American taxpayers footed the bill for at least $1.8 trillion in federal and state health care expenditures in 2022 — about 41% of the nearly $4.5 trillion in both public and private health care spending the U.S. recorded last year, according to the annual report released last week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
On top of that $1.8 trillion, third-party programs, which are often government-funded, and public health programs accounted for another $600 billion in spending.
This means the U.S. government spent more on health care last year than the governments of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Austria, and France combined spent to provide universal health care coverage to the whole of their population (335 million in total), which is comparable in size to the U.S. population of 331 million.
Between direct public spending and compulsory, tax-driven insurance programs, Germany spent about $380 billion in health care in 2022; France spent around $300 billion, and so did the U.K.; Italy, $147 billion; Spain, $105 billion; and Austria, $43 billion. The total, $1.2 trillion, is about two-thirds of what the U.S. government spent without offering all of its citizens the option of forgoing private insurance.
People talking about dismantling the military to pay for health care distract themselves from the fact that the health care system already holds all the money that is needed for single payer health-care. Which is what the people making money off this system want. They want people to blame the military, because that doesn’t solve shit.
Though we should also definitely dismantle the US military
Dismantle? No.
Reform for efficiency? Yes.
For example, the entire admin back end can be civil service. (Some of it already is) and contracting needs to go die in a dumpster fire. You’ve got at least 30,000 infantrymen sitting around doing nothing on any given day. Take a survey of their skills and start assigning additional duties. You can always fall back on contractors if you run out of grunts.
Also, for the love of God stop maintaining an entire mechanized army. You don’t need to mount every soldier at the same time. Yes it’s awesome. But most infantry units aren’t going much of anywhere once they’re dug in.
Efficiency of what? Imperialism? Fuck no.
Until superheroes or the Carebears become real we will need a military. The things I mentioned don’t touch the power projection debate on purpose. That’s a whole ideology thing that people need to be voting for and stuff. I’m taking about ways to save money whether we pull back or not.
Ready troops? Care Bear Stare!
It would be awesome.
you gotta source for that platitude?
Source: Ukraine. Gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for an accord specifying its borders and promising peace. Almost immediately got invaded by a nuclear power with an army after making political decisions on its own. If it had kept its nuclear weapons, Russia would not have been so cavalier about straight up invading. Disarmament is a lie.
Disarmament of an actual nuclear power has been done once. South Africa.
Ukraine never owned or controlled those nukes. They were guarded by Russian soldiers. They would have had to attack Russian soldiers, somehow repulse a Russian counterattack without Western aid, and then reprogram them since they didn’t have launch codes. Ukraine got the best concessions they could for giving Russia back the Russian nukes.
Yeah. The world. Minutemen were cool in 1776. But that wouldn’t fly these days.
You think Russia/Iran/China would just behave without the threat of US intervention?
Ironically, without the “bigger threat” of the USA, they’d likely be at odds against each other. China still wants Outer Manchuria back, a region it was forced to cede to Russia back in 1860. Iran wants to be the de facto power of the muslim world, but has to deal with many other muslim countries that don’t want it, plus Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are countries that Russia would prefer to have control over.
Yeah there might be a struggle there for a bit but China would steamroll both of them and then what?
I doubt China would steamroll them. People thought Russia would steamroll Ukraine, it very clearly didn’t. Besides, China isn’t exactly a loved country, it has “allies” that would likely abandon them on the first opportunity and many countries that would love to see them getting kicked in the proverbial nuts.
Any militaristic action of China against any of those big targets would trigger a response from several countries. While everyone will talk peace, in reality a good portion would try to play the war up for as long as possible, to bleed both dry.
Build some god damn trains, subways, and bus routes with the military money. Bing bang boom we’re an actual “first world” country now
Honestly, rather than them run their budgets to max so they don’t lose any the next cycle. It’s a damn self feeding monster.
They also distract themselves from the fact that a single payer system would be cheaper so we could actually afford more military with one. No dismantling needed.
But if we had universal healthcare, how would all the useless middlemen make their money?
Won’t anyone think of the shareholders?!
They would move on to other amoral enterprises like cars/insurance/real estate/televangelism/etc
Corporations are people. Didn’t you know?
