First and foremost this would be a HUGE boon for small businesses. They are currently hugely outclassed in offering benefits which hampers hiring. It's also significantly more costly per employee for them.
Second, huge boon for employees who can change jobs left and right regardless of life circumstances. Currently the best way to improve your wages and/or get promoted to a bigger position is to get a job at a new company.
Third, huge boon for entrepreneurs who can now take bigger risks to start a new business because regardless of what happens, they don't have to worry about losing their healthcare
All of these things will have long term knock-on effects of leveling the opportunities for non wealthy people as well.
I'll say it for the millionth time. Every single stance the GOP takes is bad for small businesses, bad for the economy, bad for the country.
Very well said. My old man can attest to the struggle of running a small-business with a couple employees while managing the overhead of health insurance both for himself, and them.
This is honestly how Democrats should be pushing it: We're Pro Small-Business. (1) Entrepreneurship, (2) Innovation, (3) True competition, (4) Keeping money within communities... I could go on.
Don't forget, the Democrats have never put universal healthcare on their agenda and they've rigged multiple primaries in order to prevent candidates who would put it on the agenda from winning.
thats because thats thier only carrot(single issue that convinces people to vote for them), they would lose that power overnight). thats why they always tease public heatlcare for all, and conspire with the republicans to derail those plans.
"Big news tonight. Congress has officially passed the Healthcare for All Bill with unanimous support, also, the Cleveland Browns have won the Super Bowl!"
I've got a bowel obstruction 2 years ago and i had to pay 6k for my deductible and my insurance paid 12k. I got a tube down my nose, some xrays and stayed a night. I currently know its going to happen again any day now and it almost happend two nights ago and I was in horrendous pain. I could go to the doctor and they could probably help me and stop it from happening again. However, I dont have 6k to spare to find out. So until it is debilitating, we'll just have to see what happens.
Ive got shitty US insurance. Had to have the ol' gallbladder removed. Hospital charged $40k. After insurance, my bill was less than $3k. Lots of people would be financially ruined by that math. Im thankful I had the $3k to pay.
It's hard out there, but at least we're letting gun owners carry into Hawaiian grocery stores.
The other 0.0000001% are already so wealthy that their life will be exactly the same except that they will be furious about the 99.999999% having an easier life.
they would stop applying to grueling service/retail jobs/technician jobs, and probably focus career paths even if they already graduated with a degree, more money goes into taking more classes, or saving money for something else. i think these are one of the reason people are not in a field they supposedly studied in, of course you would need a efficient train/fast rail system in most states for it to work as well since most degree'd jobs are outside large cities most of the time, besides the job market being very poor for many different fields.
most people are probably paying 600-1000+/month in premiums anyways, and they have to spend down thier DEDUCTIBLES and OOP to be fully covered, which most people cant unless you are chronically sick. the current subsidies make it less than that per month.
This.
I've said for years, it'd be a Renaissance of entrepreneurship and craftsmanship.
I've known so many people over the years that would have been fine getting by selling things they've made, or fixing others things, if they didn't need employer based Healthcare.
I feel that would get you off the couch and doing stuff at least?
But no. Universal Basic Income. I think it would encourage people to experiment more with self-employment to supplement the modest income they get through UBI.
and suddenly many people who have been wanting to start their own businesses, make that career move, or move to where the jobs are would finally feel secure enough to do so. I suspect this would boost the economy everywhere in ways it would be hard to predict.
People would have more job mobility. You could quit (or get fired) and not have to worry about becoming bankrupt due to healthcare.
People that don't have insurance will be able to seek aid. Less people will die of preventable illness. People can focus on getting better without the stress of "how will I pay for this? I'm ruined"
The economy would skyrocket. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE would benefit. And there are people in this country so vile they would lose out on billions or trillions in profits just to screw over the masses. Imagine companies not having to pay 10-20k+ per employee for healthcare. Employees getting preventative care, being healthy, and being more .. PRODUCTIVE!
The health insurance industry is half a percent of the whole US economy ($1.6tn of $32tn). Pulling out the rug under it would almost certainly cause a recession in the short term. Probably still worth it imo
US would start catching up to the technologically advanced nations in life expectency. A lot more people would start businesses or take a chance on dream jobs. The us would become more competitive with other countries as businesses would no longer have it as a cost. Its essentially like subsidizing your whole economy and many of our competitors do just that so we have to compete with that.
The major factors in the US's low life expectancy are guns and automobiles. Because the required medical care for the damage those things cause is already guaranteed, universal healthcare would have a relatively small impact on life expectancy, especially in the short term.
It's possible infant mortality would benefit. Major reasons for our (the US's) poor performance there are people that do not seek medical care (polling suggests about 2/3 of this is either driven by or related to cost concerns), and differences in how we track infant mortality statistics (for example, the US counts all infants, even if they are born severely premature, while most countries exclude some prematurely born infants from their statistics).
The (lifesaving) care is guaranteed, whether you are able to pay or not. The resulting debt could cause a lot of problems, but few of them contribute immediately to life expectancy.
Quality of life, sure. Feeling financially secure in your present position, absolutely. But not how long your ticker keeps ticking.
Well, we'd retire. We have enough saved to manage þrough to our deaþs, except for healþcare. It'd be retiring early, and in all likelyhood we'd take different jobs which aren't as high-stress; let someone younger deal wiþ þe bullshit þat Management is. So maybe not full-on retire. We continue to work mainly because healþcare in þe US is stupid.
Approximately 1-2 million people employed in the mass bureacracy of claims processing and validation would lose their jobs.
That's how much of a gargantuan amount of bullshit the healthcare industry is, its so big that at this point, assuming the rest of the economy was doing fine, switching to universal health care would create a moderate recession, because so many bullshit jobs would no longer need to exist.
Obviously it would be a massive net economic benefit, but at this point, medicine is gonna sting a bit.
Approximately 1-2 million people employed in the mass bureacracy of claims processing and validation would lose their jobs.
Those "same" (number of) people would be needed to process the claims that needed to be approved by the nationwide system that replaced "for profit" healthcare.
I'm from Canada, and I know a surgeon and he has one admin. One (1) secretary that handles patient booking, billing, and payments. The benefit of a single payer system is there's one payer. The government. One set of forms to comply with. No rejections (almost always. Rejections come from foreigners or out of province coverage when determining which province is responsible for paying)
His software system (government provided) auto fills 99% of it. That's why he can have one (1) secretary. The government side Idk but it's certainly not insane ratios like the US since the process is far more streamlined and doesn't rely on appeals or rejections to racketeer more money out of doctors and patients. What's really sad is Americans are so conditioned to believe their way of life is somehow normal, that orphans must also be crushed somehow in Europe or Canada.
Yeah, you go into a doctor's office and they'll have 5 secretaries to handle all that paper work. I didnt do Healthcare, but for a minute I was a service administrator for a car dealership who's job, among 7 of us, was to do the billing and warranty/insurance claims. The paperwork was insane and had to be presented in a precise way or it wasn't accepted. I can only imagine what hoops health insurance makes these offices jump through.
That's not quite true. Medical billing here is hopelessly complicated, a universal system would likely have universal rules, and streamline the process of billing and payments.
So if a medical practice now needs 5 people to do the insurance billing, it might need only one if there was one payer (Medicare) or two if there was a German sort of system, but not 5.
