[quote=afx114]
That’s the problem. Because healthcare is so expensive now, it prevents people from preventative care. So it ends up costing us more in the long run anyway (via higher premiums).
The idea is that if we have less un-insured, more people will be seeking healthcare so that problems can be caught and treated early – before they are terminal and/or exponentially more expensive to treat.
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But that’s not really how it played out in real life. Just look at Canada to see what happens when everyone have free healthcare. People know it will cost them nothing to go to ER and since the wait is so long to get an appointment with a PCP, people just go to the ER for just about anything. Which causes over crowding in ER. I also hear horror stories of people waiting in the hall ways of the hospital waiting for a room because the hospital are also overcrowded. Some even get treated in the hall way and some even died in the hall way. If you want to see a specialist, I hear you’d have to wait 3-6 months after you see your PCP to see a specialist.
I blame the lawyers as one of the main reasons for our high healthcare cost. It doesn’t make financial sense to become a regular doctor anymore. Even when you make $200k/yr, your malpractice insurance are in the 6 digits. If you get sued once or twice, you can no longer practice. Imagine if you spent hundreds of thousands and over 10 years to get your MD, only to render it useless after a few years. My wife is in the healthcare field and she’s worried that by the time we’re old, we won’t have many good doctors to choose from. The only lucrative MD are surgeons, so everyone want to be a surgeon. It’s not cost effective to be a regular MD. So you have less regular doctors and increase amount people looking for healthcare since it would be free. You can draw your own conclusion.