By contributing to the building up of the productive forces. Fuck this stagnation bullshit, invest in infrastructure and urbanization, invest in clean energy, and automation. Cut out meaningless jobs.
I feel vindicated. Not 15 days ago I complained about paying more in taxes AND health insurance. And I’ve been saying it for over a decade. Fuck private healthcare, it serves no purpose for the people.
Yep, this is why I argue with people who say, we should raise taxes to fund it…no fuck that, we can afford it now already without having to raise taxes even a penny.
We would save a significant amount of money. And private insurance almost always doesn’t provide good healthcare. Imagine no copays or deductables.
Imagine not having to argue with a massive corporation about whether you should be able to take the medication your doctor told you to take.
Imagine not having to choose between taking your kid to the doctor for $300 and a sick note for sniffles or letting him tough it out and get marked truant.
I have to say, being on Medicaid through college showed just how true this is. Being able to put my health first, rather than worry about if I could afford a doctor visit (or an ER visit), was great. The peace of mind of knowing that I would pay $0 for ANYTHING medical lead to me putting my health first.
The one potential charge you could get was for going to the ER for something deemed a “non-emergency.” Even then I didn’t worry about whether I could go to the ER after whiffing it off my longboard and smacking my head into the pavement because… well, the non-emergency charge was $8.
This was very eye-opening for me as an American into the world of public healthcare.
Yeah that’s pretty informative. I am not sure how well the recommendation for implementing it in the US would work though. It’s probably the best chance anyone in the US has for government funded healthcare, but it would mean people in the poorest states would get the worst healthcare. It would probably still be a step up and we could give solutions to that problem later.
This may not be a popular question, but: Would Americans be willing to pay less?
No really. This would mean a lot of good jobs being cut. Yes, they are jobs that provide no benefit to the public (rather the opposite), but thinking about the big picture isn’t very American. Americans like to side with the little guy.
It gets worse. It would mean a huge pay cut for doctors. They are way overpaid compared to doctors anywhere else. Would Americans side with
themselvesthe peoplethe government or those nice family doctors?First of all what? Typically the highest paid members of hospital staff of “Administrators” who have completely shifted health care into a for-profit business. If the government regulated them out of their jobs and there were price caps set in place instead of wasting hundreds of hours decoding billing and fighting insurance companies doctors would very likely make more. They would also be more likely to actually try to help you versus hit unrealistic patient exam quotas to try and extract as much money from insurance to benefit the administration staff. Hell new doctors in medical school are pretty much unpaid and forced to work hours that somehow circumvent labor laws. The whole medical industry needs to be overhauled. Getting rid of middle management would free up capital that could be properly reinvested into the hospital for better equipment, wages etc.
doctors would very likely make more
I expect that’s politically the way to go; not that I know anything about that. You get rid of a few inefficiencies and pay off other stakeholders with most of the gains.
The fact remains, if you want to lower health care costs to levels comparable to other countries, you have to lower all the costs to comparable levels, including doctor’s pay.
I don’t think you understand just how much bloated administrative costs and bureaucracy account for the U.S.‘s healthcare spending. It’s absolutely NOT doctors’ salaries accounting for the literally billions we are spending and no doctor’s shouldn’t be paid less to do the same job. Remove the middle men and ghoulish profiteering from healthcare.
The US can pay doctors as much as it wants. If Americans think that doctors deserve more than they get in other countries, that’s not for me to judge. Mind, that it does imply that the US is more unequal than other countries, because Americans want it to be.
True, merely lowering the administrative overhead will also go some ways to lower costs. But here, too, I wonder if Americans are really willing to do that. Sure, everyone wants to get rid of the useless middle men, but that’s not anyone’s job description.
Education costs in the US are also astronomically higher than other countries, which when you’re indebted 250-500k as soon as you graduate medical school, you are going to command a higher wage to make payments. The Education system in the US suffers from the same “we should run this like a business” greed that the medical industry does and should absolutely be reformed. Cause freedom isn’t free but it can be financed 🙄
BUT, small businesses would benefit, and entrepreneurs, if they didn’t have to worry about health insurance. Doctors offices costs would come down without a lot of complicated billing stuff to do. Billing specialists would lose their jobs. Of my circle of people - husband would lose his job unless it was a Germany style system, and two other people I know.
