More Than Health Care: Fill & Download for Free

As has already been answered, but is worth to be repeated million times until it gets through to some of the thick heads who continuously argue against single-payer “socialised” health care.The number of “medical tourists” (people who travel overseas seeking medical treatment) traveling from USA to other countries is far greater than those from outside traveling to USA for treatment.Let me repeat that: Far more Americans are spending their own hard-earned money traveling to countries with “socialised” health care for health care, than there are those from any of those “socialised” health care countries traveling to USA.Among top 10 destinations for American medical tourists are Costa Rica (!!?), India, Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey…. In other words, Americans, with access to the supposedly greatest, bestest, most superior American health care, prefer to get theirs from… Mexico? India?? Turkey?? Malaysia??? (Make no mistake, I’m fully aware that all these places actually have great health care systems; my feigned consternation is simply to make a sarcastic point for those exceptionalists for whom those are poorer developing countries far behind the USA). On that list, we would likely have Cuba, in a very high position, if travel restrictions and economic embargo were to be lifted.And among top 10 procedures American medical tourists are getting in those developing countries? Cardiac issues, spinal surgery, liver or kidney transplants, in-vitro fertility treatments.That’s the state of your ‘exceptional’ American health care system. Which is neither caring, nor healthy, nor a system.

No.Health care is not now, nor will it ever be free anywhere in the world.It’s $&*^ing expensive. It’s expensive as HELL, and it should be.You know about a year ago, it was April 4th, I wrote an answer about this subject.Chris O'Leary's answer to Why should I pay for other people's healthcare when I can barely afford my own?In it, I examined universal health care, how other countries do it, and how much that would cost us.Canada pays about $6600 Canadian, which works out to about $4700 American per capita for its Universal health care coverage system.See? THAT’S NOT FREE! Canadian citizens pay taxes, and those taxes go to cover the cost of health care for all her citizens.Now, we have a hell of a lot more people than Canada. Last year when I did this calculation, the exchange rate was a bit higher, the dollar was a bit stronger, so the exchange rate came out to $5500 per capita. Covering all US citizens, in the same way, would cost the US by that calculation $1.8Trillion per year.Sounds like a lot, doesn't it, that number they scare you with?Especially when they do what they always do with it, use the 10-year figure. They don’t tell you they’re using the 10-year figure, they just tell you that covering all Americans would cost $18Trillion dollars. You’ve heard that figure right?Did it scare you?Do you know how much we’re already paying for health care in this country?$672B on Medicare$565B on Medicaid$79B on the VA’s budget for health care.All of which would be rolled into a health care system that covered all Americans.You heard me.In other words we are already spending the $1.3T of the $1.8T we would need to cover everyone.In other words, a Medicare For All system wouldn’t be that big scary number, it would cost about $500B more than we are already spending on Health care.Did you notice we just came up with $2.5T out of nowhere to do COVID-19 relief?There are 142 Million taxpayers in the United States, most of whom are paid biweekly or twice monthly. Meaning that breaks down to $137 per paycheck on average, not even taking into account the fact that the vast majority of the extra revenue needed would be happily paid in corporate taxes by companies who no longer had to spend vast sums of money on employee health care, which for the record, THEY ABSOLUTELY CONSIDER PART OF YOUR COMPENSATION. That “my employer pays for my health care” argument is bullshit. Your employer pays you for your services. Part of what they pay you is your health care coverage, and if you don’t think the finance department has an exact dollar value on that down to the penny, you’ve never met an accountant.After Coronavirus, should healthcare be free?No. We should have before, should now, and should in the future be paying a single-payer whose purpose is not profit. It is the profit motive of the middleman that causes the average American to pay more for health care than anyone else in the world.Here's how much the average American spends on health careCoronavirus just exposed the sad truth of how insane our employer-provided health care is, considering employment is not a guarantee, as tens of millions of Americans learned in the last 6 weeks, unfortunately during a time when it would be really nice not to worry about their *&%^ing health care.

As a European, would you prefer the US healthcare system?No. As a German I pay a fixed percentage of my income and have almost all expenses paid. I pay a little more than 300 Euros a month although I have an above average income. I have to pay extra for glasses, dental prostheses or when I have to go to hospital. I would have to pay a little extra for prescription drugs or orthotics. But that’s about it. All in all really affordable.The US health care system actually is not a health care system, it’s a scam to squeeze as much money out of the patients as possible and if it cannot be avoided at all treat a few of them. That’s what you get if you turn everything into a business scheme.