[cheeky78]

"But as this article demonstrates, if we care to use the inflammatory "death panels" label, we already have them."

It's not inflammatory when it's true. When the government runs our healthcare, choices are removed and someone else gets to decide if you should get surgery needed or not...and many times this is life or death.

At least now, if a cancer patient gets denied drugs, they can go to another doctor or get a second opinion.

All of my elderly relatives live in Canada and come over the border for any major surgery. This is mostly because the wait times are sometimes in the years..when they can just get private care in the US and get it done in a matter of weeks.

Doctors are also usually maxed out when it comes to patients, so individual care is lacking and they usually just want to try to push you out the door.

I also feel like I should have a say in someone's behavior, if I'm paying for their healthcare with my tax dollars: smoking, drinking, risky behavior, etc.

I've lived in countries with universal healthcare and the quality is sub-par compared to the US/private care. Sure private care can be improved, but it shouldn't be ripped out and replaced.

[jahewson]

> At least now, if a cancer patient gets denied drugs, they can go to another doctor or get a second opinion.

This is not true; if your insurance company will not cover a specific drug then going to another doctor will make no difference. And you can’t go to another insurance company outside of open enrolment - assuming your employer even offers plans from more than one insurer.

[hestipod]

>I've lived in countries with universal healthcare and >the quality is sub-par compared to the US/private care.

My experience has been the exact opposite. America's healthcare business ruined my life. As a result I have no insurance and have lost the "privilege" to BUY said American healthcare. I struggle with low income options and programs, all insufficient. The only good care I ever got was in Europe. My experiences with social hospitals and doctors was much better than in the USA where it counts. Places weren't often as fancy looking, but the care was superb. Even the private systems in those countries was far more affordable. a few hundred for an MRI etc rather than a few thousand.

Healthcare and education in America can bankrupt you. That isn't something people in countries with social options have to fear...despite any drawbacks since no place is perfect. I don't know if Americans who are so opposed to doing things like the rest of the first world just need to believe it's always better here so they ignore the benefits...or if they just haven't had to face this issue personally and are incapable of caring until they do. But I do know I had a future and now I do not...and there is no net to catch me or care. Whenever I see comments like yours I just get so upset realizing how it's an unwinnable battle in this country because of these ingrained beliefs.

[cheeky78]

Education can only bankrupt you if you choose to go to an expensive university. This is a complete choice and the overall price is known before you take out a loan. Community colleges are a fraction of the price.

"My experiences with social hospitals and doctors was much better than in the USA where it counts. Places weren't often as fancy looking, but the care was superb. Even the private systems in those countries was far more affordable. a few hundred for an MRI etc rather than a few thousand."

I pay for my own insurance in the US. I only pay a couple of hundred/month and most things are covered. My deductibles are very affordable.

There are plenty of option for low-income individuals and pre-existing conditions are no longer something that will prevent you from getting healthcare.

Even if you get a $100,000 bill, you can call the hospital up and negotiate it down to something you can actually pay.

"Whenever I see comments like yours I just get so upset realizing how it's an unwinnable battle in this country because of these ingrained beliefs."

I feel the same way about your comments. You have this ingrained believe that socialized healthcare is the best solution, when private care clearly has advantages.

The majority of people in the US are happy with their healthcare. There should be some additions, so people that can't afford care can get it, but without uprooting the entire system.

[monetus]

To add to your anecdote: I have a bill laying around where the asking price for the mri was $21000.

[hestipod]

Yeah I was quoted 3500usd cash price recently and that was with the "generous" cash pay/uninsured discount of 10% and a lower income community hospital. Needless to say I did not get the scan. That's how it goes here. I only paid about 150usd in a Central European nation for a more advanced 3d version, and that was in the PRIVATE for-profit system there. American healthcare is a tragedy that I don't see changing sadly since so many people fight any positive change.

[DanBC]

> At least now, if a cancer patient gets denied drugs, they can go to another doctor or get a second opinion.

You can do this in any country with government provided healthcare by either going private or travelling to a different country.

> I've lived in countries with universal healthcare and the quality is sub-par compared to the US/private care.

Sure. The US spends more than anyone else on healthcare, but has worse life expectancy. https://ourworldindata.org/the-link-between-life-expectancy-...

[Scoundreller]

> All of my elderly relatives live in Canada and come over the border for any major surgery. This is mostly because the wait times are sometimes in the years..when they can just get private care in the US and get it done in a matter of weeks.

Unsure of how popular this is. If it were, we'd see a lot more Us insurers offering plans to Canadians, but as far I know, they're non-existent.

Anywho, all this proves is that you can have a public system and a private system a 100km drive away if you have a problem with it.

[jodrellblank]

I've lived in countries with universal healthcare and the quality is sub-par compared to the US/private care.