As others have outlined in greater detail... no, you'd have a massive simplification and standardization of such forms, thus a massive reduction in the amount of 'needed' work of such kind.
The entire way the modern US healthcare system works is by making there be so many abstract layers and processes going on at the same time, that it requires an inordinate amount of time and effort to even actually map out what those layers and processes are, much less who is actually responsible for what particular decision or mistake.
And that is the point of it. Its is insanely complex and opaque by design, because it allows them do functionally do whatever they want, and be able to say its all done for compliance's sake.
So, yeah, if you just flatten all that... ~90% of it no longer needs to exist.
Or... the real funny part here is... if we stick with the system as it is, well, this kind of shit is gonna be done by LLMs. So we will probably end up having the same employment void developing under the current hypercapitalist paradigm as well.
you can have both private and public, private if you want to see someone faster or more specialized care. and everyone gets public regardless of income. most states have very small maximum limit on if you can get medi-caid. funny how military service members have universal healthcare, a "public version of them" and they arnt in debt. it can be done, the us chooses not to because GOP/DNC would start to lose alot of political power.
Lots of people would exit the traditional job market, millions would start small private business. Pay would go up both because of the healthcare savings to companies and because people would stop working shit jobs for shit pay just to keep health insurance.
It might also lead to a massive recession as for profit healthcare providers and services last l lay off workers and go bankrupt.
So mixed bag probably good overall for workers, very bad for capitalists. But there would be a massive labor disruption and lots of people would be on the losing side initially.
I would support a transitional system where every say 5 years we lower the age for Medicare access so we gradually ween off the old system and the healthiest most profitable pool stays in the old system the longest.
It still screws over the next generation which I don't love or think it's fair but the ACA created a system so entrenched I don't think there is a way to roll it back without causing pain.
While I don't think this is a really big thought in the minds of CEO of large corporations but by tying healthcare to work it does keep potential competition from growing in the marketplace. More difficult/impossible to start your own competing produce/service without healthcare.
i would prefer a hybrid of private and public, which would mitigate problems. i think 11+mil are on ACA plans, likely alot of them are in gop states, which is why REpublicans constantly teasing to repealing every election cycle, they know they cant or they would lose thier elections.
also medicaid has this wierd rule, that recoup losess on 65+ people who pass away.
FWIW universal healthcare is not single payer. Its nationalizing healthcare providers and doing away with health insurance entirely. Which is better than any single payer plan IMO. Hospitals have never really been successful profit generating ventures.
The entire health insurance industry would be deleted along with all the jobs and stock value it produced. And yeah fuck'em but there's going to be knock on economic effects from deleting an entire industry.
Health insurances go bankrupt... but the rest have more money, workers don't need to be tied to a job to have healthcare and they can go to the doctor when they fell they need to, not when there is no other way.
Speaking as a Spanish citizen, I've gone to the doctor even for a drop of concrete in the ear (I was lucky and the ear was clean) or for a simple pain in my forearm. Cost: 0€.
Things happening to you medically would stop defining your life. I called for a check on something, get a date in 2 days and be scheduled for a radiology, all 100% free.
In Canada it's more like 30 days or more, and you could expect a US single.payer system to be less efficient since it hasn't been refined for several decades
The US would be switching to an entirely different system, but wouldn't be able to "refine" it? What a bunch of unprovable bullshit.
Also, if you think the US doesn't already have waiting lists for specialists, then I honestly do not know what to tell you. Wait times are not a uniquely socialized medicine thing.
The US would be switching to an entirely different system, but wouldn't be able to "refine" it? What a bunch of unprovable bullshit.
Not 10 minutes after they implement it, no. Canada has a mature system that's been worked on for decades. Are you suggesting the US would be automatically better just because it's the US? What are you, a MAGA?
Also, if you think the US doesn't already have waiting lists for specialists
I've been to a variety of specialists, it's never taken anywhere near a month. My understanding is that in Canada a month is the norm, sometimes longer.
I don't think the positive differences would be as dramatic as some here are proposing.
It would immeditately benefit a lot of people with existing large medical bills or chronic health conditions. But this probably wouldn't be an immeditately noticeable economic boon - instead, it would take the form of these people unburying themselves from debt and building up savings.
Over the long term, I would expect more small businesses, more people starting families, and more people choosing to retire earlier. But I think it would probably take a decade or more for this change to really be felt by those not directly impacted.
In the short term, there would be a massive economic restructuring as the entire health insurance industry collapsed overnight. Literally millions of people would be out of work. In the long term, this would be a good thing - but short term, it would be a very big problem.
nurses, and doctors would likely have to take paycuts, or move somewhere else, wors they end up unemployed themselves. right now doctors and nurses are making bank in areas that are underserved(usually states that have largely ignored healthcare).
The problem is that the shortage of qualified nurses and doctors is still going to be there.
What I expect is that the role of nurse practitioner would become a lot more inflated if universal healthcare would become a thing for routine check ups and general practitioners. You may not see a doctor for your physical any more.
Beyond that, a lot more roles would likely be opened up to cheaper staff as a way to relieve more qualified staff for specific tasks.
We all saw the Regressives cut Medicaid without caring that it meant millions of citizens losing their health insurance. With universal coverage we’d see similar but on a bigger scale. Regressives will always play up spite and self-righteousness , will always find a scapegoat who is “cheating”, will always play up high taxes being “bad for business”, plus of course we’d all like to pay less in taxes. We would still need the “face eating leopard” meme. Even then, it would be better for the rest of us, but it would still be the same fight
Realistically there would be fox news blasting propaganda on how much the country is going into debt to fund the madness. "People are going to the doctor for everything now! Back in my days when we fell with our bike we put a plaster on it, we didn't burden the healthcare system with a few scrapes. Our mom gave a kiss on it and we'd be okay. A kid on our block Jimmy broke gis arm once and his mom did surgery on the kitchen table. But now? What do you think putting a plaster on by a doctor costs? 500 dollars. Yes, that's right. It's madness, Trump would have never stood for this, God bless his soul. We had it good under him. Now look. Wars, famine, heat waves, our economy is in shambles! And why? People don't live like they do no more, sad. Do you wish we could go back sometimes? I do. I sit on my front porch and I wonder... what would life be if our great leader would still be here with us. I think we need to all channel our inner Trump tonight. We need it. America needs it. You need it."
realistically that's what's going to happen on fox
funny thing, people going to doctor actually reduces the cost of healthcare in the end. cant say the same for health professional salaries, nurses, doctors and graduate health workers.
Insurance companies would find some way to have record profits. No one spends money more frivolously than the US federal government. Most likely the government would make deals with preexisting medical care providers instead of building out their own national healthcare.
You would not. Mental health professionals are already on huge waiting lists, if everyone got coverage that waiting list would only get longer. The solution, of course, is more people entering the field being incentivized by higher pay, but that could take years to work out.
If we're handwaving the whole transition, nothing too dramatic. It would be more like Canada. People would be healthier and not stressed about the costs of seeing a doctor.
A single payer system will likely try to look for some efficiencies since they can track everyone. One thing I expect will happen is that care will shift regarding the homeless population.
A small minority of homeless often rely on hospitals as a shelter of last resort in cases of severe weather. There are also cases where homeless only interface with the emergency care system since it is the only care they can get.
