Is health care a basic human right or just a free-market commodity?

[Anonymous]

It is a basic human right that requires a public guarantee.

It is a commodity best managed by free market competition.

Updates

1 mo

For many years, health care in the U. S. has been treated as a free-market commodity, and it still is. You can see how well that has worked out. In the U. S., it's more important for people to make money off health care than it is for people who are ill to receive medical care.

[sawno]

Both in my opinion, the dutch system is pretty decent for this. Its a free market but we also have insurance covering the essentials that everyone has to pay in to collectively. I pick a provider, I don't get assigned one for the most part (Only my regular doctor is assigned). Waiting lists are generally decently short, there is a limited own risk to discourage people from overusing it but you won't go bankrupt over the healthcare.

[strateguy632]

as if poor people don't get medicaid?

[sawno]

@strateguy632 We all must get our own insurance, but if you don't meet a specific income standard the government subsidizes it. Due to a medical issue I'm below that threshold so there have been years where I made a tiny bit of money from it even since the insurance I got was cheaper than the subsidy. People who can afford it must pay it out of pocket though, and the more you can afford it the less you get it covered.

[Asker]

@strateguy632 Some do, some do not. Even the ones that do frequently can't get much medical care because Medicaid doesn't pay worth a shit, and when they do pay, they pay incredibly slowly. I personally don't take Medicaid or, in California, as it's called Medi-Cal, because they don't pay, so go ahead and try and find somebody who does take it who does what I do, because you won't be able to, or if you are able to, the wait will be a year or more.

[Asker]

Very simply, if a payment system doesn't actually pay providers, then providers will refuse to honor that payment system, and if you use that payment system as your insurance, you won't get any medical care. Here in California, where I live, almost no providers take Medi-Cal, which is a state payment manifestation or Medicaid, because it doesn't pay providers reliably or in reasonable amounts. As a provider myself, I do not see patients whose only method of payment is Medi-Cal because I know I won't get paid.

[slatyb]

It's neither. We see how badly it goes when it's left to the free market. Of the 33 developed nations, only the US does not have single-payer medical care, and it spends the most for mediocre results. By almost every measure, other nations are healthier and happier.

[Asker]

I think that makes it a basic human right. Free market is like establishing a casino. In a casino, a few people win and almost everybody else loses big time.

[Danzigdawson]

Shhh!!! Now, don't scare the weak little MAGA turds with talk of "socialism"!

[MrChinaski]

Pretty much all of the first world apart from the USA has the one sorted.

[MrChinaski]

*this

[SmokinAces2000]

It should undoubtedly be a human right but unfortunately we have a lot of evil people in this country