“Medicare for All” would save the U.S $5.1 Trillion over 10 years

[u/The-Lucky-Investor]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/30/easy-pay-something-costs-less-new-study-shows-medicare-all-would-save-us-51-trillion

[u/Pickle_ninja]

In America:

Person with a fever of 99.0F (37.2C): Get back to work.

Person with a fever of 100.0F (37.7C): Stay home take some cough syrup.

Person with a fever of 101.0F (38.3C): Stay home take some cough syrup.

Person with a fever of 102.0F (38.9C): Stay home take some cough syrup.

Person with a fever of 103.0F (39.44C): I'm going to try cooling down with a bath.

Person with a fever of 104.0F (40C): I think I should go to the hospital.

Person coming across a Person convulsing on the ground with a fever of 105.0F (40.55C): "OMG! CALL A $10,000 AMBULANCE!"

In Countries with Universal Health Care:

Person with a fever of 99.0F (37.2C): I'm going to see a doctor.

[u/Secret_Squire1 → u/Pickle_ninja]

American having lived in Europe and the UK.

No it’s more like having to wait several weeks to be seen by a GP to be told to go home and take Tylenol while resting. I had my foot run over by a car and was told the same thing.

[u/Cadet_Stimpy → u/Secret_Squire1]

It takes months to get appointments in the US now too. It’s not a socialized healthcare issue, it’s a medical professional shortage issue.

[u/tr7UzW → u/Cadet_Stimpy]

It takes months to get appointments because the greedy insurance companies control how many patients a doctor can see in a given day. I learned firsthand. I wax told if I pay out of pocket u could see the doctor the next day. The staff member told me the doctor met his quota for insurance covered patients.

[u/Bee-Aromatic → u/tr7UzW]

My wife, mother-in-law, and sister are all in healthcare. Wife’s an RN for more than a decade who’s done both inpatient and outpatient nursing and served in leadership positions up to the director level. My MIL’s been a PA both inpatient and out for nearly 40yrs. My sister’s an inpatient PA for about a decade. I hear about this every day.

The bottleneck is not insurance companies limiting how many people a provider can see. In fact, the insurance companies have zero to do with it. The bottleneck is the number of people a provider physically can provide adequate care for in a limited timeframe. Management pushes for them to see as many as humanly possible because that’s how they get paid. The definition of “adequate” often drifts because there’s only so many hours in a day and addressing a patient’s concerns properly can take time. They need more people.