Universal health care. Common sense or communisim? Check with the Aussies.?

Question

Australia spends about 10% of GDP (60 billion USD) on health, private & public, with Medicare & Private Health Insurance Rebate Scheme. A two tiered payment system ensures a combination of ‘user pays’ with ‘tax payers pay’.
USA spends 15% of GDP on health with no universal health.
The Australian health pie is divided up:
public hospitals = $20.4b (25%) (17.34 Billion USD)
medical services = $13.0b (11.05b USD)
pharmaceuticals = $10.9b (9.2b USD)
private hospitals = $6.1b (5.1b USD)
residential aged care & dental = $5.0b (4.25b USD)
admin/research = $3.6 b AUD (6%) (3b USD)

America is 15 X Australia's pop. (21 mill) and has similar demographics, lifestyle, age etc. Americans fork out 5% more on GDP to keep healthcare companies rich and ordinary Americans sick. Australian ‘outpatients’ see doctors privately and choose who they see. ‘Inpatients’ in public hospitals may see an appointed doctor but it is free. Reciprocal health agreements with other countries are also a benefit.

That is so sad Ash. I had no idea you needed to work to cover health care and live in fear like this. I am Aussie and certainly try not take free healthcare for granted. I posted this message to stimulate debates amongst Americans who I feel deserve better healthcare. It is up to you guys now.

I'm sorry you feel that way Michael B. Like I said, if I need heart surgery it is free and considered 'immediately medically necessary'. Yes people are on waiting lists for 'elective' surgery but no we don't send people to India for surgery like I have seen happening with America's case. Why would we bother when all our heart surgeons work in public hospitals anyway?

Also Michael B...I remember meeting a doctor years ago in Australia who said he wanted to move to America to 'get rich quick'. If they think that way instead of providing good health care then we don't really want them in this country anyway. He was not a very nice person. I heard later on he did move there. Kudos to you.

Answer 1

As you can tell, the medical industry in the USA does a good job convincing Americans that all other healthcare systems in the world suck.
The fact of the matter is, Australia has the best healthcare system in the world followed by Germany then Canada. The US medical industry points to countries like Australia and say patients are lined up to get MRIs.
Big deal. People have been cure of illnesses long before expensive hi-tech testing like MRIs.
Just taking the profit and unusually high admin cost out of the US health insurance industry would drop insurance cost by over 40%. That's insurance cost, not medical cost. There is no reason in the world why the health insurance business in the USA must be a for profit industry. The medical industry can operate just dandy as a for profit industry with a non profit insurance industry.
Making the health insurance industry not-for-profit would have no effect on health care availabilty. As a matter of fact, a single payer system would cut down hospital's and Doctor's adminstrative cost, which would lower healthcare cost even further.
The insurance industry keeps throwing out the term socialized medicine. That term does not apply to a single payer healthcare system. It is not socialized medicine when the aim is insurance coverage only. Single payer systems do not put doctors on a federal payroll. Single payer systems do not make hospitals federal institutes. Single payer systems only provide affordable insurance in the event of illness.

Answer 2

Australia used the private sector to reform its public healthcare system. Almost 50% of Australians have private health insurance. Though the wait times are a little greater for surgery in Australia as compared with the United States, it's still much better than most other countries with universal healthcare. The big danger, of course, is that pure universal health coverage means that the government will have more control over its people. That's a major roadblock for people living in a free society.

Answer 3

That's great that you are happy with your country's health care. We (Americans) are discussing what we might do with our health care currently. What I don't understand is why Australians would really care enough to ask about it or much less get so angry like the one that answered. That's just weird. Is this a 'my father could beat your father up' thing?

Answer 4

I don't get why this is such a huge issue for us in the USA, it just makes us look really realy greedy and shortsighted.

Is it a way I wonder to keep us Americans in jobs we hate, working ten to twelve hours a day while being paid for eight and constantly in fear of being fired just because we can't afford private pay health insurance and one hospital stay would put us in bankruptcy now that the bankruptcy laws for private people have been changed in favor of the creditors including medical?

EDIT - I'm past being scared, just trying to make the point - apparently very poorly - that the status quo is slanted against workers and if you lose your insurance, with our system you're screwed. System needs fixing and like I said I just don't get why it is such a problem here in the US; if you bring up universal health care you get called a pinko commie leftist whatever who "hates American way of life" and "is trying to destroy the free market" and so on. And someone says its okay because we have such great heathcare here -- but what good is the greatest procedures if you cannot pay for them? What if you can't even pay for the simplest life preserving things like your blood pressure medicine while you are in the "donut hole" of Medicare drug coverage? We need to look at the whole of our population not just me myself and I.

Answer 5

When was the last time you heard of people flying from all corners of the globe to Australia for medical care, like they do to the United States? Are the patients in Australia: on waiting lists to be treated?, being exported to other countries for treatment because of a shortage of doctors? Are the Doctors in Australia leaving the country for more lucrative practice elsewhere?
All one has to do to see the fallacy of government run health care is to look at the mess Canada is in. Don't listen to the leftist media reports who glorify anything and everything socialist, but look at the hard cold numbers. Look and see how many Canadians have died because of the waiting period for treatment. Why has the Canadian Government now come up with a health care option that allows you to receive better treatment if you PAY FOR IT YOURSELF, rather than wait months for the government to pay for it. Canada has sent thousands of it's citizens to the United States for treatment. I live in NY and can tell you this first hand.
TAXES!!!!!!!! Ask any Canadian how much they pay in taxes for their vaunted health care program, and then ask them if it is worth it.
The bottom line people is this, while our health care system is expensive, you ultimately get what you pay for. If you feel you life isn't worth it, then by all means please move to Australia or Canada.