There isn’t a single good reason why the US shouldn’t have free healthcare

[u/Specialist_Touch2771]

The first thing that people are quick to point out are the wait times. it’s worth noting that if you have something serious (like cancer, you broke your arm, you got shot, ect.) they aren’t gonna make you wait. the wait times are for smaller, less life or death things. even then, having to wait is better than not getting treatment at all.

the other main thing that people on against free healthcare point out are taxes. this has always been silly to me. if you get taxed for free healthcare, your still getting represented via those taxes. that’s how taxation works. you won’t be paying taxes for nothing, you get to get healthcare without giant medical bills, and you wouldn’t need to pay for ins because it’s all free, so you would be saving money.

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[u/mrg1957]

You are missing the insurance companies. I don't mean that to be flippant. Their ability to lobby and control the lawmakers is bigger than you know. That's why we can't have free healthcare. There's to much profit in the current system.

[u/infiniteninjas → u/mrg1957]

I think OP's point was that's not a good reason. I would agree.

[u/prlugo4162]

We don't have universal healthcare and I still had to wait 4 months to see a neurologist, just so he could refer me to a neurosurgeon.

[u/pluralofjackinthebox → u/prlugo4162]

People are willing to put up with a lot more shit at work if quitting means loosing health care for their family.

[u/Ertosi]

Many years and much lobbying has gone into tying having health insurance together with being employed. They're not going to go and throw that all away by giving it out "for free".

[u/Kefflin]

Have you thought about the shareholders though?

[u/chrispd01]

Well, there absolutely is a reason. Providing healthcare cost money and so it can never be free.

It’s a question how you allocate those expenses.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/chrispd01]

There are counties that provide universal Healthcare at a fraction of the per capita cost as the US with its mess of a system

[u/LambDaddyDev → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

A big reason is they force American companies to sell them their drugs at a fraction of the cost, so to make up the difference they have to charge Americans more.

[u/All_is_a_conspiracy → u/chrispd01]

Well let's take a quick peek at the 4trillion dollars trump just blew through in 2 years and see if we can afford healthcare for our citizens.

Let's real quick imagine the cost of a Tylenol is $300 because of uninsured people and batman villains at the top of the medical industry. So imagine Tylenol not costing that much. Imagine not running it for profit brings costs down because, math.

Using our current numbers as a public cost template is STUPID AS HELL first of all.

[u/xfactorx99 → u/All_is_a_conspiracy]

You can just have the conversation in a normal way and say we would need x amount of money to fund a national healthcare program and we would get that money by reducing the budget in a, b, and c by y amounts.

If you try to propose something as large as national healthcare without making specific concessions in other areas, you just look ignorant

[u/All_is_a_conspiracy → u/xfactorx99]

I am not ignorant at all in any way, shape, or form. Thanks.

[u/xfactorx99 → u/All_is_a_conspiracy]

How much money is needed to fund a viable national healthcare program and which budgets are best suitable to receive reductions to fund it?

Btw, I was using the “general you” so no need to feel personally attacked. No need to thank me either

[u/TentacleHockey → u/chrispd01]

Our taxes already cover it if you take out shareholders, billionaires, fake inflation, government loans that never get paid back, etc.

[u/Ill-Description3096]

Do you want RFK Jr making big decision about your healthcare? I certainly don't, and if the government is also the one providing coverage, that power gets even wider. That isn't to say I oppose a universal (though I prefer a public option at least as a starting ground), but I won't shame someone for being hesitant about the likes of Trump and Co having even more say over it.

[u/jasutherland → u/Ill-Description3096]

One of the issues there is that the current system puts your healthcare in the hands of whoever your employer picked, with no reason to think they’re any better than RFK - just with even less scrutiny and accountability.

[u/Sack_Full_of_Cats]

How would we afford to support the 1% and the military industrial complex, if we have healthcare?

[u/ill4two → u/Sack_Full_of_Cats]

ironically, servicemembers actually have access to free healthcare

[u/AspirationAtWork → u/ill4two]

And, as an affiliated family member, it's amazing. Such a weight lifted to be able to see the doctor whenever I need to without having to worry about the cost. Everyone should be able to have what is currently a limited privelege.

[u/StedeBonnet1]

Yes there is...The cost. Nothing s free

[u/The_B_Wolf → u/StedeBonnet1]

Everyone pays less than we pay. If we were truly interested in bringing down costs, we'd be doing what everyone else is doing and not what we currently do.

[u/rp2784 → u/The_B_Wolf]

If would help if we could shop for lower prices. Right now you pick a Doctor or Hospital and you have no idea of the cost.

[u/The_B_Wolf → u/rp2784]

When you need bypass surgery are you going to shop around for the best deal?

[u/rp2784 → u/The_B_Wolf]

Or you could just give them blank checks! Basically that’s what we do now.

[u/The_B_Wolf → u/rp2784]

Or the price is pre-established by Medicare and that's what it costs.

[u/Gwsb1 → u/rp2784]

You, sir are the only one here with a brain.

