From what I know it’s not the worst. Rather it’s the best but only a portion of the population can afford it.
So half the population in the country has the best healthcare in the world the other half get nothing.
By measure of average life expectancy, it appears to be the worst. I’m sure like you say very few people have access to the very best health care in the world there. But that doesn’t make it a good health care system.
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Yep, you’re exactly right. If you can afford the price, the US has some of the very best healthcare facilities and practitioners. But way too large a proportion of the population can’t afford it, or any healthcare.
Some permanent employees have health insurance through their employer.
I think it’s actually required for employers to provide healthcare to permanent employees.
Which has always struck me as all kinds of messed up. Your health has value only as long as you are a good little worker drone.
Besides which, you have to wonder what it does to entrepreneurship etc there. Lots of people can’t afford to start businesses because they’d lose the healthcare that they’d have if they were employees. I know a couple in the US who are both authors, quite successful with many books published and high sales. He has to work as a firefighter, because otherwise they have no health insurance. Cos authors aren’t employees.
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Yup, … that’s the whole idea.
So what happens when you retire?
I can’t imagine health insurance would be cheap for 65+.
A few responses to this and other posts:
- Yes, getting healthcare is the biggest perk of being employed which, as mentioned above is “messed up”. The employee still has to pay part of the premium but it is heavily subsidized.
- For most big companies healthcare is the single biggest expense on their balance sheet
- In my case (family of 3), I did some math to see what it would cost to get the health insurance my employer provides on my own. It came to US$16,000 per year just in premiums (before the deductible and out of pocket costs).
- For folks aged 65+ they transition to the govt sponsored Medicare and Medicaid (you contribute to this throughout your life out of every paycheck) which is much cheaper. Drug manufacturers have to provide drugs on reduced, negotiated rates.
Obamacare’s original intent was to hugely expand Medicare and Medicaid to the under 65+ crowd. That didn’t work as it would have impacted the profits of insurance companies and drug manufacturers. So we ended up with a sort of unwieldy hybrid.
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And then, despite having good insurance, stuff like this happens all the time;
Wouldn’t business want to get rid of the health care costs for employees and have it come out of tax like our system?
Personal interest comes in
A CEO can use the companies money for insurance
Or the CEO can pay higher taxes for a public system.
This.
That is totally farked up.
So how do unemployed & self-employed folk <65 get healthcare?
Short answer?
They don’t.
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Correct. This is why, prior to Obamacare in 2013 there were 47 Million + uninsured. That number has dropped to 25 Million due to easier access AND the imposition of penalties if one is uninsured.
Still, it is prohibitively expensive to get QUALITY health insurance if one is unemployed or self-employed. Two examples:
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Friends of ours are a couple with a kid in my daughter’s class. He is a self-employed architect (small business), she is a bookkeeper who gets contract gigs outside of helping with the husband’s biz. Their family insurance costs them $11,000 per year AND they have a $9,000 deductible.
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The accountant who helps us with our taxes is a single mum and is paying $13,000 a year for herself and her daughter for a decent health insurance. She heard me mentioning how I would like to “take a break from corporate life” for a bit and looked at me like I was insane. Rightfully so.
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Its ok now.
Your child was shot during math
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I think one of the greatest lies in the world right now is, ‘Capitalism isn’t perfect, but it’s the best there is.’
Is it, though?
Is it really?
It’s interesting that people like to say, ‘there’s never been any real Communism.’
There’s never been any real Capitalism, either. You know, because that would be a dystopia.
So it’s all levels of Socialism, really.
I dunno…sometimes I just get despondent.
We’re all just people, in the end.
Is our society progressed by putting welfare recipients deeper in debt?
Is that going to help?
I don’t mean the welfare recipients, I mean the country.
For the price of a long lunch by a CEO that taxpayers also pick up the bill for?
Where are we going?
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Haven’t you heard -
In the future, efficiencies via automation will mean less work, more leisure time and prosperity for all.