In Sweden healthcare is already so cheap (due to state control) that Americans would consider it free, but there's a list of special diseases that are a unique danger to public health,[0] which includes TB, and in those cases you are not charged at all for treatment.[1] It seems reckless from a “not-having-epidemics” standpoint that a wealthy place like the US wouldn't do the same. Hell, it shouldn't be a problem for health industry profits, they could be paid by the state if necessary.
It's gonna take some pretty wealthy people getting pretty awful sick for that to ever happen.
I don't like the typical cynical circle jerks about capitalism etc, but that's just how it is here. The US citizens don't have the power over their healthcare system that the wealthy do. Everyone knows it, everyone readily and openly discusses it, but no one affected is in any position to change anything. Politicians are paid off, votes never go through, bills die off, nothing is allowed to happen. Politicians are voted against, money is speech, they win anyway, the cycle continues.
The cycle also ends, going by historical precedent. We humans have a long-standing tradition of painting ourselves into a sociological corner and then having no option but revolution. It always seems unthinkable before it happens, and then, once it does happen, it seems to have been inevitable.
What the second American revolution will look like, and when and where and how it will happen, I can’t say — but it will. That much is a certainty.
The other option is conquest by a power that isn’t yet in its decadent days - but that remains unlikely in the case of the US - their rivals would do better to simply wait for them to fall on their own sword, rather than expend the energy or political capital on an active invasion. The situation is not dissimilar to Russia in the early 20th century.
The window-dressing is certainly correct at the moment, with a lot of technical development and new communication methodologies available, and growing and accelerating wealth disparity.
A key difference though is that in modern America people are still nominally comfortable. People don't revolt because of expensive Healthcare, they revolt when they cannot buy food. The tragedy of modern America is that even though things are bad and people do suffer, the majority are utterly complacent and uninterested in real systemic change. As long as people can go to Walmart and watch their TV shows, nothing will meaningfully change.
I don't like the typical cynical circle jerks about capitalism etc, but that's just how it is here. The US citizens don't have the power over their healthcare system that the wealthy do. Everyone knows it, everyone readily and openly discusses it, but no one affected is in any position to change anything. Politicians are paid off, votes never go through, bills die off, nothing is allowed to happen. Politicians are voted against, money is speech, they win anyway, the cycle continues.