If you want some sort of employment program, the medical system here is a shit way to go about it. Why not pay people to do something with a good impact on the land or the people?
And again - universal, tax-paid coverage would favor small business, it’s easier to take a risk when it doesn’t mean you might go bankrupt from a medical issue.
Are you calling for profit insurance the little guy? I don’t know why people think doctors would be the ones taking the hit and not the for profit corporations.
No. I am asking if Americans would actually be willing to see cuts happen.
To answer your implied question: Because corporations don’t consume. They don’t go on holidays, live in mansions, … There is nothing there which can take the hit.
Corporations do consume, go on holiday, live in mansions… The executives wouldn’t lower their standards or travel on their own dime.
If you think for profit corporations don’t have excess then you must not live in the same reality.
Executives are employees, not corporations.
Corporations give things to their executives. Company retreats? Company jets? Company cars? Do none of these exist in your reality?
This would mean a lot of good jobs being cut
Oh, no! We eliminated useless positions that accomplish nothing but sucking the life out of the system. However will we go on?
Americans like to side with the little guy
As you americans tell it: That’s bullsh*t. I see you guys getting fucked everyday by corporate. It’s hard to believe this is the U.S that holds international power… it looks like a Circus on fire looking inside from the outside.
As somebody trapped in this circus, lemme tell you, I want the fuck out of this clown car.
Private health care is literal vampirism.
Benefiting from the ill health and suffering of others? Yeah that sounds right
Year over year my insurance at huge companies would get both worse and costlier. It was to the point that the insurance that was costing me $200/mo was literally just acting as a safeguard against something costing me $10,000- which would have financially ruined anybody at those jobs anyway
How timely! American here who just received a bill for scoping my sinuses by an ENT specialist: insurance covered $28 out of the $415 procedure. This is on top of the $70 copay I owe for the $195 office visit. So all accounting factored in, I owe $450 for what I thought was going to be $70.
Because it was billed through insurance, the provider’s hands are tied in terms of further negotiation. I would bet if I had gone in as a cash patient, I’d be much better off.
The icing on the cake is that the scoping procedure was non-conclusive.
The US healthcare insurance system is the ultimate way to make money fast, for little effort. As long as you’re on the right side of it, that is.
copay is such a bullshit word, like i’m somehow equal partners with this trillion dollar corporation of ghouls
Try telling them you decline to pay the bill because it’s outside network and see how much they value your partnership.
The worst is that insurance companies “cover” things and that’s all they can say before anything is done. After, when billed, they can say “we cover 5% of the final bill. See? We covered it.” And we have no idea how much we will need to pay for standard necessary procedures.
Fuck. Canadian here who is just aghast at the charge. Had a friend go through the same procedure but essentially never paid a dime. We don’t even pay MSP any more but back when we did it was locked to your income bracket and while I had some bumpercrop years (my base rate is 33 bucks an hour and I work 12 hour days standard with time and a half applied for everything past 8 hours for 2019 I worked 11 months with routine 60 hour weeks) my payments never crested $250 for a quarterly payment. Heck I didn’t even realize that they stopped charging for two years because I had the thing rigged to autopay.
Heck a friend of mine’s Dad needed emergency hospital transfer from a small town and they used a helicopter ambulance and the family was never charged.
People want to complain that we’re slower and that people have to actually wait in waiting rooms and sure, non life-threatening stuff needs to be put in a queue but from what I have heard from my US buddies wait times at least are pretty comparable.
I swear people who talk about waiting have never visited an ER for something mundane because it’s the only option opened after 6, or who never had to meet with a specialist, or get a procedure that requires one.
Story time. January 2019. I have a 6 month old baby with mysterious rash. Pediatrician has us cut out common allergens and he clears up. Tells us to book with a pediatric allergist.
Now, I don’t live in BFE. I live in Southeastern MA. By no means an area underserved by doctors. The doctor refers us to Boston Children’s Hospital. It’s an hour and a half away without traffic, or 2 hours and 3 transfers on public transit.
The first appointment available was in October. Kids 7 months old at this point and already getting appointments for longer than that out.
We get put on a cancellation list and around March we get a call for him to be seen and get a scratch test. We take it, we are going on vacation 3 days after that and we’d love to know exactly what to avoid.
