[smt88]

Universal health care is not controversial in developed countries outside of the US.

Universal basic utilities wouldn't work because it would need to be means-tested, and that's not easy to do. A household with $0 of income might have a secret $100M fortune somewhere. Should they get free electricity?

It makes much more sense to have affordable utilities and just give people cash. If they want to use 10% of the electricity of their neighbors, they should be able to save some money.

[version_five]

> Universal health care is not controversial in developed countries outside of the US.

I'm canadian and our universal healthcare system sucks. It's very controversial here. Universal often means universally bad - picture your typical interaction with the government bureaucracy and imagine that for something important. It's the same reason you wouldn't want government run utilities (which Canada also has)

[sillystuff]

Universal health care needs to be funded. If your country elects politicians who underfund health care, then you should expect negative consequences on the system.

Or, you could privatize your healthcare like the US, and pay multiple times more than the amount you've saved on your tax bill.

And, expensive privatized health care does not mean better health outcomes; e.g., the US has worse infant mortality than either New Zealand (a sibling comment) or Canada (or most of Eastern Europe / all of Western Europe).

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortalit...

[giantg2]

That's not a great metric for comparison of the healthcare systems. Outcomes for specific procedures or conditions would be more fitting. Many cultural and societal factors, even population genetics and the number of babies born in a year, influence infant mortality.

[xupybd]

I'm in NZ and our universal healthcare system sucks too.

For example don't have a medical emergency here. You'll wait more than 8 hours to get seen.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/nearly-all-nz-hospitals-failin...

[smt88]

> For example don't have a medical emergency here. You'll wait more than 8 hours to get seen.

This is the same as the US. When you go to the emergency room, you're triaged. If you don't seem to have an immediate, life-threatening emergency, you often wait hours to be seen.

I think this is pretty typical. You can't scale medical staff and facilities rapidly by demand, and it's not sustainable to have the staff required for peak demand all the time.

On top of that, there's a shortage of medical professionals in most countries.

[xupybd]

I'm no expert on the US system but it seems to be much better.

From this article. https://hbr.org/2019/02/to-reduce-emergency-room-wait-times-...

"Patients who arrive at EDs with broken bones wait a painful 54 minutes, on average, before receiving any pain medication."

That sounds like a dream to me. 54 minutes is nothing. My friend's wife waited over 8 hours to be seen after cutting through nerves and tendons in her hand. Then she waited 3 days for surgery. After being seen, the doctors told her not to eat. They told her to drive 3 hours to the next City as the local hospital could not perform the operation. When she got there she waited days. Her husband had driven down with their two toddlers and had was not allowed in the hospital due to Covid restrictions. She was pregnant and went days without food waiting for care. This was a little over a week ago.

I had a suspected aneurysm almost a year ago. I woke up with an incredible headache. I waited over 6 hours for a CT scan. That was a high priority triage. I still waited for hours.

I'm not saying the US system is perfect. I don't even know if it's better but I do know our system is broken.

[giantg2]

How does the liability work there against the universal hospital?

Something like waiting 6 hours for a CT or instructing an injured pregnant woman not to eat would be ripe for a malpractice lawsuit in the US (provided actual harm occurs).

[xupybd]

It's basically impossible to sue the government. In theory you could but I've never heard of anyone succeeding.

[mwachs]

I doubt 66% of people insured in the US by their private system are satisfied. https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/canadians-largely-sat...

[datavirtue]

Be real here. No one needs the dystopian demeanor of the BMV when they are facing a health issue.

There is a lot of room for improvement in our current system but the quality of our healthcare facilities and professionals is pretty damn good in the US.

I wish the system would get out of their way and let them work.

[geoduck14]

Not to get off topic, but I'm actually quite satisfied with my DMV

[kurupt213]

California…the state that brings you the DMV will also bring you your medical care. Sounds horrifying.

[Schroedingersat]

> Universal basic utilities wouldn't work because it would need to be means-tested,

Means testing is a stupid idea. Give 2kWh/day and a (upon asking) a two bedroom house worth of insulation to everyone and properly tax wealth to pay for it.

[superchroma]

Well, in socialized healthcare, you have some procedures which are covered, and then some, like cosmetic surgery, which aren't. An equivalent to that for power would be to cook up a baseline kWh usage for a household, maybe something that is a function correlated to the number of residents, and then charge for every kWh above that.

[smt88]

> An equivalent to that for power would be to cook up a baseline kWh usage for a household

This just couldn't work in a fair way.

People live in old houses, new houses, condos, etc. There are massive variations between households in terms of insulation, heating/cooling equipment, etc.

In fact, I would wager that it's often cheaper to cool a wealthier person's 1,000 sqft home than a poorer person's 1,000 sqft home, just because the weathier person is more likely to have a recent, energy-efficient HVAC and better insulation.

[superchroma]

Well, heating/cooling aren't essentials in many places. You could subsidize the cost of running a fridge and appliances but stop short of climate control. Alternatively, in places that are now reaching 50+ degrees celsius with high humidity at times, maybe subsidizing climate control is desirable to save lives?

[fuzzfactor]

>cook up a baseline kWh usage for a household

>charge for every kWh above that.

This is a little bit how it was in Texas in the 1970's and early '80's, when the utilities were still a tightly regulated monopoly.

There was no free energy, but prices could only be changed by a lengthy bureaucratic process. However HL&P had become familiar and had the upper hand in negotiations, but at least the Public Utility Commission still represented the public back then.

In order to be allowed an exorbitant overall increase, they "agreed" to much lower residential rates than business rates, and then deeply discounted the first few hundred kWh for residential customers. They could negotiate the number of baseline kWh as well as the (multiple) rates themselves.

That way once the rate increase went into effect, the largest number of the least financially capable customers would have the most tolerable increases, but the overall monthly cost really shot up quick once you started to cool the whole house with A/C.

This scheme lasted until deregulation and even beyond. There was no requirement to give up your previous monopolistic provider after they migrated to the "free" market, so if you stuck with the traditional HL&P "plan" you still got the baseline kWh way cheaper than anyone else would ever offer, but the remainder kWh over that amount was what was becoming competitively priced.

Even though no other electricity provider had the cheap first kWh's to offer, they were still taking customers away all the time. Regardless, most people had never paid any attention to how cheap it was for the first week or two of every month, and those affordable kWh's were strongly de-emphasized as HL&P came up with all kinds of tempting alternative plans to get you away from the lingering one where the core of everyone's personal energy usage was truly subsidized by those who could most afford it, by one of the last beneficial moves of the PUC.

[giantg2]

What appliances would count? Some people have dishwashers, others don't. Some people use gas for stoves and hot water heaters.

[xupybd]

Here in NZ my fathers cancer treatment was not covered. He spent most of his savings buying an extra year. It was scheduled for funding but Covid took that budget so it's been delayed.

[giantg2]

"Universal health care is not controversial in developed countries outside of the US."

Source?

[isitmadeofglass]

> and that's not easy to do. A household with $0 of income might have a secret $100M fortune somewhere. Should they get free electricity?

Universal basic. That does not mean unlimited user decided usage, then it would not be basic, and it does not have any income restrictions then it would not be universal. If Elon Musk lived in Denmark he’d still get free doctors appointment and cancer treatment even though he’s rich. And yes that is fair. We help everyone who needs help equally, how much money you have or don’t have is completely irrelevant. No need to do background checks or have a Big system around figuring out if a patient deserves help or not, or figuring out patient details. The entire system is geared towards helping people no matter who they are, and that’s how it should be.