The political boogeyman was that government bureaucrats would be the members of “death panels” if we went full socialized healthcare industry, but in practice we already have death panels in health insurance claims adjusters and (less maliciously) doctors on transplant review boards.
My mother beat cancer. Insurance paid for follow up testing every 2 years. I tried to convince her to pay out of pocket and do it every year but she said 'they know best'. My mom did not beat cancer the second time when it came back and too much time elapsed between screenings.
I know 'pro status quo' people will say online anecdotes are all lies and not relevant, but there are a heck of a lot of people with a lot of animosity to the current system and it's 'for profit death panels'. I think it would be easier to swallow if it were societal chosen death panels over failed doctors (that can't make it so they go work for the insurance company) or random AIs doing the decision making.
With a socialized healthcare system the system would have delays and you'd get the screening every 2.5 years, even if it was scheduled for every 2 years. Because of wait lists.
To be fair, it's impossible to know of it matters :)
I moved back to Europe from the US. And I can certainly feel that healthcare is slower, less eager to jump and investigate everything.
But on the other hand, in the US you most certainly risk talking your self into procedures you don't need!
I live in Australia, and I don’t pay for private health insurance. Last year after travelling to Egypt I ended up in hospital with some gut related issue. I was let straight in from the emergency room. The doctors were great. I stayed overnight in one of the wards hooked up to machines and all that.
I was discharged the next day. I didn’t pay a cent. I didn’t even see a bill. I don’t think they made one.
I keep hearing stories from Americans about wait times in other countries. I’m sure it happens, but I’ve never seen it myself. My experiences with the medical system here has been pretty universally excellent.
When I was in America I was very impressed with how proactive everything is. My insurer paid for yearly physical exams. I’d never done that before. It’s certainly possible I would have even better health outcomes in America. But, I’m way happier here. And I’m a lot less stressed than I was when I lived in the Bay Area. That counts for a lot.
Pretty much all developed countries do fairly well on rapid access to emergency care. The queues are more of an issue with elective care. Socialized healthcare systems generally impose artificial supply limits to hold down costs, which is why we often see affluent Canadians come to the USA as medical tourists to skip the queue for certain procedures like MRI scans. While socialized systems might be better overall, there are certain drawbacks.
Outside of certain screenings, there is no proven benefit to yearly physical exams for healthy adults. It's a waste of resources and doesn't improve patient outcomes. Some people seem to want those annual exams, but they aren't justified on an evidence-based medicine basis.
> Pretty much all developed countries do fairly well on rapid access to emergency care.
I was talking to a taxi driver in SF a few years ago. He said he was in a car accident once, and his car rolled and flipped upside down. The police & an ambulance showed up. Even though he seemed mostly ok they still wanted take him to hospital. But he couldn't afford the ambulance or the hospital - without health insurance, it would have bankrupted him. So he told them all to get lost.
In telling the story, he got kind of angry about it - I think he was mad how pushy the police and ambulance people were about the whole thing.
Thats vaguely horrifying to me. A man who was just in a car accident should never be put in a situation like this. If you're wealthy in america, yeah - you get top notch medical treatment. But I'm not sure I'd call that a successful system for emergency care.
I'm not claiming it's successful, just that people can generally get rapid access to high quality emergency medical care. Paying for it afterwards is a separate issue, and changes are needed there.
The No Surprises Act did give many consumers significant protection against excessive ER bills.
I live in Québec, Canada and my wife had breast cancer and her periodic scan happened at a 4 months interval. When they detected oligometastasis on her spine she had radiotherapy 2 weeks after the biopsy.
The only thing not covered by the gouvernement is a drugs called kisqali that sucessfully keep her alive (may it continue to works). If I did not had gold plated drugs insurances, the public alternative was weekly chemo (taxol or taxotere i dont remember).
People need to be reasonable and know when to DNR. 85 yrs old with massive health problems has a stroke and falls over...DNR. Not here. We jump them back to life, deny their claim and stick them in a facility. Now they are babling and drooling all day and the trust fails to kick in so the people grandma was taking care of financially wait patiently while someone with POA drains grandmas bank accounts and sells off her houses that said people were going to live in (all in violation of her wishes and planning) to pay medicare.
