"And the poor couldn't afford healthcare anymore. Even if it is a well-justified $10,000 surgery. Most people cannot pay this out of their pocket."
A free market healthcare system assumes people would be getting back at least 7.5% of their salary every year, if not more.
"Anyway, I have lived in two countries where there is strongly government regulated healthcare (The Netherlands and Germany) and never had any qualms about the systems. I have also seen people close to me with small health problems to various forms of cancer, and for no one this was ever a financial problem. Luckily."
As someone who has sold both pharmaceuticals and medical devices to European hospitals/health agencies, I can tell you that the dirty secret behind all fully socialized systems is rationing. There is literally a quota of, say pacemakers, for example, that can be purchased in Germany every year.
A free market healthcare system assumes people would be getting back at least 7.5% of their salary every year, if not more.
That doesn't work for various reasons:
- People will spend the money and won't have enough savings to save their medical bill.
- There is an economic crisis and people use their savings for covering their mortgage payments.
- Most importantly: for some people the medical bills will be higher than they could set aside at that point in their life or at all in the case of a chronic condition or e.g. a form of cancer that is very expensive to treat.
There is literally a quota of, say pacemakers, for example, that can be purchased in Germany every year.
Germany apparently has quota, but they are budgeting and adjusted to the need. Again, I know of no cases in my wider circle of family, friends, and acquaintances where they could not get some important medical condition treated and with nearly full coverage of insurance.
In the nineties, we had inefficiencies in The Netherlands that sometimes resulted in long waiting lists. These issues have been resolved at the beginning of the century... Through government interference.
You might also want to check on research, which shows time and again that countries with universal insurance outperform the US, both on quality and cost per citizen. E.g.:
There is a frequent misperception that
trade-offs between universal coverage and timely access to specialized services are inevitable; however,
the Netherlands, U.K., and Germany provide universal coverage with low out-of-pocket costs while
maintaining quick access to specialty services.
A free market healthcare system assumes people would be getting back at least 7.5% of their salary every year, if not more.
"Anyway, I have lived in two countries where there is strongly government regulated healthcare (The Netherlands and Germany) and never had any qualms about the systems. I have also seen people close to me with small health problems to various forms of cancer, and for no one this was ever a financial problem. Luckily."
As someone who has sold both pharmaceuticals and medical devices to European hospitals/health agencies, I can tell you that the dirty secret behind all fully socialized systems is rationing. There is literally a quota of, say pacemakers, for example, that can be purchased in Germany every year.