[jpgvm]

The existence of very expensive private care in the US isn't counter to my point if anything it's an embodiment of it.

Furthermore it's probably much more expensive than you realize. Premium contributions and deductibles totaled 11.6% of median income in 2020, compared to 2% Medicare levy in Australia across the income spectrum.

The US system isn't defendable. You can say things like "Well I'm rich so it works for me" but you can't make assertions that it's good as a whole.

[seibelj]

I will assert that the US medical system has pros and cons, and I would advocate for significant structural reform.

But such reform has not occurred despite decades of trying, and that’s because the system is not without the pros, and the pros make it infeasible to reform it at this time.

Pretending that the system is completely useless and broken is ignoring basic facts - such as overwhelming majorities of Americans that like their primary care doctor and their current insurance.

So it’s difficult to make such clear statements when the facts disagree with the progressive shrieking.

Furthermore - https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-is-canada-euthanisin...

> When the family of a 35-year-old disabled man who resorted to euthanasia arrived at the care home where he lived, they encountered ‘urine on the floor… spots where there was feces on the floor… spots where your feet were just sticking. Like, if you stood at his bedside and when you went to walk away, your foot was literally stuck.’ According to the Canadian government, the assisted suicide law is about ‘prioritis[ing] the individual autonomy of Canadians’; one may wonder how much autonomy a disabled man lying in his own filth had in weighing death over life.

The world is very complex and nothing is black and white

[jpgvm]

That is part of the problem, you have taken something that can be measured objectively and instead politicised it. Not a uniquely American phenomenon but definitely practiced most commonly there.

The system is without pros but that doesn't matter because of the existence of lobbyists. The American political system assigns representation proportionally by wealth of interests, that is just how it is.

You can see it play out over and over again from tobacco, oil, healthcare etc. Preservation of outsized corporate profits at the expense of normal people is simply the norm in America and is ingrained in its political system.

It has nothing to do with the pros and cons of actual healthcare provided to people (or the cost at which that care is provided), simply that those that stand to lose from making the system more efficient are willing to spend anything and everything to prevent that from happening.

Unfortunately too much of the American population are happy to be duped into thinking the current system is good in some way AND that they should tie their political identity to it's preservation regardless of the facts.

It's a tragedy tbh but maybe one day logic and economics will win out. Spending this much of GDP on healthcare is just stupidly inefficient, especially when you still have so many simply not seeking care because of the financial ramifications of doing so - cheating the economy out of their productivity.

[frumper]

All doom and gloom. Having experienced some very good treatments and excellent outcomes for my daughter, I have a different opinion than "the system is without pros".

[matthewmacleod]

But such reform has not occurred despite decades of trying, and that’s because the system is not without the pros, and the pros make it infeasible to reform it at this time.

This seems like a faulty assertion. It’s possible that this system offers benefits to some subset of people. But you can’t really draw much of a conclusion simply from its continued existence.

If one of your “pro”s is “makes so much profit for insurance companies that they are willing to spend huge amounts of money to fight reform”… well, I can’t imagine that’s really what you mean by “pro”.