I can easily see a government run system pushing these people into "more cost effective" options, including the immediate movement from emergency rooms into "specialty facilities" for "long term care".
I would like to point out that the two need not be connected. We could unmarry healthcare and jobs by making it a law that you could cash out your healthcare coverage. This would open the market for more competitive nealthcare administrators as the people using the insurance would be the ones choosing.
I think it would also increase the popularity of paying direct for the simpler stuff and only carrying insurance for the big stuff. This I think is an important step as it would realign what medical care actually costs when you take out all the middlemen taking their cut.
And then, when you do move to universal healthcare, the prices would be more accurate.
Otherwise we are going to end up with nationalize anthem or united healthcare for determining what medical care you get, which will be a nightmare.
Can you not? My ex has always opted out of health insurance because mine was much better. Now that she needs her own, she had to choose between getting it through her employer and getting it through the ACA marketplace
So my point was if they just go straight to universal, it will end up underpaying doctors, which will lead to further shortages of doctors. So by doing it in two steps, we can hopefull preserve the doctors we have, and maybe even make it a progession people want to be in again.
But why is your ex getting insurance through her employer now bad. Neither path is going to change the current system before that happens.
You said people should be allowed to cash out of their employer provided healthcare, but you can already opt out. My ex has a smallish employer with expensive plans, so even after the employer contribution, it wasn’t clearly better than marketplace plans. We already are at a place where you can choose the public option.
Or do you mean specifically bringing the employer contribution with you? That would destroy the marketplace for people who can’t bring their employer contribution. It’s also likely to result in employers very quickly giving up those benefits
There is also the HSA which arguably could be called a step in that direction. Employers providing much less of an insurance plan but in conjunction with savings that can be used for medical care. The problem with the current implementation is it doesn’t serve well the people who need it most. People with existing conditions can not afford them without savings and people with lower incomes can’t save.
But yeah, thinking about that more, that may be a path. Allow/define a bare bones high deductible insurance plan which can eventually become universal, then encourage employer HSA contributions, including with fairness tests. Now basic and catastrophic care is covered for everyone universally and the employer benefit is on top of
By cashout, I meant employers pay cash to people who choose not to have the insurance. It would require some rules that set mins, and for large companies say the value has to be based on the plans people who are using the insurance choose to avoid them creating a shit option just to cash out less.
HSA's aren't what they appear to be. They are actually retirment saving plan for those who can afford to fund them and not use them. They grow tax free, can be invested in the market, and you don't pay any tax if you spend them on medical expenses years down the line. It is also designed to transfer cost from the employer to the employee. Some employers will put money in the hsa to soften the transfer, but many do not.
The only reason I suggest the middle step is to try and protect the numbers of medical professionals. If we just swap to universal, the gov will try to lowball everything. That will cause smart people to avoid the profession. And of course they will probably make striking illegal, so the balance of the union will be mostly gone.
I disagree with HSA being a retirement plan, but yes, they give the person more control, something for the long term. There are some tax advantages to building it as retirement savings that streamers like to focus on, but that really should be a second priority to covering a lifetime of healthcare
Last time looked closely, the tradeoff in my company was that for an identical cost for me, I could choose
Traditional ppo with low copays and deductibles
High deductible health plan (HDHP) plus HSA to fully cover the annual deductible
That made it very compelling: the coverage should almost always be equal for equal cost. But unusually we don’t need that much medical care so I’d have something left over to help pay for next year. If we were able to start with just a couple healthy years, it would really make a difference in health costs. If you started young, it’s true that you build up a lot of savings for retirement, but it would only take a few healthy years at any age to cover, say a major operation (always in conjunction with HDHP). Or I don’t know if you could use it for COBRA if between jobs, but if you had enough you could cover even uninsured healthcare. The trick of course is how do you keep making an optional contribution when money is tight?
Think of it this way. What is the difference between putting money in a savings accout vs an HSA.
First it is pretax money so you get some savings there.
Second no tax on growth.
I am sure you can guess which is a bigger financial gain overall.
But now think about this. You have a $1000 medical bill. Do you pay it from the hsa or you savings account.
Well both are getting interest, but the HSA is probably getting a higher rate if invested in the stock market. And the HSA has tax free interest unlike the bank account. So the correct financial answer is to pay it from your savings account, and leave the money in the HSA for retirement. Thus it's really a retirement plan.
The key thing is that only people who have the extra money can afford to use it. So poorer people don't get any benefit from it at all.
Honestly, a ton of people in the health insurance industry would become unemployed. As well as a lot of hospital/clinic administrators.
A lot of stocks that are held by pensions and mutual funds would become worthless causing chaos in the stock market and destroying peoples retirements.
I feel like that sort of highlights exactly how bloated our private system is, and how much the older generations are profiteering off the younger generations future.
Well, yes. But a change to a nationalized system needs to happen in stages to prevent an economic catastrophe. Obamacare was intended to just be a first step in that direction.
The NHS has hospital administrators too (too many of them, even). And pensions somehow manage to invest well enough, probably because they have experts.
While I entirely agree with all the benefits posted under here, we’d also be subject to the tyranny of regressives. That face eating leopard would feast on those red state seniors focussed on cutting health insurance to “those” people.
Take education as an analogy. That’s mostly run by individual states, and there is a huge range of outcomes. Massachusetts is typically rated as or near the best education system but we pay for it. We recognize it as something valuable and as a good investment. Meanwhile many states/locales seem to see education as only a cost to be minimized. This is one of the reasons I live where I do. But if it were national, we’d lose that choice. One downside of universal healthcare would be that we’d no longer have the choice of investing in something better
I work in tech and have better health insurance than most. I want the same for everyone, not less for everyone, even when that comes with voting for higher taxes
Universal healthcare doesn't mean you can't pay for private healthcare. The UK has both. Jobs can often come with health insurance. It's typically much cheaper as well because it doesn't cover emergency services.
Millions of people involved in the health insurance industry would lose their jobs. Stock market would fall significantly, reducing retirement funds, and we’d lose 10% of our GDP.
This is a good example of how downvotes mean “I don’t like what this post says” and not “this is wrong or inappropriate.”
How many medical bankruptcies did the heroic men and women of the health insurance industry cause today? How many people are gonna die today because the infallable driver of the holy economy denied their treatment?
Are they even people to you? Or just feed stock for the machine?
At a certain scale humans become numbers on a spreadsheet because that’s the only way to deal with them.
And it's also a comfortable way to view them if your income requires denying them medical care.
(Some of the earliest “computers” in the US were built to handle the census more efficiently.)
Yes, IBM's Hollerith Tabulators. Which were also used in the 40's in Germany by people who were just doing their jobs as a vital part of the German economy. Can you believe people wanted to crash the roaring German economy in the 1940s?
If there were fewer of us it would help make us seem more human.
Reducing people to numbers is a great way to rationalize exploiting the sick and the dying. Which is what you're doing.
And do you really think they’ll pass that savings along to consumers or workers?
And what will the labor market do when millions of people from an entire cross section of America - from executives to HR to IT to call centers - are suddenly looking for a job?
And all those companies with all those retired folks invested in just disappear overnight; you think whatever party does this is gonna win the next election?
The entire system must collapse to make this happen. And it’s gonna hurt just about everyone.
