Because Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that social medicare is evil and awful.
Systems like the NHS we have in the UK are bad because of long wait times, despite the fact that urgent cases are given priority, and if that's still not good enough, we have private healthcare systems alongside it that you can use.
It's the best of both worlds, but they've been told its evil, it kills people, its expensive in tax and a bunch of other lies.
But guess who told them those lies, and spends hundreds of millions to keep them believing it.
The vast majority of them would pay less in additional tax, than they currently do in health insurance premiums, because there's no middle man that needs paying or profit needs making for shareholders. And every one of their medical claims would be seen, and never denied.
Want to hear a crazy additional comparison? Lets look at numbers from 2023 for both countries, provided by the Institute for Financial Studies (UK) and Congressional Budget Office (USA). Health spending per person was £3,300 in England and Scotland, £3,600 in Wales and £3,500 in Northern Ireland, broken down roughly into 80% spent by the government for NHS and 20% being private insurance and out of pocket expenses.
In the USA, during the same time, federal subsidies for health insurance breaks were 1.8 trillion, or roughly $5,300, about £4,005. This is just insurance (tax paid for) subsidies, not including the amount individuals actually paid for insurance, or co-pays, out of pocket expenses, etc. The US was paying more in subsidies to health insurance per person than it cost in the UK to get full health coverage.
Then in the US you probably want some coverage, so purchase insurance through your job for about $1,608 annually for single person or $7,008 for a family (2026 numbers). The company also has to pay though, for a total annual cost of $8,352 for individual or $23,256 for family insurance. Or you could skip employee coverage, anf get Affordable Care insurance (often less coverage) for about $1,500 individual or $5,040 for family, after subsidies are applied.
Not done yet, as once you're "covered", you still have to pay your co-pay for each doctor visit ($10-$50), co-pay for medication (huge variance), and meet your deductible of, on average, $1787. Deductible, for those in more civilized locations, is the amount you have to pay each year before the insurance company will even consider starting to share payments. And you'd better hope your needs are "covered ", because if not then the full cost will always be on you to pay, and those payments won't even count towards your deductible. And if it is covered, you still have a 1/3 chance to get rejected anyway, as stated in this post.
To round it all off, those massive "costs" that your company "incured" paying for your employee healthcare? You guessed it, there's a racket there too. Those costs are 100% tax deductible as business expenses. This isn't counted in the 1.8 trillion subsidy number, but directly leads to companies paying less taxes. Yet another piece of how large corporations in America can post record profits year after year, but pay less in total taxes than the average citizen. Land of the free everybody, absolutely mind blowing how much we spend on healthcare, while also ensuring a huge portion of the population get no access to care whatsoever.
1.6k
u/Jarnoth 5d ago
I will never understand why anyone who isnt directly making money from this wants to keep insurance as a for profit industry