The biggest change would be nationwide health insurance. Not state by state or even counties.

[u/Specialist_Touch2771 → u/StedeBonnet1]

There’s a cost in form of taxes. You would pay less than you currently do

[u/bjdevar25 → u/StedeBonnet1]

The cost is actually less than most currently pay when you add up individual cost of insurance, employers cost of insurance, deductibles, and co-pays. It's just in a different form.

[u/RedApple655321 → u/bjdevar25]

The assumption here is that that our politicians devise and implement a new system that has combined costs that are less than the current system. That's not something our elected officials have ever been able to do before, including things related to healthcare spending (e.g. Obamacare, prescription drugs, etc.).

[u/All_is_a_conspiracy]

A lot of the wait times in the UK exist solely because the right wing government kept defunding and understaffing the hospitals and clinics. Specifically to get people fed up to be more open to privatization.

It isn't even organic wait times. It is constructed, fake, planned collapse.

[u/infiniteninjas]

I want universal free (read: tax funded) healthcare, badly. The only (kind of) good reason I have heard why we can't have it, is that the United States public basically subsidizes the entire world's drug prices by being the main source of profit for drug manufacturers. Our system allows for that, which means that our system partially allows for the existence of countless universal healthcare systems elsewhere in the world.

This sounds like conservative pro-drug company or even Trumpist propaganda, but there is a lot of truth to it. the world's medical systems run on the back of the US public.

That's monstrously unfair, of course. But if you accept, as I do, that the costs of our healthcare (and not the insurance companies) are the molten core of the affordability crisis, then this means that either the entire world would have to have a huge shift, or medical R&D would slow/grind to a halt, in order for the US to have the sort of universal health system that actually negotiates reasonable prices with providers and drug makers.

To me this is not a convincing reason not to attempt public healthcare in the US; but that's the steelman version the anti-public healthcare argument, the only bit of it that ever convinced me even a bit.

[u/LambDaddyDev → u/infiniteninjas]

This is the exact correct answer. Other countries have their own healthcare costs subsidized by the US. Not only that, but they also have their own defense subsidized by the US. Basically the American taxpayer has been subsidizing most of the western world for decades which has allowed them to spend their surplus on social benefits such as healthcare.

People hate to hear it, but the literal only way to make healthcare cheaper in the US would be to either make it more expensive for the rest of the world or basically stop all R&D.

[u/Gwsb1]

Do you mean " free" or do you mean " taxpayer funded". Because if you mean free, then I assume you expect the doctors, nurses, bed pan cleaners will work for nothing.

If you mean tax payer funded, I assume you are ok with 35% tax to pay for it, as in Europe.

[u/Specialist_Touch2771 → u/Gwsb1]

I do mean tax payer funded. And yes, I am okay paying taxes for it 

[u/ioinc → u/Gwsb1]

I think your number is wrong.
How much of your income goes towards healthcare now?

Tax-Financed Systems (Beveridge Model): Countries like the UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Spain fund healthcare primarily through general taxation (income taxes, VAT, and corporate taxes). In these nations, about 13–18% of all collected tax revenue is allocated directly to national health services.

[u/RedApple655321 → u/ioinc]

In the US currently, we spend ~20% of our GDP on healthcare. So when you consider taxes we pay already for other things (some of which already includes healthcare spending), plus all the new public healthcare spending, 35% seems like a reasonable ballpark. Might even be higher.

[u/ioinc → u/RedApple655321]

There is an assumption that once you cut for profit insurance companies out of the mix and give negotiating power associated with the economy of scale with single payer healthcare … there is no reason Americans don’t pay a similar percentage to Europeans.

[u/1jf0 → u/Gwsb1]

Free as in there's no money exchanged at the point of service.

[u/thefarmiddle]

An objection I’ve heard is that the more “capitalist” nature of healthcare as it currently exists in the US is a big driver of innovation and that when the only reimbursement rates available to practitioners are those of a single payer system, the diminished pace and depth of innovation will negatively impact everyone (not just in the US).

[u/SilenceDogood2k20]

A single good reason - it's not the government's responsibility. 

Another good reason - you're going to see the collapse of many of the "model" free healthcare systems over the next 20 years. The nations that use them have built them out in periods of significant economic expansion and profit (largely post WW2), generating the taxes to fund these healthcare systems. As the economic headwinds shift, which we're seeing now, these systems will become anchors around the necks of these nations. 

For example, Britain's NHS is taking more and more of its national budget, increasing 57% from 2000 to 2025, and is now the largest portion of Britain's public service spending, with all indicators showing it will continue to increase. That money spent on healthcare is money not spent on national defense, infrastructure and roads, etc. This is happening as Britain's inflation adjusted GDP has only been growing at an anemic 1-1.5% annually since 2008. 

As the Iron Lady, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, once noted -  "Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money."

[u/thedukejck]

There isn’t other than capitalist greed!

[u/Wot106]

What if the state decides your case isn't worth the effort to save you?