I don't think anyone argues that a royal palace is not a good enough home, the complaint is that only a very very few can live in a royal palace and if that's the country's main form of housing, a lot of homeless people are unhappy with it. You can pay for private healthcare in the UK as well. Pay as much as you like and get as many specialists as you can afford. The NHS doesn't stop that from existing. The NHS is probably lower quality care than that. What the NHS is, is available to everyone. The NHS was built in the 1940s /after/ it was already possible for wealthy people to pay to visit doctors of their own choice. Somehow that didn't translate into healthcare for everyone back in the day, and I'm not aware of any good argument for why it magically will now if we turn the NHS private.(?)

Your elderly relatives in Canada can afford to travel internationally and pay private prices for health care .. so national health care should be dismantled? What about the millions of Canadians who can't afford that, and a long waiting list is better than nothing?

[threezero]

Your anecdotes aside, the vast majority of Canadians approve of their healthcare system, something you can’t say about the US.

[RandomTisk]

Which the ACA has made decidedly worse for nearly everyone. The costs have gone though the roof and since at least 2014 or so, I can only get high deductible plans though my employers.

[lotsofpulp]

Any system that increase the amount of healthcare being provided without a corresponding increase in supply of healthcare providers would have done the same.

Life was greatly improved for those who didn’t have employer sponsored insurance and pre-existing conditions. And women of child bearing age. Now that they can actually get healthcare, someone has to pay for it, which is everyone.

[fencepost]

You can hate insurance prices, and you can hate the ACA, and you can even hate Obama if you so desire, but don't hate the ACA because of insurance cost increases because it SLOWED THEM DOWN.

You're confusing correlation and causation. Health insurance costs have been rising faster than inflation for decades, but the ACA actually slowed that growth through a variety of measures - one of the simplest being that insurance companies had to be paying for healthcare with at least a minimum percentage of what they charged in premiums - prior to that they could deny everything and put the savings into executive bonuses for performance.

Some reference points with links to source information, though you may have to look at news articles for 2018/2019 numbers. The Kiplinger article notes ~5% for 2019, still well below the 9.9% average between 83-92 or the 6.4% average between 93-2010. Post-ACA, prices between 2010-2017 ran ~4.3% average increases, so it has been creeping up since 2017 for some reason cough.

https://www.thebalance.com/causes-of-rising-healthcare-costs... this one has convenient table of annual increases over the past 59 years along with notes of what major event in that year impacted costs. Source is CMS data that's inconvenient to extract on a phone.

https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/avg-annual-growth-...

https://www.kiplinger.com/article/insurance/T027-C001-S003-c...

[EliRivers]

I live in a country with public healthcare and getting a second opinion from another doctor is by no means unusual.

[NotSammyHagar]

At best this is an uncommon opinion. I work with a dual citizen republican from Canada. He was almost swayed to your view until he actually used the us health system. We have good us Corp healthcare, & now he says it's similar to ca. He was wondering what would happen if he got hurt and lost coverage in the us.

[hestipod]

I can tell him exactly what happens. You are priced out of the "privilege" of healthcare.

You try to make do. Manage as you can with your savings, work you can get and maintain, as the effects of the medical issue continue to limit every aspect of your life and get worse with age and time. The normal decline of age is amplified as a result and your options to earn are further restricted. Eventually there is no way to do it alone or without some outside help.

You are directed to apply for programs that are also "privileges" and not available to everyone as the process is adversarial and not a right. You face many levels and months to years of denials, appeals, and are often completely rejected.Even if you get approved you are mired in bureaucracy, reapprovals, judgement, and your access is extremely limited even in the best case.

Next people you talk to about this will begin to marginalize you and act as if you must have done something wrong because they just cannot believe it's like that. In order to maintain their just-world hypothesis and feelings of security they need to frame this as an individual failure or anomaly and not a systemic and cultural defect.

You then start to get depressed and lose hope because there is no way to regain your quality of life or even obtain a survivable one in many cases. If you are fortunate enough to have caring family you might find some support and have some livable life, even if restricted. If you do not then you end up with more needs and expenses but with the exact opposite situation in resources. Eventually you decide to take a walk off a bridge because there is no real way out.

This isn't even the worst case scenario but rather a fairly median process because needs go up with age and resources decline so without having the time to build a safety net over a lifetime, or a social one being present...you have no options. This is happening to thousands of people right now. I am one of them. I've never met anyone like this who chose it or wanted it. I've never met anyone like this who wants to "sit on their ass and take my tax money" as people in my region assert. Every one of them is someone who had a life, who would love nothing more than independence, but for whom it isn't on the menu and neither is enough assistance to have any quality of life.

[NotSammyHagar]

That's a horrible thing to face and we need to do better in the us. My mom faced a similar situation. It's beyond stupid and horrible that almost every adult is one accident away from falling into this trip, yet we stubbornly persist in this as desirable.