If people not going bankrupt and dying because of treatable illness bothers you personally because you have a financial stake in their exploitation, that's your moral failure.
It's neat how they're not numbers when you want to use them as human shields for a deeply immoral industry. They'll be numbers again as soon as they get sick.
The healthcare industry is... cancerous, in that way.
But... you can say that we need societal chemo, and you can also say that kind of bullshit job is exactly whats going to get automated out of existence by LLMs, if we just keep doing hyper capitalism healthcare.
I think initially there'd be a huge spike of people going to the doctor for problems they've just been living with because they can't get it looked at. The healthcare system would get hugely overwhelmed because I'm sure they wouldn't prepare properly for this.
Long term, wait times would be months to years like in the UK. The system would likely never catch up. You'd probably end up with a private expensive sector due to the huge demand* to "skip the queue", and a public sector if you're willing to wait 2 years. Oh look, it's turned into Australia's system.
We don't really need speculation at this point because we already know what the pros and cons are. There would be huge economic and health benefits from health problems being prevented rather than letting them get bad. But people would go to hospital for a common cold and scraped knee or drug seeking behaviour, wasting precious healthcare resources. The costs would be astronomical, subsidised by the private sector. Etc.
The reason why australia and the UK's public health has gone too shit is due to decades long chronic underfunding. Universal Health Care and long wait times don't have to go together
Of course, but if more socialist countries struggle to justify increasing the funding of the already massive cost of healthcare, I doubt that the states would manage a well funded one. In fact it may even be sabotaged. But theoretically if it had good funding then yes most of those problems go away.
They aren't socialist and the govs that oversaw the decline were conservatives.
But yeah, I agree it would be one hell of a logistical and political undertaking. I suspect they could try state by state. That might make it more politically managable at least.
“Months to years” is the exception not the rule in the UK, you’ve been fed bullshit corpo propaganda. I’ve always been able to see a GP within a day, and when I needed some minor physiotherapy it was about two weeks.
The only person I know who’s had to wait more than a couple months was an elderly relative who wanted some quite complicated ankle surgery in order to be more active, and ended up going private - which is just as much an option here as it in the US, only considerably less extortionate since instead of being a cartel they’re competing with free.
I've never been to the UK, I've only heard it's similar to the situation in AU second hand from people who have actually lived there.
For example when I needed to see a psychiatrist it took 18 months, a rheumatologist took 24 months, and general medicine physician took 20 months. My ex's psychiatrist took 12 and psychologist took 6, only because it was a critical emergency. I'm glad you had a good experience though
I don't know why people think universal healthcare is the end all be all. There are also some really bad aspects to it, it isn't all amazing. It also isn't "free" in counties that have it, unless you're unemployed.
I do think the US healthcare system does need to the majority checked though. Probably regulated pricing and such.
I can't believe I'm reading this. Obviously universal healthcare is not without flaws, and there are many variations on the theme. Some work better than others.
But for a developed, "rich" country not to provide it to their citizens is a crime. Of course, the people most affected by the lack of healthcare are they working poor, while middle class people are generally insulated by employer-provided insurance, and the rich naturally have the best health care on the planet.
I think that this is another case of the majority of Americans not being able to conceive what life outside the greatest country in the world^TM^ is like. Ask anyone from another country if they would prefer us-style healthcare, and you will get a resounding "NO!"
American here, can confirm. Drank the “greatest country” kool aid as a kid, then started to travel in young adulthood.
I’m still struggling with the fact that I feel least “at home” and most isolated in the place I call home. Every single place I’ve ever been outside the US (7 countries and counting, 4 in the EU) has seemed more welcoming, interconnected, simple to get around, and vibrant. Let alone a more reasonable cost of living and a much better safety net.
136 Comments
roofuskit@lemmy.world · 105 pts · 48d
First and foremost this would be a HUGE boon for small businesses. They are currently hugely outclassed in offering benefits which hampers hiring. It's also significantly more costly per employee for them.
Second, huge boon for employees who can change jobs left and right regardless of life circumstances. Currently the best way to improve your wages and/or get promoted to a bigger position is to get a job at a new company.
Third, huge boon for entrepreneurs who can now take bigger risks to start a new business because regardless of what happens, they don't have to worry about losing their healthcare
All of these things will have long term knock-on effects of leveling the opportunities for non wealthy people as well.
I'll say it for the millionth time. Every single stance the GOP takes is bad for small businesses, bad for the economy, bad for the country.
Captain_Patchy@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 48d
Bad for PEOPLE in general.
homes@piefed.world · 7 pts · 47d
Except for rich people.
lennybird@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 48d
Very well said. My old man can attest to the struggle of running a small-business with a couple employees while managing the overhead of health insurance both for himself, and them.
This is honestly how Democrats should be pushing it: We're Pro Small-Business. (1) Entrepreneurship, (2) Innovation, (3) True competition, (4) Keeping money within communities... I could go on.
thethrilloftime69@feddit.online · 7 pts · 48d
Don't forget, the Democrats have never put universal healthcare on their agenda and they've rigged multiple primaries in order to prevent candidates who would put it on the agenda from winning.
roofuskit@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 48d
The GOP is mentioned because they claim to be the party of small businesses and are overwhelmingly supported by small business advocacy groups.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · -2 pts · 48d
thats because thats thier only carrot(single issue that convinces people to vote for them), they would lose that power overnight). thats why they always tease public heatlcare for all, and conspire with the republicans to derail those plans.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 47d
What planet are you living on where the Democratic party is using single payer healthcare as a carrot?
Can I move to that planet please
woop_woop@lemmy.world · 86 pts · 48d
Global warming would probably be solved, because hell would also have frozen over.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 48d
"Big news tonight. Congress has officially passed the Healthcare for All Bill with unanimous support, also, the Cleveland Browns have won the Super Bowl!"
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world · 58 pts · 48d
I'd probably go to the doctor.
Shindo66@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 48d
I've got a bowel obstruction 2 years ago and i had to pay 6k for my deductible and my insurance paid 12k. I got a tube down my nose, some xrays and stayed a night. I currently know its going to happen again any day now and it almost happend two nights ago and I was in horrendous pain. I could go to the doctor and they could probably help me and stop it from happening again. However, I dont have 6k to spare to find out. So until it is debilitating, we'll just have to see what happens.
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 48d
That sucks.
Ive got shitty US insurance. Had to have the ol' gallbladder removed. Hospital charged $40k. After insurance, my bill was less than $3k. Lots of people would be financially ruined by that math. Im thankful I had the $3k to pay.
It's hard out there, but at least we're letting gun owners carry into Hawaiian grocery stores.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 47d
Which is actually the best kind of insurance for bowel obstructions.
rafoix@lemmy.zip · 49 pts · 48d
A better life for 99.999999% of the country.
The other 0.0000001% are already so wealthy that their life will be exactly the same except that they will be furious about the 99.999999% having an easier life.