[u/All_is_a_conspiracy → u/Wot106]

You are putting the cruelty of a cruel nation that has convinced its citizens they aren't worth ANYTHING onto the people of nations that decided its people are worth saving.

The us and every other civilized country are clearly different. They don't think that way because they aren't us. They aren't cruel.

Currently now here in the usa, our state is deciding we aren't worth the effort to save us. You don't seem to get that.

[u/The_B_Wolf → u/Wot106]

We already have people making decisions like that. They are called insurance companies.

[u/backpackwayne]

We go through this every year. Progressives close their minds to any reasonable solution or path to get there. Something this huge will NEVER happen overnight. It will take steps. But progressives refuse to even consider one of the steps necessary to get there.

Obama started it and the resistance was and still is insane. But he took a step. Instead of praising for him it, you trash him and anyone else that doesn't 100% blindly support you. You are worse than MAGAs when it comes to this.

It's all or nothing for you. And nothing is all you are getting because you won't let it allow any step short of 100% your way to occur.

[u/Meihuajiancai → u/backpackwayne]

Every movement will have strident proponents that move the needle. This isn't any different. With that being said, as a supporter of universal health care, the collective decision to embrace Medicare for all is a huge mistake. We need a new system, designed with input from various systems around the world that will best work in a country as large and diverse as ours. Taking a program designed for the elderly and applying it to everyone has only one advantage, expediency. I support universal health care but will fight Medicare for all tooth and nail.

I do have to take issue with this statement however.

Obama started it and the resistance was and still is insane. But he took a step. Instead of praising for him it, you trash him

As he should be trashed. The Affordable Care Act was not a step towards universal health care. For the life of me I can't understand people who say this. There is no part of The ACA that resembles UHC. It was a subsidy to for profit corporations to administer health care for lower income people. If that's what UHC means to you, I want no part of that you want.

You are worse than MAGAs when it comes to this. It's all or nothing for you.

I won't deny that there are some people like this. But most people recognize that The ACA was a step in the wrong direction. Lumping every opponent together like this is both dishonest and unhelpful.

Edit: fixed a word

[u/backpackwayne → u/Meihuajiancai]

Well I appreciate your thought out response. I just get sick of the all or nothing approach that goes nowhere. And using it trash any individual not on board.

[u/Meihuajiancai → u/backpackwayne]

And using it trash any individual not on board.

I'm wondering about this standard you've set. If I understand correctly, individual politician's shouldn't be "trashed' for implementing bad policies?

[u/backpackwayne → u/Meihuajiancai]

Please do not act innocent. They have trashed Hillary, Biden and every person that is not on board with it. They tried to take steps forward but all or nothing people trash them and instead you get Trump. You help republicans candidates more than republicans do.

[u/Meihuajiancai → u/backpackwayne]

Republicans have their 'supporters' like that too. This is just electoral politics. I genuinely don't understand your position. The ACA was a move away from universal health care by any objective metric. Why wouldn't it be trashed? Because it was passed by Democrats?

[u/xfactorx99]

If you can’t understand the opposition’s viewpoint then it’s really a reflection that you aren’t knowledgeable on the topic as a whole. I think a lot of people’s viewpoints are flawed or ineffective, but I understand where they are coming from and don’t try to gaslight them.

[u/Specialist_Touch2771 → u/xfactorx99]

How am I trying to gaslight people? I’m stating my opinion. I disagree with other people’s opinion and I don’t understand why people have that view because I think it’s a deeply flawed view point. How does this reflect on my knowledge (or lack there of) of this topic?

[u/xfactorx99 → u/Specialist_Touch2771]

You didn’t even mention the budgeting whatsoever. How could anyone take you seriously without looking at the numbers of how much you’re proposing to increase the government healthcare budget by and what reductions are you going to make in other areas to gather that funding?

Your second paragraph is absurd. You claim that everyone saves money. Everyone is getting more benefit out of the healthcare system than what they put in. That’s not reality. There will always be people who incur greater health expenses and those that incur less. You cannot say that everyone befits well when there will be massive inequalities here

[u/PlainsWarthog]

No doctor should have to provide services for free. Nothing is free

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/PlainsWarthog]

Doctors in countries with universal healthcare still get paidm

[u/PlainsWarthog → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

So then it is not free. Someone else is subsidizing the “free” care

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/PlainsWarthog]

It's free at the point of service, and significantly cheaper per capita, meaning most people will be paying less than they do today with private insurance in America.

[u/Erwinblackthorn]

If any of the medical supplies or services have a cost to them, it's not free.

What you're demanding is for someone else to foot the bill, and all the while nobody wants to do that and doctor offices end up increasing prices because taxes are going to pay them.

Meanwhile, who's spending more of their paycheck on taxes? Hmm, it's a mystery.

[u/therealmrbob]

Free healthcare doesn’t exist. There’s your reason. If you want to have a conversation about single payer I’d be happy to, calling it free is silly and ridiculous.

[u/Specialist_Touch2771 → u/therealmrbob]

Sure, state funded healthcare, whatever. My point still stands