Maybe I could get the therapy and medicine I need.
You would not. Mental health professionals are already on huge waiting lists, if everyone got coverage that waiting list would only get longer. The solution, of course, is more people entering the field being incentivized by higher pay, but that could take years to work out.
everyone would be in better shape health-wise.
but also billionaires would lose money, which is why it’ll never happen as things are now
they would stop applying to grueling service/retail jobs/technician jobs, and probably focus career paths even if they already graduated with a degree, more money goes into taking more classes, or saving money for something else. i think these are one of the reason people are not in a field they supposedly studied in, of course you would need a efficient train/fast rail system in most states for it to work as well since most degree’d jobs are outside large cities most of the time, besides the job market being very poor for many different fields.
most people are probably paying 600-1000+/month in premiums anyways, and they have to spend down thier DEDUCTIBLES and OOP to be fully covered, which most people cant unless you are chronically sick. the current subsidies make it less than that per month.
A better life for 99.999999% of the country.
The other 0.0000001% are already so wealthy that their life will be exactly the same except that they will be furious about the 99.999999% having an easier life.
This is the case in literally every other country on earth.
Travel to fucking Canada or Mexico to answer this question. It’s not hard.
People would have more job mobility. You could quit (or get fired) and not have to worry about becoming bankrupt due to healthcare.
People that don’t have insurance will be able to seek aid. Less people will die of preventable illness. People can focus on getting better without the stress of “how will I pay for this? I’m ruined”
If we’re handwaving the whole transition, nothing too dramatic. It would be more like Canada. People would be healthier and not stressed about the costs of seeing a doctor.
Approximately 1-2 million people employed in the mass bureacracy of claims processing and validation would lose their jobs.
That’s how much of a gargantuan amount of bullshit the healthcare industry is, its so big that at this point, assuming the rest of the economy was doing fine, switching to universal health care would create a moderate recession, because so many bullshit jobs would no longer nerd to exist.
Obviously it would be a massive net economic benefit, but at this point, medicine is gonna sting a bit.
Approximately 1-2 million people employed in the mass bureacracy of claims processing and validation would lose their jobs.
Those “same” (number of) people would be needed to process the claims that needed to be approved by the nationwide system that replaced “for profit” healthcare.
No. Wrong.
As others have outlined in greater detail… no, you’d have a massive simplification and standardization of such forms, thus a massive reduction in the amount of ‘needed’ work of such kind.
The entire way the modern US healthcare system works is by making there be so many abstract layers and processes going on at the same time, that it requires an inordinate amount of time and effort to even actually map out what those layers and processes are, much less who is actually responsible for what particular decision or mistake.
And that is the point of it. Its is insanely complex and opaque by design, because it allows them do functionally do whatever they want, and be able to say its all done for compliance’s sake.
So, yeah, if you just flatten all that… ~90% of it no longer needs to exist.
Or… the real funny part here is… if we stick with the system as it is, well, this kind of shit is gonna be done by LLMs. So we will probably end up having the same employment void developing under the current hypercapitalist paradigm as well.
That’s not quite true. Medical billing here is hopelessly complicated, a universal system would likely have universal rules, and streamline the process of billing and payments.
So if a medical practice now needs 5 people to do the insurance billing, it might need only one if there was one payer (Medicare) or two if there was a German sort of system, but not 5.
I’m from Canada, and I know a surgeon and he has one admin. One (1) secretary that handles patient booking, billing, and payments. The benefit of a single payer system is there’s one payer. The government. One set of forms to comply with. No rejections (almost always. Rejections come from foreigners or out of province coverage when determining which province is responsible for paying)
His software system (government provided) auto fills 99% of it. That’s why he can have one (1) secretary. The government side Idk but it’s certainly not insane ratios like the US since the process is far more streamlined and doesn’t rely on appeals or rejections to racketeer more money out of doctors and patients. Canada or What’s really sad is Americans are so conditioned to believe their way of life is somehow normal, that orphans must also be crushed somehow in Europe or Canada.
Yeah, you go into a doctor’s office and they’ll have 5 secretaries to handle all that paper work. I didnt do Healthcare, but for a minute I was a service administrator for a car dealership who’s job, among 7 of us, was to do the billing and warranty/insurance claims. The paperwork was insane and had to be presented in a precise way or it wasn’t accepted. I can only imagine what hoops health insurance makes these offices jump through.
you can have both private and public, private if you want to see someone faster or more specialized care. and everyone gets public regardless of income. most states have very small maximum limit on if you can get medi-caid. funny how military service members have universal healthcare, a “public version of them” and they arnt in debt. it can be done, the us chooses not to because GOP/DNC would start to lose alot of political power.
I’d probably go to the doctor.
I’ve got a bowel obstruction 2 years ago and i had to pay 6k for my deductible and my insurance paid 12k. I got a tube down my nose, some xrays and stayed a night. I currently know its going to happen again any day now and it almost happend two nights ago and I was in horrendous pain. I could go to the doctor and they could probably help me and stop it from happening again. However, I dont have 6k to spare to find out. So until it is debilitating, we’ll just have to see what happens.
That sucks.
Ive got shitty US insurance. Had to have the ol’ gallbladder removed. Hospital charged $40k. After insurance, my bill was less than $3k. Lots of people would be financially ruined by that math. Im thankful I had the $3k to pay.