Z745812939054@lemmy.zip · 34 pts · 48d
everyone would be in better shape health-wise.
but also billionaires would lose money, which is why it'll never happen as things are now
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 48d
they would stop applying to grueling service/retail jobs/technician jobs, and probably focus career paths even if they already graduated with a degree, more money goes into taking more classes, or saving money for something else. i think these are one of the reason people are not in a field they supposedly studied in, of course you would need a efficient train/fast rail system in most states for it to work as well since most degree'd jobs are outside large cities most of the time, besides the job market being very poor for many different fields.
most people are probably paying 600-1000+/month in premiums anyways, and they have to spend down thier DEDUCTIBLES and OOP to be fully covered, which most people cant unless you are chronically sick. the current subsidies make it less than that per month.
RBWells@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 48d
More entrepreneurship. Plenty more people would work for themselves or start businesses if they didn't have to worry about healthcare.
Doublenut@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 48d
This. I've said for years, it'd be a Renaissance of entrepreneurship and craftsmanship.
I've known so many people over the years that would have been fine getting by selling things they've made, or fixing others things, if they didn't need employer based Healthcare.
tunetardis@piefed.ca · 11 pts · 48d
UBI would be good for this also.
Slovene85@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 48d
Urinary Balls Infection?
tunetardis@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 47d
I feel that would get you off the couch and doing stuff at least?
But no. Universal Basic Income. I think it would encourage people to experiment more with self-employment to supplement the modest income they get through UBI.
RecursiveParadox@piefed.social · 32 pts · 47d
If healthcare were decoupled from employment, Americans could protest in much larger number and for a longer period of time.
A general strike would become viable.
iN8sWoRLd@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 47d
and suddenly many people who have been wanting to start their own businesses, make that career move, or move to where the jobs are would finally feel secure enough to do so. I suspect this would boost the economy everywhere in ways it would be hard to predict.
normalentrance@lemmy.zip · 28 pts · 48d
People would have more job mobility. You could quit (or get fired) and not have to worry about becoming bankrupt due to healthcare.
People that don't have insurance will be able to seek aid. Less people will die of preventable illness. People can focus on getting better without the stress of "how will I pay for this? I'm ruined"
mikenurre@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 48d
The economy would skyrocket. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE would benefit. And there are people in this country so vile they would lose out on billions or trillions in profits just to screw over the masses. Imagine companies not having to pay 10-20k+ per employee for healthcare. Employees getting preventative care, being healthy, and being more .. PRODUCTIVE!
OutOfMemory@piefed.social · 4 pts · 48d
The health insurance industry is half a percent of the whole US economy ($1.6tn of $32tn). Pulling out the rug under it would almost certainly cause a recession in the short term. Probably still worth it imo
HubertManne@piefed.social · 21 pts · 48d
US would start catching up to the technologically advanced nations in life expectency. A lot more people would start businesses or take a chance on dream jobs. The us would become more competitive with other countries as businesses would no longer have it as a cost. Its essentially like subsidizing your whole economy and many of our competitors do just that so we have to compete with that.
prime_number_314159@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 48d
The major factors in the US's low life expectancy are guns and automobiles. Because the required medical care for the damage those things cause is already guaranteed, universal healthcare would have a relatively small impact on life expectancy, especially in the short term.
It's possible infant mortality would benefit. Major reasons for our (the US's) poor performance there are people that do not seek medical care (polling suggests about 2/3 of this is either driven by or related to cost concerns), and differences in how we track infant mortality statistics (for example, the US counts all infants, even if they are born severely premature, while most countries exclude some prematurely born infants from their statistics).
CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 48d
Lol, no, you're still going to have to pay for that.
prime_number_314159@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 48d
The (lifesaving) care is guaranteed, whether you are able to pay or not. The resulting debt could cause a lot of problems, but few of them contribute immediately to life expectancy.
Quality of life, sure. Feeling financially secure in your present position, absolutely. But not how long your ticker keeps ticking.
hypeerror@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 48d
Several people I know would retire from management level positions. It would energize upward advancement in a number of institutions.
Sxan@piefed.zip · -1 pts · 48d
Well, we'd retire. We have enough saved to manage þrough to our deaþs, except for healþcare. It'd be retiring early, and in all likelyhood we'd take different jobs which aren't as high-stress; let someone younger deal wiþ þe bullshit þat Management is. So maybe not full-on retire. We continue to work mainly because healþcare in þe US is stupid.
otp@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 48d
I think you're overusing thorn. "The" and "health" have two different sounds for "th" in them
prime_number_314159@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 48d
Health seems to be valid this way https://www.etymonline.com/word/health
But with should have an eth instead.
Leviathan@fedinsfw.app · 0 pts · 48d
Nice. Hardcore Þorn.
masterspace@lemmy.ca · 18 pts · 48d
turdburglar@piefed.social · 16 pts · 48d
my friend would get the blood pressure meds he needs instead of searching for magic pills at the health food store.
IronBird@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 47d
have they checked cost+ drugs for the medication, they got a lot of stuff now that is way cheaper than insurance
turdburglar@piefed.social · 6 pts · 47d
yeah but you have to see a doctor to get the script to get the meds…
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 47d
About half the US would declare civil war because they are so fucking stupid?
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 48d
Approximately 1-2 million people employed in the mass bureacracy of claims processing and validation would lose their jobs.
That's how much of a gargantuan amount of bullshit the healthcare industry is, its so big that at this point, assuming the rest of the economy was doing fine, switching to universal health care would create a moderate recession, because so many bullshit jobs would no longer need to exist.
Obviously it would be a massive net economic benefit, but at this point, medicine is gonna sting a bit.
Captain_Patchy@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 48d
Those "same" (number of) people would be needed to process the claims that needed to be approved by the nationwide system that replaced "for profit" healthcare.
iocase@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 48d
I'm from Canada, and I know a surgeon and he has one admin. One (1) secretary that handles patient booking, billing, and payments. The benefit of a single payer system is there's one payer. The government. One set of forms to comply with. No rejections (almost always. Rejections come from foreigners or out of province coverage when determining which province is responsible for paying)
His software system (government provided) auto fills 99% of it. That's why he can have one (1) secretary. The government side Idk but it's certainly not insane ratios like the US since the process is far more streamlined and doesn't rely on appeals or rejections to racketeer more money out of doctors and patients. What's really sad is Americans are so conditioned to believe their way of life is somehow normal, that orphans must also be crushed somehow in Europe or Canada.
Shindo66@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 48d
Yeah, you go into a doctor's office and they'll have 5 secretaries to handle all that paper work. I didnt do Healthcare, but for a minute I was a service administrator for a car dealership who's job, among 7 of us, was to do the billing and warranty/insurance claims. The paperwork was insane and had to be presented in a precise way or it wasn't accepted. I can only imagine what hoops health insurance makes these offices jump through.
RBWells@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 48d
That's not quite true. Medical billing here is hopelessly complicated, a universal system would likely have universal rules, and streamline the process of billing and payments.
So if a medical practice now needs 5 people to do the insurance billing, it might need only one if there was one payer (Medicare) or two if there was a German sort of system, but not 5.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 48d
No. Wrong.
As others have outlined in greater detail... no, you'd have a massive simplification and standardization of such forms, thus a massive reduction in the amount of 'needed' work of such kind.
The entire way the modern US healthcare system works is by making there be so many abstract layers and processes going on at the same time, that it requires an inordinate amount of time and effort to even actually map out what those layers and processes are, much less who is actually responsible for what particular decision or mistake.
And that is the point of it. Its is insanely complex and opaque by design, because it allows them do functionally do whatever they want, and be able to say its all done for compliance's sake.
