Many companies would lose profit. Many greedy fucks would not be able to afford their third yaht and fifth house.
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About half the US would declare civil war because they are so fucking stupid?
If healthcare were decoupled from employment, Americans could protest in much larger number and for a longer period of time.
A general strike would become viable.
and suddenly many people who have been wanting to start their own businesses, make that career move, or move to where the jobs are would finally feel secure enough to do so. I suspect this would boost the economy everywhere in ways it would be hard to predict.
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.
my friend would get the blood pressure meds he needs instead of searching for magic pills at the health food store.
have they checked cost+ drugs for the medication, they got a lot of stuff now that is way cheaper than insurance
yeah but you have to see a doctor to get the script to get the meds…
Hope would exist again and every american could get back to pursuing happiness rather than lock in on survival mode only.
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"
Things happening to you medically would stop defining your life. I called for a check on something, get a date in 2 days and be scheduled for a radiology, all 100% free.
In Canada it's more like 30 days or more, and you could expect a US single.payer system to be less efficient since it hasn't been refined for several decades
The US would be switching to an entirely different system, but wouldn't be able to "refine" it? What a bunch of unprovable bullshit.
Also, if you think the US doesn't already have waiting lists for specialists, then I honestly do not know what to tell you. Wait times are not a uniquely socialized medicine thing.
Yep, I've seen 6+ month wait times in the US for some of the specialists my kids have needed. Some of those were fairly urgent issues
The US would be switching to an entirely different system, but wouldn't be able to "refine" it? What a bunch of unprovable bullshit.
Not 10 minutes after they implement it, no. Canada has a mature system that's been worked on for decades. Are you suggesting the US would be automatically better just because it's the US? What are you, a MAGA?
Also, if you think the US doesn't already have waiting lists for specialists
I've been to a variety of specialists, it's never taken anywhere near a month. My understanding is that in Canada a month is the norm, sometimes longer.
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.
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.
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.
Global warming would probably be solved, because hell would also have frozen over.
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.
More entrepreneurship. Plenty more people would work for themselves or start businesses if they didn't have to worry about healthcare.
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 need 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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
According to magats the gates of hell will open and demons will spew forth.
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
Curling the monkey paw a little bit...
A single payer system will likely try to look for some efficiencies since they can track everyone. One thing I expect will happen is that care will shift regarding the homeless population.
A small minority of homeless often rely on hospitals as a shelter of last resort in cases of severe weather. There are also cases where homeless only interface with the emergency care system since it is the only care they can get.
I can easily see a government run system pushing these people into "more cost effective" options, including the immediate movement from emergency rooms into "specialty facilities" for "long term care".
