking out for number one is an American endemic trait? The USA in culture rankings is the nation with the most extreme individualistic thinking in the world. In the entire world no one comes close to the USA in rugged individualism.

Who gives a fuck about what some Joe Blow next door can't afford because he is a LOSER. I am a winner. I make tons of money. I earned it. because I work harder than all those Mexican field workers in agriculture, or dishwashers and hotel maids. Fuck those people.

I am a genius. I deserve to earn millions while the little people are there stuck with their dumb selves making pennies.

They deserve it. For not knowing how to make millions. Sure, my Daddy inherited it and gave me most of it when he kicked the bucket, but the truth is? I am superior to the little minions toiling away for some minimum wage.

Lol.

That is American individualism. The immigrants come with the hope of making it. Statistically speaking the first generation does fairly well in American society. But their children after that go downhill. The individualism along with the lack of historical continuity and brainwashing then takes a toll. They lose their sense of community in all that individualism. And they become alienated Americans, shooting up malls in desperate bids to be winners in a society that despises failures.

[Godstud]

It's not just elective surgery. I have a friend who was waitlisted in Canada for diagnosing whatever he had (eventually decided to get it sorted out in Chile).

So it wasn't life-threatening, OBVIOUSLY. A knee surgery that is needed does not require immediate surgery, you know.

I had to wait for an MRI once, but it wasn't something that would have resulted in anything more than extending recovery time. I also had a private option(which I took) which was covered by company benefits, that got me the MRI sooner.

[wat0n]

So it wasn't life-threatening, OBVIOUSLY. A knee surgery that is needed does not require immediate surgery, you know.

I had to wait for an MRI once, but it wasn't something that would have resulted in anything more than extending recovery time. I also had a private option(which I took) which was covered by company benefits, that got me the MRI sooner.

You won't be denied life-saving treatment in the US either. Doing so, makes you ineligible to get any Medicare payments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency ... _Labor_Act

[Pants-of-dog]

1) Cite it properly

2) Provide an updated source, this is before Obamacare and Medicaid expansion in several states after all

3) Add the corresponding comparison to the NHS, i.e. estimates of people who die for not being able to secure non-urgent care because of being put in a waitlist

No.

You are a bad faith debater.

[wat0n]

No.

You are a bad faith debater.

Pot calling the kettle black?

Sounds like you have no source, as usual.

My request is a completely legitimate one if you want to do an apple to apples comparison.

Firstly, because there's no dispute Obamacare increased access to health insurance in the US, so pre-Obamacare figures are outdated - back in 2009, around 15% of the population was uninsured, last year the figure stood at 7.9% so one could easily expect lower figures.

Secondly, because it's unlikely that the lack of access to things like screening in countries like the UK or Canada as a result of the waitlists did not lead to preventable deaths. In fact, this lack of access to screening could perfectly explain most deaths due to lack of access to insurance in the US as well.

Also, here's the paper you're talking about, the 45,000 figure is the highest estimate and it's based on a hazard ratio from a national health survey (so, it includes uninsured people who died for reasons that have nothing to do with lack of access, and would also include people who got insurance after being interviewed in the late 1980s/early 1990s).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775760/

[Pants-of-dog]

It is interesting that no POTUS candidate ever suggests single payer coverage for all, despite the fact that so many US citizens support it.

[wat0n]

At least in 2022, a minority (40%) supported single payer coverage. A majority does believe the government should take on the responsibility of guaranteeing access to healthcare, though, but it seems more would rather have a baseline plan offered by the government (like in Germany, I think).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelineha ... 351ee22360

Since you posted after I edited my post to add some more information, I will reiterate it here:

My request is a completely legitimate one if you want to do an apple to apples comparison.

Firstly, because there's no dispute Obamacare increased access to health insurance in the US, so pre-Obamacare figures are outdated - back in 2009, around 15% of the population was uninsured, last year the figure stood at 7.9% so one could easily expect lower figures.

Secondly, because it's unlikely that the lack of access to things like screening in countries like the UK or Canada as a result of the waitlists did not lead to preventable deaths. In fact, this lack of access to screening could perfectly explain most deaths due to lack of access to insurance in the US as well.

Also, here's the paper you're talking about, the 45,000 figure is the highest estimate and it's based on a hazard ratio from a national health survey (so, it includes uninsured people who died for reasons that have nothing to do with lack of access, and would also include people who got insurance after being interviewed in the late 1980s/early 1990s).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775760/

[Pants-of-dog]

The lack of any POTUS candidate willing to support single payer coverage is a testament to the power of insurance lobbyists.

By the time an individual navigates the halls of power to the Oval Office, they are beholden to so many business interests that they cannot represent the interests of the people.

[wat0n]

Bernie was supporting a single payer system back in 2020. What it truly is a testament of, is the incumbent advantage of the sitting POTUS in the party primaries when standing for reelection.

[Pants-of-dog]

Sanders is a good example of a candidate that was not allowed to run because he threatened business interests.

These interests would rather have thousands of people die needlessly than lose some money.

[JohnRawls]

I looked up exotic animals in Estonia. The Gray Wolf is probably the only predatory animal that might be scary there.

Over here the Jaguar is an exotic animal that scares people. But they are endangered. If @Rancid kills one off, he is looking at Mexican prison time. Hmmm?

There are plenty in the Zoo, we can send Rancid there. He will be getting a lot of TikTok time trying to snatch the elephants dong.

[wat0n]

Sanders is a good example of a candidate that was not allowed to run because he threatened business interests.

These interests would rather have thousands of people die needlessly than lose some money.

His own party voters preferred Biden

[JohnRawls]

Sanders is a good example of a candidate that was not allowed to run because he threatened business interests.

These interests would rather have thousands of people die needlessly than lose some money.

CONSPIRACY! CONSPIRACY! CONSPIRACY!

Or may be his overall policies are not supported by the majority of the people. I am not saying it is bad, the question is if the US can afford it without killing a massive amount of jobs and productivity. This is always the question with such changes.

Okay, thousands people will not die because of healthcare reasons needlessly that is a good thing but then on the other hand thousands will die now from higher taxes or inability to afford other things or having a worse quality of life. This is not a win-win trade off sadly.

Instead of going for single payer, make your universities free or change the system to be public-private instead of being fully private. It is a much better mobility ladder so the people who put in the effort will have a better life and will take care of themselves in the end.

[wat0n]

Instead of going for single payer, make your universities free or change the system to be public-private instead of being fully private. It is a much better mobility ladder so the people who put in the effort will have a better life and will take care of themselves in the end.

The US system is already public-private, the issue is that it's not well designed (if one can say it's designed at all, which is also very questionable).