Kid lights up like a damn Christmas tree, but only one food allergy (peanuts) and it comes in like 1.5x the diameter of positive control.
Next, because of his age, they want to get him into an exposure therapy study, but he needs a good challenge first and they would call us when we got back from vacation.
Well, we came back from vacation the first week of March, 2019. BCH was now not scheduling any challenges due to the pandemic. Try again after Easter when the whole thing blows over. Then a month later. And another month.
Eventually they are booking again and after getting through the backlog of people that were cancelled due to the pandemic , the next appointment is 14 months out. By that point he’s too old for the study and we neeed to wait till he’s 4.
Well, now he’s 4. We book an appointment for his food challenge. The old scratch test is no longer good. He needs another one. Next booking for that is 10 months out, again. As luck would have it, though, we called back over and over again and eventually got a booking for his scratch test.
That was back in August. We booked his food challenge while we were in the office. It will be next October, barring any more global catastrophes or blind luck on the cancellation list. He will be five.
It’s amazing to me that there’s a person who can beat me at Smash Bros who has been waiting for a doctors appointment for nearly his entire life. And people tell me healthcare in America is fine. Those motherfuckers don’t know about this. They don’t know how much it costs every time he’s out of school for a couple of days with a fever and the school wants a doctor’s note. They don’t know that after wages, the single biggest part of their compensation package is their employers portion of their health insurance. In fact, depending on their job, it may even be more than their wages.
That last bit is important. People don’t realize how much their healthcare actually costs. They see the pre-tax line item for their share of premiums, never their employers. They see that as separate from the Medicare pre-tax item, and the vision and dental, all of which they don’t see the employers portion. They might see the bills if they got the high deductible plan, but they’re somewhat expected because “they got the ‘cheap’ plan”.
See up here people go all “I had to wait six months for a specialist! Bloody socialized medicine!” lt’s a blindness caused by not having anything to compare to and buying into the American political lies about our own system. That kind of wait time for a scratch test is insane even by our standards.
Yeah the ENT specialist I saw was three months after I was referred by my general physician, because that’s the earliest they had available.
There’s nothing admirable about US heathcare (at no fault of the healthcare workers, let me be clear).
I admit that I technically have a horse in the US healthcare system. The industry I work in contracts our labour vs the US market because they don’t have to pay in to sponsor our medical insurance policy coverage. Technically speaking if the US fixed it’s healthcare my job would be less competitive.
But fuck, my job ain’t worth anybody suffering.
Get your jaw checked bro. TMJ can cause a lot of similar issues
For those who are interested, the population of those countries combined is roughly the same as the US: 331,137,369 compared to 339,996,563 for the US.
I came here to ask this; an argument commonly made by proponents of the US system is that the population sizes are different.
These stats are easy to find. The US spends a much higher percentage of its GDP on health care (16.6%) than anyone else. The difference is bigger than the entire US military budget. If the US cut its health care spending to the level of France (12.1%) or Germany (12.7%), it could more than double its military spending.
It terms of actual resources, the difference is even bigger, as US-Americans work much more than Europeans. I’m not sure what for.
ETA: At the same time, the US has a younger population, which should not really need as much care.
You mean to tell me we can have better healthcare and more guns, and save money doing it?
Are you running for president?
Actually proposing that would be political suicide.
Only in a backward country like the US it would.
Plenty of Americans are against their best interests.
Which shouldn’t go ignored.
But the cost of the US Healthcare generally shouldn’t be ignored either. And it seems to be by a good majority of our politicians.
IMHO, our population should give us MORE leverage to get cost reductions but it’s just not going to happen. We need a severe overhaul of our healthcare system and the people who benefit from our current system have too much power and influence.
It should though because economy of scale works to make things cheaper, not more expensive. They’re literally ignoring basic economics to make that argument.
Not always, and not that I disagree with your point either. The US healthcare system is so over bloated with administration that it’s likely experiencing diseconomies of scale instead
Well that’s the issue. We don’t have a single system. We have an industry. I also love how that link completely dodges the motivation to raise prices purely for profit. But even with that, we already know the legitimate cost problem is due to multiple middle man companies that provide no value and just take money. And the more care they deny, the more money they make. So it’s a combination of problems. We have to pay them enough for them to employ people to find reasons to deny care.
