There are public health systems that just won’t offer that operation. Or you’ll have a 1.5 year waiting list. So in the end, unless you’re rich and pay for private insurance, it comes out as the same.
(Edit: since someone thought my take is because I’m american and don’t understand. I’m european, have lived most my life in europe, this is from lived experience)
People in Australia do experience medical bankruptcy. It’s incredibly rare now. But it’s true. But it used to be so much worse before we had a public health system. And health outcomes were worse as well. And it cost more.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-18/bob-hawke-what-did-australia-have-before-medicare/11124180
An article just yesterday about the same happening in Switzerland
Not it’s not about that at all. This is about someone not getting disability checks, not healthcare, two very different things.
Yeah, that happens sometimes. But in this case the price of an operation will be drastically cheaper.
I had this situation in Germany, there was a minor operation I needed to have which was not life threatening so the one that insurance covered had a waiting period, so I decided to go pay out of pocket and it was around 800 euro. The cheapest price I could find in US for it started at 11000 dollars.
For sure. But now imagine your disabled and on disability income, where you get payed 1k a month and are living in poverty.
If you’re disabled and on disability income, it will absolutely not cost you 800 euro. You will be put in front of the queue for the free one. That’s why I, able bodied working person with slightly above median income, had to wait. And I think it’s as fair of a system that is possible under the circumstances.
For every case of a disabled persion on benefits having to wait 1.5 years for a non-urgent operation because they can’t afford private healthcare, there are a million of cases of people who get a common problem like Diabetes or Cardio-Vascular problems and get treated for free (down to getting the medicine for free, which for a person below the poverty line will be true even for the worst countries) rather than suddenly being faced with an extra monthly bill for medicine (which would be a massive hit for those poor people you cosplay as caring about for the sake of argument) or a massive bill for urgent surgery.
(Which reminds me: one thing that will NEVER happen in one of those countries, unlike in the US, is when one ends up in the emergency ward and requires an expensive treatment to save their life, they won’t get a massive bill at the end)
Oh, and even if you pay out of pocket for medicine, it’s way cheaper in those countries than the US, as governments have used their leverage to limit what Pharmaceutial companies can charge, unlike in the US.
The healthcare risks for the average individual in countries with Universal Healthcare aren’t even in the same universe as in the US.