So, yeah, if you just flatten all that... ~90% of it no longer needs to exist.
Or... the real funny part here is... if we stick with the system as it is, well, this kind of shit is gonna be done by LLMs. So we will probably end up having the same employment void developing under the current hypercapitalist paradigm as well.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 48d
you can have both private and public, private if you want to see someone faster or more specialized care. and everyone gets public regardless of income. most states have very small maximum limit on if you can get medi-caid. funny how military service members have universal healthcare, a "public version of them" and they arnt in debt. it can be done, the us chooses not to because GOP/DNC would start to lose alot of political power.
HrabiaVulpes@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 47d
Many companies would lose profit. Many greedy fucks would not be able to afford their third yaht and fifth house.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 48d
Hope would exist again and every american could get back to pursuing happiness rather than lock in on survival mode only.
infinitevalence@discuss.online · 11 pts · 48d
Lots of people would exit the traditional job market, millions would start small private business. Pay would go up both because of the healthcare savings to companies and because people would stop working shit jobs for shit pay just to keep health insurance.
It might also lead to a massive recession as for profit healthcare providers and services last l lay off workers and go bankrupt.
So mixed bag probably good overall for workers, very bad for capitalists. But there would be a massive labor disruption and lots of people would be on the losing side initially.
I would support a transitional system where every say 5 years we lower the age for Medicare access so we gradually ween off the old system and the healthiest most profitable pool stays in the old system the longest.
It still screws over the next generation which I don't love or think it's fair but the ACA created a system so entrenched I don't think there is a way to roll it back without causing pain.
GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 48d
While I don't think this is a really big thought in the minds of CEO of large corporations but by tying healthcare to work it does keep potential competition from growing in the marketplace. More difficult/impossible to start your own competing produce/service without healthcare.
someguy3@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 48d
The problem with weening off is that every time it becomes a huge fight that doesn't go anywhere.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 48d
I think kids (and by extension maternal care) should be added to that list early on
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 48d
i would prefer a hybrid of private and public, which would mitigate problems. i think 11+mil are on ACA plans, likely alot of them are in gop states, which is why REpublicans constantly teasing to repealing every election cycle, they know they cant or they would lose thier elections.
also medicaid has this wierd rule, that recoup losess on 65+ people who pass away.
sudo@programming.dev · 11 pts · 48d
FWIW universal healthcare is not single payer. Its nationalizing healthcare providers and doing away with health insurance entirely. Which is better than any single payer plan IMO. Hospitals have never really been successful profit generating ventures.
The entire health insurance industry would be deleted along with all the jobs and stock value it produced. And yeah fuck'em but there's going to be knock on economic effects from deleting an entire industry.
bufalo1973@piefed.social · 4 pts · 48d
Health insurances go bankrupt... but the rest have more money, workers don't need to be tied to a job to have healthcare and they can go to the doctor when they fell they need to, not when there is no other way.
Speaking as a Spanish citizen, I've gone to the doctor even for a drop of concrete in the ear (I was lucky and the ear was clean) or for a simple pain in my forearm. Cost: 0€.
Gonzako@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 48d
Things happening to you medically would stop defining your life. I called for a check on something, get a date in 2 days and be scheduled for a radiology, all 100% free.
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 47d
In Canada it's more like 30 days or more, and you could expect a US single.payer system to be less efficient since it hasn't been refined for several decades
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 47d
The US would be switching to an entirely different system, but wouldn't be able to "refine" it? What a bunch of unprovable bullshit.
Also, if you think the US doesn't already have waiting lists for specialists, then I honestly do not know what to tell you. Wait times are not a uniquely socialized medicine thing.
5too@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 47d
Yep, I've seen 6+ month wait times in the US for some of the specialists my kids have needed. Some of those were fairly urgent issues
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 47d
Not 10 minutes after they implement it, no. Canada has a mature system that's been worked on for decades. Are you suggesting the US would be automatically better just because it's the US? What are you, a MAGA?
I've been to a variety of specialists, it's never taken anywhere near a month. My understanding is that in Canada a month is the norm, sometimes longer.
blarghly@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 48d
I don't think the positive differences would be as dramatic as some here are proposing.
It would immeditately benefit a lot of people with existing large medical bills or chronic health conditions. But this probably wouldn't be an immeditately noticeable economic boon - instead, it would take the form of these people unburying themselves from debt and building up savings.
Over the long term, I would expect more small businesses, more people starting families, and more people choosing to retire earlier. But I think it would probably take a decade or more for this change to really be felt by those not directly impacted.
In the short term, there would be a massive economic restructuring as the entire health insurance industry collapsed overnight. Literally millions of people would be out of work. In the long term, this would be a good thing - but short term, it would be a very big problem.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 48d
nurses, and doctors would likely have to take paycuts, or move somewhere else, wors they end up unemployed themselves. right now doctors and nurses are making bank in areas that are underserved(usually states that have largely ignored healthcare).
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 1 pts · 48d
The problem is that the shortage of qualified nurses and doctors is still going to be there.
What I expect is that the role of nurse practitioner would become a lot more inflated if universal healthcare would become a thing for routine check ups and general practitioners. You may not see a doctor for your physical any more.
Beyond that, a lot more roles would likely be opened up to cheaper staff as a way to relieve more qualified staff for specific tasks.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 46d
We all saw the Regressives cut Medicaid without caring that it meant millions of citizens losing their health insurance. With universal coverage we’d see similar but on a bigger scale. Regressives will always play up spite and self-righteousness , will always find a scapegoat who is “cheating”, will always play up high taxes being “bad for business”, plus of course we’d all like to pay less in taxes. We would still need the “face eating leopard” meme. Even then, it would be better for the rest of us, but it would still be the same fight
ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 48d
Instead of making people contractors to avoid paying benefits companies would make people employees to have more control over them.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 48d
They already have control over them. Look at Amazon and their "contractors"
lukaro@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 48d
According to magats the gates of hell will open and demons will spew forth.
Alsjemenou@lemy.nl · 5 pts · 48d
Realistically there would be fox news blasting propaganda on how much the country is going into debt to fund the madness. "People are going to the doctor for everything now! Back in my days when we fell with our bike we put a plaster on it, we didn't burden the healthcare system with a few scrapes. Our mom gave a kiss on it and we'd be okay. A kid on our block Jimmy broke gis arm once and his mom did surgery on the kitchen table. But now? What do you think putting a plaster on by a doctor costs? 500 dollars. Yes, that's right. It's madness, Trump would have never stood for this, God bless his soul. We had it good under him. Now look. Wars, famine, heat waves, our economy is in shambles! And why? People don't live like they do no more, sad. Do you wish we could go back sometimes? I do. I sit on my front porch and I wonder... what would life be if our great leader would still be here with us. I think we need to all channel our inner Trump tonight. We need it. America needs it. You need it."
realistically that's what's going to happen on fox
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 48d
funny thing, people going to doctor actually reduces the cost of healthcare in the end. cant say the same for health professional salaries, nurses, doctors and graduate health workers.
someguy3@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 48d
Get that Robitussin.
Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 48d
Insurance companies would find some way to have record profits. No one spends money more frivolously than the US federal government. Most likely the government would make deals with preexisting medical care providers instead of building out their own national healthcare.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 4 pts · 48d
Maybe I could get the therapy and medicine I need.
dovah@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 48d
You would not. Mental health professionals are already on huge waiting lists, if everyone got coverage that waiting list would only get longer. The solution, of course, is more people entering the field being incentivized by higher pay, but that could take years to work out.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 3 pts · 48d
If we're handwaving the whole transition, nothing too dramatic. It would be more like Canada. People would be healthier and not stressed about the costs of seeing a doctor.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 2 pts · 47d
Curling the monkey paw a little bit...
A single payer system will likely try to look for some efficiencies since they can track everyone. One thing I expect will happen is that care will shift regarding the homeless population.
A small minority of homeless often rely on hospitals as a shelter of last resort in cases of severe weather. There are also cases where homeless only interface with the emergency care system since it is the only care they can get.
I can easily see a government run system pushing these people into "more cost effective" options, including the immediate movement from emergency rooms into "specialty facilities" for "long term care".
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 48d
I would like to point out that the two need not be connected. We could unmarry healthcare and jobs by making it a law that you could cash out your healthcare coverage. This would open the market for more competitive nealthcare administrators as the people using the insurance would be the ones choosing. I think it would also increase the popularity of paying direct for the simpler stuff and only carrying insurance for the big stuff. This I think is an important step as it would realign what medical care actually costs when you take out all the middlemen taking their cut. And then, when you do move to universal healthcare, the prices would be more accurate. Otherwise we are going to end up with nationalize anthem or united healthcare for determining what medical care you get, which will be a nightmare.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 47d
Can you not? My ex has always opted out of health insurance because mine was much better. Now that she needs her own, she had to choose between getting it through her employer and getting it through the ACA marketplace
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 47d
So my point was if they just go straight to universal, it will end up underpaying doctors, which will lead to further shortages of doctors. So by doing it in two steps, we can hopefull preserve the doctors we have, and maybe even make it a progession people want to be in again.
But why is your ex getting insurance through her employer now bad. Neither path is going to change the current system before that happens.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 47d
You said people should be allowed to cash out of their employer provided healthcare, but you can already opt out. My ex has a smallish employer with expensive plans, so even after the employer contribution, it wasn’t clearly better than marketplace plans. We already are at a place where you can choose the public option.
Or do you mean specifically bringing the employer contribution with you? That would destroy the marketplace for people who can’t bring their employer contribution. It’s also likely to result in employers very quickly giving up those benefits
There is also the HSA which arguably could be called a step in that direction. Employers providing much less of an insurance plan but in conjunction with savings that can be used for medical care. The problem with the current implementation is it doesn’t serve well the people who need it most. People with existing conditions can not afford them without savings and people with lower incomes can’t save.
But yeah, thinking about that more, that may be a path. Allow/define a bare bones high deductible insurance plan which can eventually become universal, then encourage employer HSA contributions, including with fairness tests. Now basic and catastrophic care is covered for everyone universally and the employer benefit is on top of
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 46d
By cashout, I meant employers pay cash to people who choose not to have the insurance. It would require some rules that set mins, and for large companies say the value has to be based on the plans people who are using the insurance choose to avoid them creating a shit option just to cash out less.
HSA's aren't what they appear to be. They are actually retirment saving plan for those who can afford to fund them and not use them. They grow tax free, can be invested in the market, and you don't pay any tax if you spend them on medical expenses years down the line. It is also designed to transfer cost from the employer to the employee. Some employers will put money in the hsa to soften the transfer, but many do not.
The only reason I suggest the middle step is to try and protect the numbers of medical professionals. If we just swap to universal, the gov will try to lowball everything. That will cause smart people to avoid the profession. And of course they will probably make striking illegal, so the balance of the union will be mostly gone.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 46d
I disagree with HSA being a retirement plan, but yes, they give the person more control, something for the long term. There are some tax advantages to building it as retirement savings that streamers like to focus on, but that really should be a second priority to covering a lifetime of healthcare
Last time looked closely, the tradeoff in my company was that for an identical cost for me, I could choose
That made it very compelling: the coverage should almost always be equal for equal cost. But unusually we don’t need that much medical care so I’d have something left over to help pay for next year. If we were able to start with just a couple healthy years, it would really make a difference in health costs. If you started young, it’s true that you build up a lot of savings for retirement, but it would only take a few healthy years at any age to cover, say a major operation (always in conjunction with HDHP). Or I don’t know if you could use it for COBRA if between jobs, but if you had enough you could cover even uninsured healthcare. The trick of course is how do you keep making an optional contribution when money is tight?
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 44d
Think of it this way. What is the difference between putting money in a savings accout vs an HSA.
First it is pretax money so you get some savings there. Second no tax on growth.
I am sure you can guess which is a bigger financial gain overall.
But now think about this. You have a $1000 medical bill. Do you pay it from the hsa or you savings account. Well both are getting interest, but the HSA is probably getting a higher rate if invested in the stock market. And the HSA has tax free interest unlike the bank account. So the correct financial answer is to pay it from your savings account, and leave the money in the HSA for retirement. Thus it's really a retirement plan. The key thing is that only people who have the extra money can afford to use it. So poorer people don't get any benefit from it at all.
Uranus_Hz@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 48d
Honestly, a ton of people in the health insurance industry would become unemployed. As well as a lot of hospital/clinic administrators.
A lot of stocks that are held by pensions and mutual funds would become worthless causing chaos in the stock market and destroying peoples retirements.
innermachine@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 48d
I feel like that sort of highlights exactly how bloated our private system is, and how much the older generations are profiteering off the younger generations future.
Uranus_Hz@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 47d
Well, yes. But a change to a nationalized system needs to happen in stages to prevent an economic catastrophe. Obamacare was intended to just be a first step in that direction.
Captain_Patchy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 48d
Ya, that's NOT a reason not to change to single payer.
starlinguk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 48d
The NHS has hospital administrators too (too many of them, even). And pensions somehow manage to invest well enough, probably because they have experts.
Uranus_Hz@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 47d
Did those pensions have large stakes in stable, profitable, health insurance companies that suddenly went poof? Or was that never the case?
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 47d
Companies don't just vanish when you nationalize them
Uranus_Hz@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 46d
Why would we nationalize health insurance companies? If health care is nationalized, health insurance companies no longer serve any purpose.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 47d
While I entirely agree with all the benefits posted under here, we’d also be subject to the tyranny of regressives. That face eating leopard would feast on those red state seniors focussed on cutting health insurance to “those” people.
Take education as an analogy. That’s mostly run by individual states, and there is a huge range of outcomes. Massachusetts is typically rated as or near the best education system but we pay for it. We recognize it as something valuable and as a good investment. Meanwhile many states/locales seem to see education as only a cost to be minimized. This is one of the reasons I live where I do. But if it were national, we’d lose that choice. One downside of universal healthcare would be that we’d no longer have the choice of investing in something better
I work in tech and have better health insurance than most. I want the same for everyone, not less for everyone, even when that comes with voting for higher taxes
Buckshot@programming.dev · 4 pts · 47d
Universal healthcare doesn't mean you can't pay for private healthcare. The UK has both. Jobs can often come with health insurance. It's typically much cheaper as well because it doesn't cover emergency services.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 48d
Millions of people involved in the health insurance industry would lose their jobs. Stock market would fall significantly, reducing retirement funds, and we’d lose 10% of our GDP.