Thanks for clearing that up. The headline is badly written and needs that information.
Those mega yachts and Hawaiian bunkers aren’t gonna pay for themselves!
“But where would the money come from?” My ass, that’s where.
I keep posting this article because I’m tired of hearing this statement as an excuse why we can’t do things for the American people.
If it is something that the leaders want they seem to always find the money.
Somehow you have more money for Israel, bailing out banks, covering police with pension, spending on stadiums, buying lavish gifts for SC Judges, and PPP loans but not enough to pay your citizens who built your country and shoulder it everyday?
And as long as we continue to shoulder and maintain for peanuts, that’s all we’ll get.
The American “Healthcare” system is a money-making venture, first and foremost. Health care is simply the structure the corporations use to wring as much money from the masses as possible.
I saw a commercial for healthcare.gov. It talked about how people only paid a few bucks for healthcare. It was all after government assistance.
The fact that you need heavy government assistance to get healthcare shows how much of a failure things are here.
Also in Mexico they have legal price limits on drugs. They’re printed on the box so you know if you’re getting a deal or paying the max. Also can see a doctor for like 40 pesos (about 2 to 3 USD). It’s much cheaper than my post insurance copay. I understand it’s a different market, but they have better general healthcare than the US.
Also as a side note, most drugs don’t need a prescription. You can tell the pharmacist what hurts and they can tell you what should help (or when to see a Dr). If I want to see my Dr, I’m on hold for 20 minutes then get an appointment in 2 weeks. Once again: viva Mexico!
In the US, when I want to see my doctor I drive 15 minutes to get there and tell them I need to be seen for whatever and then I wait 15 minutes and then talk to the doctor. If they say I need to talk to a specialist, that may take 1-2 weeks after making an appointment though. It’s not cheaper, but at least I can get care when I need it.
Of course, not everyone can afford healthcare in our country. That’s the biggest problem. But it’s generally fast and competent.
Man this is less and less the experience I’m seeing. Months to see my primary. Urgent care I can get in same day, but I work at hospital that saves slots for their employees
Where I am in the US, dentist schedules 6 months out, doctor likes you to schedule annual exams a year out and non urgent a couple of weeks at a minimum but there are some urgent care appointments available each day (or most days). Dermatologist and GYN a couple months wait for routine care. But there are lots of independent urgent care standalone clinics, including for orthopedic stuff, so for broken bones I did not have to go to the emergency room and incur that cost.
It’s uneven I would say. Definitely not worth what we are paying in taxes, insurance premiums and payments to providers, though.
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So about the same waiting times as developed nations with a healthcare system, but with 10 000 times the cost.
I pay like 5€ in Belgium to go see a doctor, the rest is paid by my insurance. I can walk into a hospital right now and get service. As long as the issue warrants urgency of course. And a call to my house doctor can be met with a half hour wait time if it is less urgent.
Most people cannot see their primary care physician just by driving up and being like, hey, I need to be seen for x issue. You pretty much have to make an appointment unless you go to a minute clinic or something. And that’s with insurance. Your experience is very much an outlier.
No kidding. There’s at least a month long wait to see any of my doctors. Same with my dentist unless it’s urgent. Usually it’s closer to two months.
If I need immediate attention, I have to go to an urgent care clinic or emergency room.
The nice thing is that in the year 2023, all of my doctors are reachable via the hospital system’s app and they respond to questions relatively quickly. So there’s no need to schedule a 15 minute appointment that ends up taking hours just to ask a simple question or two or to get a referral.
This is a useless metric, the US has more population than all of those countries combined and the healthcare costs in Europe are about half of what they are in the US. This article is reaching towards a conclusion, not really objectively coming to it, although it’s not surprising considering the source.
United States 340M (Not 331M)
- Germany 83M
- UK 68M
- Italy 59M
- Spain 48M
- Austria 9M
- France 65M
~ 332M (Not 335M)
- Population source : https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/
- Healthcare cost source : https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#GDP per capita and health consumption spending per capita, 2021 (U.S. dollars, PPP adjusted)
(Just the first few results where this information could be looked up, no other criteria applied for these sources)
Guess people just don’t like facts.
