While reading some news articles about problems in the US health system I would read the comments and see some very pissed off people talking about how some politicians in places like the UK, France, Australia, etc. were trying to import ‘US style healthcare’. By ‘US style healthcare’ I assume they meant fewer consumer protections, higher fees on users, more barriers to getting treatment, etc. I would hope they didn’t mean the fact that we have no price controls and as a result our system is twice as expensive. I can’t see any reason why any country would want that.
I was under the impression people in countries with UHC would never give it up.
Is this a real risk? Here in the US despite all the hatred for Obamacare if politicians tried to totally dismantle medicare (our single payer health system for people over 65) there could be rioting on the streets and the tea party would participate. I have heard in other nations with UHC the same thing would happen, people wouldn’t put up with dismantling the system.
With us, totally destroying medicare would not work politically. However slowly destroying the program but only for people under 55 is not as controversial sadly.
Are there efforts in other nations to do the same? I assume total repeal of UHC is not possible, so are politicians pushing for slowly destroying your systems via privatization, removal of consumer protections, higher fees, more barriers, etc. or were the brits and australians I was reading just being hyperbolic?
Are reforms done out of austerity, or are they attempts to dismantle the UHC systems for political reasons and just using austerity as an excuse?
For Canada, no. The government would fall if it tried to dismantle universal health care.
There are all sorts of ways of tinkering with the system to make it better, but throwing the baby out with the bath water simply isn’t on.
Canadians tend to not have an ideological hatred against socialized health care the way many Americans do. Without the fog of ideology, we’re open to looking at how to improve what is already a terrific health care system. One thing is obvious: American style health care would be a huge step backwards.
About a decade back, CBC Radio and TV spent about six months running “The Greatest Canadian” poll. Who won? The fellow who brought about socialized health care for us.
In Australia, the government is trying to introduce a mandatory $7 co payment to visit a bulk billing GP, which has copped an absolute shellacking.
For reference “Bulk Billing” means that the GP claims the scheduled fee for the consultation from the government office and the person pays nothing. The interesting thing is that not all GP’s currently bulk bill.
As far as access to emergency treatment at a hospital, there’s been no (public) thought about touching that, if you show up to an ED and need treatment, you get it no charge.
In the UK it tends to be mainly political posturing. ‘US style healthcare’ here normally means the threat of NHS services being farmed out to private enterprises, or some services ceasing to be covered by the NHS. The NHS is hugely popular so any politician who dares to suggest dabbling with the NHS is accused of introducing ‘US style healthcare’, and is therefore a Bad Person.
The reality is no one is contemplating US style healthcare.
True, although the Tories do chip away at the NHS whenever they are in office, and think they can get away with it. Even so, though, it was not really undermined in any fundamental way over all the long years of Tory rule under Thatcher and Major. Even the vast majority of Tories have no real desire to abolish it, even if they thought they could get away with it.
As for “austerity”, I think a quick glance at what a drain on the US economy their healthcare system is would soon dissuade any politician in any other country from imagining that moving towards an American-style system would amount to an “austerity” measure. “Austerity” is not about cutting spending, per se, it is about cutting deficits, and the inefficiency of the US system is one of the major causes of the US’s large deficits.