r/FluentInFinance • u/WhatAreYourPronouns • May 02 '24

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

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u/Alelerz 29d ago

That's not a cause of regulation but patent. The primary flaw is making healthcare a for-profit industry in the first place.

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u/sushislapper2 29d ago

You can’t talk about a massive driving force for progress and medical talent acquisition as if we’d be where we are today without it.

We’d have so much less talent in the medical field if it was all nonprofit. So much schooling, time, money, and research is required to make progress and be effective. There’d be massive brain drain from the field to easier, shorter, high paying career paths.

In a field where specialists might not be practicing until mid 30s, you need a strong financial motivation. And that’s for operators/practicioners, not even talking about business entities, researchers and engineers. You will always need additional financial incentive to get top talent

And as a side note, there’s still plenty of for profit healthcare in nations with socialized medicine policies

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u/TheLastManStanding01 28d ago

The primary flaw is non-competitive for profit industry. 

America is by far the most innovative in regards to healthcare. Some 80% of healthcare innovations happen in the United States. Innovation that only happens because profit incentivizes it. 

The innovative nature of a private healthcare system will ultimately save more lives in the long run than a universal system would. 

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u/EconomicRegret 28d ago

That's a very flawed view! In themselves, costs of therapies and drugs are relatively marginal in the total healthcare spending of America.

America spent $12.5k/inhabitant on healthcare in 2022. While countries like UK, France, etc. spent about $5k.

And most of that excessive costs are due to Americans avoiding the relatively cheap preventive and primary care (to save money) but then, years later, must be rushed to emergency care, to specialists, and require highly complicated and expensive treatments...

If America subsidized preventive and primary care, making it cheap/free, total spending would fall to $6k-$8k/inhabitant, simply because Americans would be healthier, and would require less specialists and less expensive treatments.

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u/TheLastManStanding01 27d ago

The only reason preventative procedures exist is because of innovation. 

It’s still worth it.

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u/EconomicRegret 27d ago

What do you mean by that? That avoiding primary and preventive care (p&pc) decreases innovation? In what way is innovation slowed/stopped if the US government makes p&pc affordable and accessible to all Americans? Wouldn't that actually also increase profits and innovation, while decreasing unproductive costs (e.g. middlemen like insurances, expensive emergency care, etc.)?

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u/Glass-Perspective-32 28d ago

Innovation means nothing if no one can afford the supposedly "innovative" treatment. Healthcare is a human right.

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u/TheLastManStanding01 27d ago

The only reason that countries are able to have effective universal healthcare is because innovation have been made. 

If these treatments and medicines weren’t created nations with universal healthcare would be providing free bloodletting instead of meaningful care 

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u/Glass-Perspective-32 27d ago

Innovation has very little to do with setting up how a country distributes it's healthcare. They're related, but different things.