Out of curiosity - what are the main reasons for opposition to universal healthcare in the US?
Here in Australia we have universal, and also the option of purchasing our own private health coverage and getting a rebate for it on our tax returns to help cover the premiums. I can't speak for other Commonwealth nations but it has worked here just fine.
Well the issue with universal healthcare even in first world countries is that the money runs out. Look at Spain. They have universal healthcare but their government can't afford it. It becomes an issue of how much can you tax to actually cover the costs and how much are people actually willing to pay in taxes. Additionally, a lot of developed countries with universal coverage still have major coverage gaps in rural areas (Russia and Mexico are prime examples, although them being developed nations is arguable), and the effective insured rate is equal to or less of that of the US. Private insurance purchased in addition to public is typically very expensive and the top 10% or so of a nation can actually afford it. Everyone else is plagued with long wait times or short, very rushed visits.
Taiwan's system has no gatekeeper system (designed to keep people who don't actually need healthcare from getting it and wasting money) and as a result their offices are plagued with too many people, not enough doctors, and individuals can see specialists without a referral and bounce around between multiple doctor's until they get the opinion they want. On an unrelated note, Taiwan has some of the best healthcare management systems in the world. All of your information (medical history, prescriptions, etc.) is loaded onto a smart card that stores information. In order to see a doctor, you simply swipe your health card (which if I'm not mistaken is your ID card) and all of your medical history comes up and your billing information is already stored so the facility can bill the government for it.
In all honesty, universal coverage sounds like a great idea and it's a noble cause, but it has its own problems. My main problem with Obamacare is that yes, millions more Americans are insured, but their plans are often low premium, high deductible, meaning for an average year, they're still paying all of their medical costs out of pocket unless something catastrophic happens, but even then most of these plans cover a low percentage (50%-70%) and you're still plagued with massive debt following a catastrophic event.
In case anyone is wondering about my credentials, I have a bachelors in Economics and did my senior capstone in Health Economics.
It's a cultural thing. The country was founded because of taxation without representation; the whole idea of taxes--specifically non-Constitutionally mandated use--is always contentious. Just like gun ownership.
No one denies that everyone should be able to access and pay for healthcare. Everyone agrees. But that is where the road diverges, because then the argument becomes "who is paying for it?"
At the end of the day, the taxpayers pay for it. Any public hospital, by law, is required to take any and all patients who walk through the door, regardless of their ability to pay. This is called "uncompensated care". At the end of the fiscal year, the government received bills from hospitals for uncompensated care and reimburses the hospitals for most of that amount. If they didn't, public hospitals wouldn't comply with the law. So effectively, everyone in the US can receive healthcare, but it ultimately gets paid for by the taxpayers anyways. Obamacare was designed to solved the "free rider" problem, similar to Romney's law in Massachusetts, but in order to do that, everyone had to have coverage. In order to do that, the government had to subsidize it. In order to do that, the government had to raise taxes, reduce uncompensated care payments, reduce payments for readmissions for Medicare due to hospital related causes, among a host of other things.
@TLDR20 I haven't read too much of this thread, but I can tell you're opposed to repealing and replacing Obamacare. But if you look at many Republican plans (specifically Hatch/Upton/Burr, I believe) they actually keep a lot of Obamacare regulations. The main difference is the individual mandate and how it's being paid for. Any fiscal conservative worth a shit is smart enough to realize that reducing or eliminating Medicare payments to hospitals for second and third visits when the patient contracted an illness from that same hospital is a good thing, or that using existing technology that still works for government sponsored healthcare instead of buying the latest greatest medical tech is a good thing, or that closing the Medicare prescription donut hole is a good thing. But conservatives and liberals disagree on the major theme that underlies most of our debate today as our budget outweighs our tax revenue, which is how (and ultimately who) is going to pay for it.
I do believe in the free market and letting competition drive down costs. As of right now, each state has their own unique medical insurance regulations for minimum coverage, conditions covered, etc. That's the beauty of our country, where individual states can suit the needs and wants of their citizens. But the downfall is that insurance cannot cross state lines. For an insurance company to operate in all fifty states, they have essentially fifty different subsidiaries. This means 50 times the overhead, which gets passed on to consumers. Also, breaking it up into fifty different pieces virtually eliminates an economies of scale that could be realized from having major insurance companies operate nationally. Obviously what we don't want is the industry to become more monopolized than it already is, but I believe we could regulate it responsibly like we do utility companies and keep a few major players in the game (and keep a watchful, non-intrusive eye on them) in order to lower costs.
Do what you will, just don't make me pay for it, i.e. overeat and binge drink, etc.
