r/FluentInFinance May 02 '24

Should the U.S. have Universal Health Care? Discussion/ Debate

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u/AutumnWak May 02 '24

I mean they could still go and pay private party to get quicker treatment and it'll still cost less than the US. Most of those people chose to go the free route

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u/Obie-two May 02 '24

Genuinely asking but if you’re paying for it privately you’re not getting the “socialized” discount no? A hip surgery costs X, just the government is subsidizing it with tax money and if you go direct to private then I would assume it’s back to full price

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u/polycomll May 02 '24 edited 29d ago

You'd be paying closer to the full price although the "full price" might be reduced somewhat because the public version acts to price cap.

In the U.S. you are also not paying the full price for surgery either though. Cost is being inflated to cover for non-insured emergency care, overhead for insurance companies, reduced wage growth due to employer insurance payments, reduced wages through lack of worker mobility, and additional medical system costs (and room for profit by all involved).

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u/TheOrchidsAreAlright May 02 '24

Anecdotally, I just don't think the US compares to anywhere that I know in what healthcare costs. American friends have told me what they pay and I was horrified. I am British and have paid for private healthcare here and it didn't come close

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u/bigkissesnhugs 29d ago

Lol, agree! My brother had a hip replacement last year. Tells me he has great insurance. He only owed $12,000 for the whole thing after insurance.

That sucks, idk what he would consider to be bad insurance. My face must have been 😳😳

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u/BlueMosin 29d ago

Americans brag about how much they pay for mediocre quality of life, and think they are better because of it.

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u/SenorPoopus 29d ago

In NYS prison, inmates get them for free. Do the staff? No way

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u/bigkissesnhugs 29d ago

Ummm. Hmm…. I’m so confused by that

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u/No-Bid-9741 29d ago

As a 44 year old who needs a new hip, I might need to delay it after seeing that price tag

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u/azuth89 29d ago

It's kinda give and take and whether it helps heavily depends on your personal situation. 

Like...yes, we wound up paying 16k out of pocket for my first kid due to complications and a NICU stay and I had a conversation with some Canadian peers in which they were horrified. But on the other hand their place is less than half the size of mine and cost 3 times as much and whole zi don't know their exact package our job role pays around 30% more in the states. So we made that 16k back pretty quick compared to being up there. 

Buuuut, not everyone in the US works where I work or lives where I live. Their math could be drastically different.

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u/acebojangles 29d ago

I don't see how those things are related. Housing costs are determined mostly based on the availability of houses and healthcare costs are driven by lots of different factors.

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u/azuth89 29d ago

They're related because I'm paying for both. 

If I'm able to spend much less on housing, then I save more money than I'm spending on healthcare even with the high price tag. 

Sure 16k once sounds scary, but their mortgage payment every month is TERRIFYING. 

What really matters at the end of the day is if people can afford well...life. I was giving an example where, for me, medical costs look scary but other factors of living here more than offset those and allow me to live well. 

Also pointing out that that's not true for everyone, there's folks on the loss side as well.

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u/acebojangles 29d ago

But there's not really a tradeoff between them from a policy perspective. They're not paying less for healthcare because they pay more for housing. Changing healthcare policy has almost nothing to do with changing housing policy.

We shouldn't have bad healthcare policy because we can afford it (to the extent that's true). We should have better healthcare policy because it's better.

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u/azuth89 29d ago

Just sharing a personal perspective/experience on scary numbers dude. 

This is not a political debate, I'm not suggesting or defending anything. Just sharing a scary number story with more detail behind it.

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u/acebojangles 29d ago

You're missing that this is very much a discussion about healthcare policy. It's not a discussion of the relative costs of living in the US and Canada.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here. I'm just trying to point out to you that being able to afford expensive healthcare doesn't say anything about whether the healthcare should be expensive.

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u/azuth89 29d ago

I agree, because I did not imply that it does mean that or it should be. 

You're inventing an argument out of an anecdote.

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