[s1artibartfast]

Im responding to a comment that thinks the following is crazy and wrong.

>When you remove profit from the equation, you also remove the incentive to increase supply.

Yes, socialized system countries have doctors because they pay doctors, ensuring supply. This proves the point above.

If you pay people to do something, you get more of it.

Health insurance companies dont provide healthcare. They dont stich you up or manufacture pills. They are in the business of vetting and denying claims to ration healthcare provided by others.

>No one negotiates rates with the hospital, argues about your excess or premiums or in or out of network coverage. Health insurance is something you get for travelling abroad, like if you have an accident while skiing and need a helicopter to get you out, not for visiting a doctor or a hospital.

It works different in various socialized systems, but there is always someone negotiating with the hospital, the workers, and the manufacturers. Sometimes this is the government, sometimes it is private insurance.

I dont know which country you are talking about, but almost every country has some sort of Health Insurance. What differs is the level of involvement by the citizens in selecting it.

A classic example would be Germany, which is a multiple payer system with both government and private insurance. 85% percent of people have the government health insurance, which is paid by employers and employees and mandatory. the government manages and negotiates rates for this plan. You can opt out and get private insurance instead, and those insurers have sperate negotiations and offer different services. There is also supplemental insurance, also private, also negotiated separate.

[gambiting]

From my understanding Germany is an outlier among countries with socialized healthcare because their system is either straight up reliant on insurance or is modelled after insurance-like systems. My experience is based on Poland and UK. And sure in the UK you pay for "national insurance" which partially funds the NHS, but the point is that it's almost irrelevant to your coverage - as long as you live in the UK legally you are entitled to treatment, whether you pay NI or not. Again, the difference(imho) is that if you go to a hospital and a doctor there decides you need an operation done, it only goes through a cursory check to make sure the operation is covered and then it's carried out. It doesn't go to some central office where someone checks if you as a person X are entitled to have this done or not, it's not a "claim" like a one you would make with an actual insurance company.

And yes, of course you can supplement that with private insurance if you wish, but vast majority of people don't.

And yes, of course the government negotiates with providers - but when you get treated that's not something that affects you. You don't get a bill that says "your treatment was £10k, but the goverment will only pay £5k, cough up the rest". In fact no one(patients) gets any bills ever.

[s1artibartfast]

I'm pretty sure that UK is the outlier, where healthcare providers are state employees. Wikipedia says the NHS is the largest employer in Europe with 1.4 million employees.

I think the vast majority of countries have some sort of a situation with the government as at least one of the payers, and Private health care providers.

I completely agree that the US is an outlier in how involved the patient is in the payment of their healthcare, and the fact that they can be left with the bill instead of the provider if the insurance is denied.

On a psychological level, I think people are more frustrated by being offered care that they can't afford and dealing with uncertain coverage then not being offered the care at all.

I'm a huge proponent of healthcare reform in the US. That's sad, I think one of the biggest problems with getting it past is unreal expectations. Americans have a caricature of European healthcare in their mind that is totally inaccurate.