This is a good example of how downvotes mean “I don’t like what this post says” and not “this is wrong or inappropriate.”
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 48d
Oh won't someone think of the operators of the orphan-crushing machine.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 48d
Okay, let’s fire you for the good of the country. Have fun with that.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 48d
I don't operate the orphan crushing machine.
How many medical bankruptcies did the heroic men and women of the health insurance industry cause today? How many people are gonna die today because the infallable driver of the holy economy denied their treatment?
Are they even people to you? Or just feed stock for the machine?
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 48d
At a certain scale humans become numbers on a spreadsheet because that’s the only way to deal with them.
(Some of the earliest “computers” in the US were built to handle the census more efficiently.)
If there were fewer of us it would help make us seem more human.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 48d
And it's also a comfortable way to view them if your income requires denying them medical care.
Yes, IBM's Hollerith Tabulators. Which were also used in the 40's in Germany by people who were just doing their jobs as a vital part of the German economy. Can you believe people wanted to crash the roaring German economy in the 1940s?
Reducing people to numbers is a great way to rationalize exploiting the sick and the dying. Which is what you're doing.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 48d
They’ve already been dehumanized by the system because it’s simply not possible to treat everyone like an individual when dealing with so many people.
At least that’s the excuse I get when I ask why I don’t fit on planes. “We need to design for the average and sorry if you don’t like it.”
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 48d
Ok, number.
minty@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 48d
Yes lets do that. if my work contributed to the sufferring of my country/people, i would feel lucky thats all you did
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 48d
Then everyone should quit every job because they’re all contributing to suffering in some way simply by existing.
Wait, suddenly I agree with you.
minty@aussie.zone · 4 pts · 48d
Your an idiot
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 48d
*You’re
minty@aussie.zone · 6 pts · 48d
I walked into that one
bufalo1973@piefed.social · 4 pts · 48d
But the rest of industries would stop paying for expensive health insurances, having more money to manage their businesses.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 48d
And do you really think they’ll pass that savings along to consumers or workers?
And what will the labor market do when millions of people from an entire cross section of America - from executives to HR to IT to call centers - are suddenly looking for a job?
And all those companies with all those retired folks invested in just disappear overnight; you think whatever party does this is gonna win the next election?
The entire system must collapse to make this happen. And it’s gonna hurt just about everyone.
bufalo1973@piefed.social · 7 pts · 48d
No, they won't pass that to the workers... But neither do that the health insurance companies.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 48d
The health insurers employ millions of people in the US.
That doesn’t make them good, just that there’s millions of people who will be really mad when the checks stop coming.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 48d
If people not going bankrupt and dying because of treatable illness bothers you personally because you have a financial stake in their exploitation, that's your moral failure.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 48d
Yeah, all those people cleaning offices or answering phone calls at health insurance companies are all immoral pieces of shit.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 48d
It's neat how they're not numbers when you want to use them as human shields for a deeply immoral industry. They'll be numbers again as soon as they get sick.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 48d
why would they pass it, when the company is the one earning the profit/revenues?
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 48d
Yep, you're not wrong.
The healthcare industry is... cancerous, in that way.
But... you can say that we need societal chemo, and you can also say that kind of bullshit job is exactly whats going to get automated out of existence by LLMs, if we just keep doing hyper capitalism healthcare.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · -7 pts · 48d
I think initially there'd be a huge spike of people going to the doctor for problems they've just been living with because they can't get it looked at. The healthcare system would get hugely overwhelmed because I'm sure they wouldn't prepare properly for this.
Long term, wait times would be months to years like in the UK. The system would likely never catch up. You'd probably end up with a private expensive sector due to the huge demand* to "skip the queue", and a public sector if you're willing to wait 2 years. Oh look, it's turned into Australia's system.
We don't really need speculation at this point because we already know what the pros and cons are. There would be huge economic and health benefits from health problems being prevented rather than letting them get bad. But people would go to hospital for a common cold and scraped knee or drug seeking behaviour, wasting precious healthcare resources. The costs would be astronomical, subsidised by the private sector. Etc.
minty@aussie.zone · 8 pts · 48d
The reason why australia and the UK's public health has gone too shit is due to decades long chronic underfunding. Universal Health Care and long wait times don't have to go together
Zarobi@aussie.zone · -2 pts · 48d
Of course, but if more socialist countries struggle to justify increasing the funding of the already massive cost of healthcare, I doubt that the states would manage a well funded one. In fact it may even be sabotaged. But theoretically if it had good funding then yes most of those problems go away.
minty@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 48d
They aren't socialist and the govs that oversaw the decline were conservatives.
But yeah, I agree it would be one hell of a logistical and political undertaking. I suspect they could try state by state. That might make it more politically managable at least.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · -3 pts · 48d
It's been joked that Australia is half socialist, and I kind of agree with it. Never been to the UK so I can't say much about that.
skisnow@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 48d
“Months to years” is the exception not the rule in the UK, you’ve been fed bullshit corpo propaganda. I’ve always been able to see a GP within a day, and when I needed some minor physiotherapy it was about two weeks.
The only person I know who’s had to wait more than a couple months was an elderly relative who wanted some quite complicated ankle surgery in order to be more active, and ended up going private - which is just as much an option here as it in the US, only considerably less extortionate since instead of being a cartel they’re competing with free.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 48d
I've never been to the UK, I've only heard it's similar to the situation in AU second hand from people who have actually lived there.
For example when I needed to see a psychiatrist it took 18 months, a rheumatologist took 24 months, and general medicine physician took 20 months. My ex's psychiatrist took 12 and psychologist took 6, only because it was a critical emergency. I'm glad you had a good experience though
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 48d
nah its the conservative parties fucking over the NHS budget thats why.
Tiral@lemmy.world · -18 pts · 47d
I don't know why people think universal healthcare is the end all be all. There are also some really bad aspects to it, it isn't all amazing. It also isn't "free" in counties that have it, unless you're unemployed.
I do think the US healthcare system does need to the majority checked though. Probably regulated pricing and such.
gramie@lemmy.ca · 19 pts · 47d
I can't believe I'm reading this. Obviously universal healthcare is not without flaws, and there are many variations on the theme. Some work better than others.
But for a developed, "rich" country not to provide it to their citizens is a crime. Of course, the people most affected by the lack of healthcare are they working poor, while middle class people are generally insulated by employer-provided insurance, and the rich naturally have the best health care on the planet.
I think that this is another case of the majority of Americans not being able to conceive what life outside the greatest country in the world^TM^ is like. Ask anyone from another country if they would prefer us-style healthcare, and you will get a resounding "NO!"
baller_w@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 46d
American here, can confirm. Drank the “greatest country” kool aid as a kid, then started to travel in young adulthood.
I’m still struggling with the fact that I feel least “at home” and most isolated in the place I call home. Every single place I’ve ever been outside the US (7 countries and counting, 4 in the EU) has seemed more welcoming, interconnected, simple to get around, and vibrant. Let alone a more reasonable cost of living and a much better safety net.
Griffus@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 47d
Health care alone would be enough of a downgrade for Greenland never to want to be part of the US.
StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 47d
Hadriscus@jlai.lu · 5 pts · 47d
no. no there aren't
propaganda got your brain