It’s hard out there, but at least we’re letting gun owners carry into Hawaiian grocery stores.
Honestly, a ton of people in the health insurance industry would become unemployed. As well as a lot of hospital/clinic administrators.
A lot of stocks that are held by pensions and mutual funds would become worthless causing chaos in the stock market and destroying peoples retirements.
Ya, that’s NOT a reason not to change to single payer.
I feel like that sort of highlights exactly how bloated our private system is, and how much the older generations are profiteering off the younger generations future.
Well, yes. But a change to a nationalized system needs to happen in stages to prevent an economic catastrophe. Obamacare was intended to just be a first step in that direction.
The NHS has hospital administrators too (too many of them, even). And pensions somehow manage to invest well enough, probably because they have experts.
Did those pensions have large stakes in stable, profitable, health insurance companies that suddenly went poof? Or was that never the case?
Companies don’t just vanish when you nationalize them
Global warming would probably be solved, because hell would also have frozen over.
“Big news tonight. Congress has officially passed the Healthcare for All Bill with unanimous support, also, the Cleveland Browns have won the Super Bowl!”
Lots of people would exit the traditional job market, millions would start small private business. Pay would go up both because of the healthcare savings to companies and because people would stop working shit jobs for shit pay just to keep health insurance.
It might also lead to a massive recession as for profit healthcare providers and services last l lay off workers and go bankrupt.
So mixed bag probably good overall for workers, very bad for capitalists. But there would be a massive labor disruption and lots of people would be on the losing side initially.
I would support a transitional system where every say 5 years we lower the age for Medicare access so we gradually ween off the old system and the healthiest most profitable pool stays in the old system the longest.
It still screws over the next generation which I don’t love or think it’s fair but the ACA created a system so entrenched I don’t think there is a way to roll it back without causing pain.
While I don’t think this is a really big thought in the minds of CEO of large corporations but by tying healthcare to work it does keep potential competition from growing in the marketplace. More difficult/impossible to start your own competing produce/service without healthcare.
The problem with weening off is that every time it becomes a high fight that doesn’t go anywhere.
Realistically there would be fox news blasting propaganda on how much the country is going into debt to fund the madness. “People are going to the doctor for everything now! Back in my days when we fell with our bike we put a plaster on it, we didn’t burden the healthcare system with a few scrapes. Our mom gave a kiss on it and we’d be okay. A kid on our block Jimmy broke gis arm once and his mom did surgery on the kitchen table. But now? What do you think putting a plaster on by a doctor costs? 500 dollars. Yes, that’s right. It’s madness, Trump would have never stood for this, God bless his soul. We had it good under him. Now look. Wars, famine, heat waves, our economy is in shambles! And why? People don’t live like they do no more, sad. Do you wish we could go back sometimes? I do. I sit on my front porch and I wonder… what would life be if our great leader would still be here with us. I think we need to all channel our inner Trump tonight. We need it. America needs it. You need it.”
realistically that’s what’s going to happen on fox
First and foremost this would be a HUGE boon for small businesses. They are currently hugely outclassed in offering benefits which hampers hiring. It’s also significantly more costly per employee for them.
Second, huge boon for employees who can change jobs left and right regardless of life circumstances. Currently the best way to improve your wages and/or get promoted to a bigger position is to get a job at a new company.
Third, huge boon for entrepreneurs who can now take bigger risks to start a new business because regardless of what happens, they don’t have to worry about losing their healthcare
All of these things will have long term knock-on effects of leveling the opportunities for non wealthy people as well.
I’ll say it for the millionth time. Every single stance the GOP takes is bad for small businesses, bad for the economy, bad for the country.
Don’t forget, the Democrats have never put universal healthcare on their agenda and they’ve rigged multiple primaries in order to prevent candidates who would put it on the agenda from winning.
thats because thats thier only carrot(single issue that convinces people to vote for them), they would lose that power overnight). thats why they always tease public heatlcare for all, and conspire with the republicans to derail those plans.
What planet are you living on where the Democratic party is using single payer healthcare as a carrot?
Can I move to that planet please
The GOP is mentioned because they claim to be the party of small businesses and are overwhelmingly supported by small businesses advocacy groups.
I’ll say it for the millionth time. Every single stance the GOP takes is bad for small businesses, bad for the economy, bad for the country.
Bad for PEOPLE in general.
Except for rich people.
Very well said. My old man can attest to the struggle of running a small-business with a couple employees while managing the overhead of health insurance both for himself, and them.
This is honestly how Democrats should be pushing it: We’re Pro Small-Business. (1) Entrepreneurship, (2) Innovation, (3) True competition, (4) Keeping money within communities… I could go on.
Insurance companies would find some way to have record profits. No one spends money more frivolously than the US federal government. Most likely the government would make deals with preexisting medical care providers instead of building out their own national healthcare.
The economy would skyrocket. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE would benefit. And there are people in this country so vile they would lose out on billions or trillions in profits just to screw over the masses. Imagine companies not having to pay 10-20k+ per employee for healthcare. Employees getting preventative care, being healthy, and being more … PRODUCTIVE!
The health insurance industry is half a percent of the whole US economy ($1.6tn of $32tn). Pulling out the rug under it would almost certainly cause a recession in the short term. Probably still worth it imo