So, all those European countries combined have about the same population as the US, but spend a combined 1.2T, whereas US spends 1.8T?
Even if you consider the population about the same, the healthcare costs in Europe are about half of what they are in the US, so the fact that they spend 30% more than 0.9T is basically them spending 30% per citizen on the proportional healthcare. The real benefit is also, y’know, not going bankrupt over healthcare fees…
The population of the US is more, although not by much. I pointed it out because the results from the article are different, claiming the population from those countries is more than that of the US (no, it isn’t) with very different numbers, which hints at the hand they are playing.
Study is also worthless because this is also assuming same for same engagement for services, but that is doubtful as most US citizens attempt to avoid Healthcare as if something isn’t covered, you may involuntarily bankrupt yourself. In the other countries listed, there is a lack of fear so a average citizen may be engaging with their healthcare system more often.
Being able to engage more freely with your doctor also helps keep the healthcare costs down because people can solve their health issues before they really become costly.
one reason the costs are lower in Europe is bc govts over there put strict limits on how much providers can charge for services and prescriptions, which is something the US refuses to do. Healthcare costs in the US are made up by pharma companies depending on how much they think they can get away with.
only a conservative could say “yeah, it’s less money overall but it’s more money once you normalize to assume that it’s the same amount of money”
you’re talking shit, man. stop it.
Sorry you find logic so difficult. It’s as simple as healthcare cost in US is higher, therefore costs more. Almost every comment except yours that replied to mine understood this really utterly simple fact to understand, but considering how you devolve the discussion into name calling, I don’t really believe you had any other intent than trolling.
The article is comparing 2022 costs/populations. Your link is estimated 2023 populations. The article is literally about healthcare costs. The article also states there is an additional 600 billion that is paid. 1.2T vs 1.8T + 600B = double the costs. Your second link seems to agree with this article.
The article is literally about how much government spends on healthcare, not how much that healthcare costs …
It’s like you didn’t read the article.
This means the U.S. government spent more on health care last year than the governments of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Austria, and France combined spent to provide universal health care coverage to the whole of their population (335 million in total), which is comparable in size to the U.S. population of 331 million.
dude didn’t even read his own comment. he legit went “yeah, well healthcare is cheaper in europe” as though that proved his point and not the point of the article.
The article is literally about how much government spends on healthcare, not how much that healthcare costs …
healthcare costs in Europe are about half of what they are in the US
you see where that’s the point the article is getting at, right? why do they pay less?
Holy spamming troll. Any other comment you’d care to spam under, you insecure little snowflake? Just make your point and move on. Instead you are just replying under every other comment like the bad toxic shit you are.
It has always been known that more money could be saved with Universal health care. But, this couldn’t be done in Congress. Nothing new here.
Ok now do Per Capita
As mentioned in the summary, the combined population of those countries is almost the same as the US. So per capita costs are in fact about 2/3 that of the US government’s spending.
At least it’s in the summary because that title is way too clickbaity.
You think which countries?
Here’s the paragraph from the summary, which lists which countries. Maybe it doesn’t show up on your Lemmy client?
This means the U.S. government spent more on health care last year than the governments of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Austria, and France combined spent to provide universal health care coverage to the whole of their population (335 million in total), which is comparable in size to the U.S. population of 331 million.
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A title can be true and also be clickbait. This one isn’t, though.
The source article for this is https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/
Which proves the point, It’s not about money or the economy. It’s about inflicting suffering.
What? It’s absolutely about money: more of our on the pockets of middlemen.
oh it’s about the money. it’s about funneling money from both the government and directly from the citizenry into the hands of private medical death panel operators
According to google, the 2023 population of those countries in millions:
Germany: 83
UK: 67
Italy: 58
Spain: 47
Austria: 8
France: 64
Total: 327
US: 334
Hmm…It’s almost like population numbers have something to do with health care costs.
The US spent more than those countries combined, with similar sized population.
You would be on to something, but on a per Capita basis the US still spends more. So the reality is the US still spends more on healthcare than its developed counterparts
It’s like you didn’t read the article.
This means the U.S. government spent more on health care last year than the governments of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Austria, and France combined spent to provide universal health care coverage to the whole of their population (335 million in total), which is comparable in size to the U.S. population of 331 million.
combined
“combined”
combined.
