Boomers and GenXers, you’re wrong about healthcare

Apr 16, 2019, 12:51 PM

I grew hearing abou the evils of socialized medicine all my life. We made fun of the French and the Canadians, and feared their death panels. Yet. One of us really knew a thing about healthcare in any of those places. There is a reason Millennials and GenZ are marching toward the DNC en masse. It’s because we were wrong.

So let me present some facts:

1) Socilaized medicine is blanket term which leads people to wrongly assume all of these other countries have identical systems. They do not. The UK has the most pure form of Universal Heathcare. Brits pay their taxes and go to the doctor whenever they need to go with little or no copay. Doctors and nurses are government employees. There is a small private healthcare system in Britain but most Brits are quite happy with HMHS. On the other end of the spectrum, Canadians pay into a government run insurance program but doctor and hospitals are all private. It’s meant to be basic coverage for all Canadians which is why it costs much less per person than the UK single payer system.

IF you really want to know how other countries do it, Wikipedia ain’t a bad place to start.

2) All of the countries with any form of socialized medicine/universal coverage have longer life expectancies than the United States.

3) All of the countries with any form of socialized medicine/universal coverage spend less per person on healthcare than we do. And it’s not close. The next closet country is Switzerland at 25% less. Most spend about 40% less.

4) Yes your taxes would go up. But your private insurance payment would drop to zero. So does it really matter?

5) The single biggest drain on our healthcare system is the insurance business itself. It’s inefficient to pay a third party who must by design skim money off the top to pay million dollar salaries and shareholders. The BEST healthcare system would be one in which we pay directly into a local healthcare system via subscription. But....

6) The market is broken. We can be conservative and a free market champion AND admit the current healthcare system is too expensive and just not good enough.

7) We do not have the “best healthcare in the world”. Those who can afford it do.

8) I’ve had nine friends over the last five years travel to a foreign country for a medical procedure. Tell me again about how wonderful it is here.

Lastly I want to encourage everyone to really research healthcare in other countries. It is not the economy draining, life ruining, America destroying monster we were told it is.

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Boomers and GenXers, you’re wrong about healthcare

I have a friend who lives in Canada.

But Obummercare!!***

Even Cuba has similar life expectancy, infant mortality, etc

But what will the billionaires think?***

you make it sound lik #5 doesn't exist

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