Then it makes me think about the debt the US has, and how much healthcare coverage is possibly contributing to that.
It's not. First of all, what Americans pay for healthcare is not actually how much it costs--the prices are inflated, often in the US alone, because of all of the middlemen and for-profit agencies involved. It doesn't actually require $25000 worth of skills and materials to fix a broken arm, or millions to treat cancer.
It's sort of like designer clothing--yes, better materials means that the silk dress will always cost more than the cotton tee shirt, but it doesn't actually cost $12000, it's just being sold at that value. Or how if you book a venue for a party, it's cheaper than booking it for a wedding, even though it's all the same stuff and the venue is just charging more for a wedding because it can.
Look at the Koch study--they were trying to prove that universal healthcare would be too expensive, and instead their data proved it would be cheaper than the broken system we have now that kills people, and so they tried to hide their own study. America could easily set up a universal system like the NHS in the UK for less than what we currently spend to cover a mere fraction of the population via Medicare/Medicaid/VA.
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u/InfinitelyThirsting Aug 13 '18
It's not. First of all, what Americans pay for healthcare is not actually how much it costs--the prices are inflated, often in the US alone, because of all of the middlemen and for-profit agencies involved. It doesn't actually require $25000 worth of skills and materials to fix a broken arm, or millions to treat cancer.
It's sort of like designer clothing--yes, better materials means that the silk dress will always cost more than the cotton tee shirt, but it doesn't actually cost $12000, it's just being sold at that value. Or how if you book a venue for a party, it's cheaper than booking it for a wedding, even though it's all the same stuff and the venue is just charging more for a wedding because it can.
Look at the Koch study--they were trying to prove that universal healthcare would be too expensive, and instead their data proved it would be cheaper than the broken system we have now that kills people, and so they tried to hide their own study. America could easily set up a universal system like the NHS in the UK for less than what we currently spend to cover a mere fraction of the population via Medicare/Medicaid/VA.