#combined
Just a quick mote: That is great and all, but the US has more people than a large part of Europe…combined The whole of the US has a population of around 337 million, the entirety of the EU is 461 million.
If you aren’t just trying to drop this as a random fact and are instead pushing for universal healthcare in the US, might I suggest looking at something more meaningful, such as cost per covered person.
Numbers also don’t scale linearly with covered persons due to inefficiencies, so that is something to think about as well. Quality of care is also a consideration. If i need an optional surgery here in the US I can typically get in within 2-6 weeks for the surgery. In some countries it can take months.
sigh the healthcare debate is so much more complex than people realize. I am pro universal healthcare, btw.
If we adopted universal healthcare tomorrow without consideration of the issues, the worldwide economy would take a massive hit. Insurers and private healthcare companies invest dollars worldwide in many different industries.
The six countries have a comparable total population to the US…
This means the U.S. government spent more on health care last year than the governments of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Austria, and France combined spent to provide universal health care coverage to the whole of their population (335 million in total), which is comparable in size to the U.S. population of 331 million.
4 million more people covered for 2/3 the cost, and for what the US government is spending, it’s not even covering the 331 million people in the US.
If i need an optional surgery here in the US I can typically get in within 2-6 weeks for the surgery. In some countries it can take months.
You wrote “2-6 weeks” but more accurate would be “never, because the patient can’t afford it” or “and then they have crippling medical debt”
Also it’s wildly dependent on what surgery. 1-2 years for some surgeries. Though the UK is significantly worse on that specific procedure, entirely on purpose.
Is it a gender-affirming surgery, by any chance?
Yeah
My family member had to wait a year and a half for top surgery in Colorado
Yeah I got into bottom surgery in 6 months because someone canceled and I was willing to stay in a hospital for a week in 2021.
And the UK NHS can provide similar speeds to the US. They just refuse to have enough clinics to accommodate the fact that trans people are about a third of a percent of the population and they’re unwilling to follow the modern best practices for transitioning. 2 year wait to begin an outdated and humiliating waiting period to start hormones isn’t something you do unless you’re intentionally underfunding it.
I support single payer knowing that I’m one of the groups that my country will choose to hurt in revenge. Because nobody should ever have to ask how they’re going to pay for chemo, even the people choosing to punish me for taking that problem from them.
The countries they used add up to the same number of people.
Also large systems are more efficient, not less. That’s why WalMart has cheaper stuff than your local mom and pop store.
“If we adopted universal health care tomorrow without consideration of the issues, the worldwide economy would take a massive hit”
I think that’s a lie certain people are spreading who fear change to make other people fear change too.
If you took a middle school economics class and did a basic Google search you would change your mind.
All the stuff I said is independently verifiable.
Wow that sounds amazing, thank you for the advice! 😀 Will ask around in a nearby school soon. Would duckduckgo also work for the “google” part?
Edit: linking your sources instead of claiming “a basic google search proves me right” should be a given.
bold of you to assume we were properly educated about the real world at any time in our American upbringings
So right now the PE ratio of the s & p 500 is 26 or so. That number on average historically around 15.5 if I remember correctly. Meaning it would take 15.5 year’s profits at current profit levels to pay for a stock you buy. Ie, if a share was worth ten dollars, it would take 15.5 years for the companies to all make enough profit to cover the price of ten dollars for all the shares.
So that’s average. We are now at 26 or more. So it now takes 26 years. Meaning, the stock market is TOO EXPENSIVE. This is a great thing for the boomers living off selling their shares. Just like with their overpriced homes, they are enjoying this situation.
Those of us working and BUYING shares are not. We can buy less percentage of a company for more money, and expect poorer returns on what we invest today. Same as with houses. We can buy less home for more money. Long term, means we will either have to work longer, or somehow live on less when we are unable to work anymore as we age.
So if you tell me we can perhaps get universal healthcare AND enjoy the benefit of stocks returning to reasonable levels enjoyed by previous generations, I’m now even more excited thinking about universal healthcare.
Say you never used a different heathcare than the US without saying you ever used a different healthcare than the US.
Waiting time is not as bad as the propaganda makes you believe it is. They are about the same as the US, but with a fraction of the cost.
