554
A guide to Single Payer Healthcare
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
554 points (96.5% liked)
Cool Guides
4692 readers
1 users here now
Rules for Posting Guides on Our Community
1. Defining a Guide Guides are comprehensive reference materials, how-tos, or comparison tables. A guide must be well-organized both in content and layout. Information should be easily accessible without unnecessary navigation. Guides can include flowcharts, step-by-step instructions, or visual references that compare different elements side by side.
2. Infographic Guidelines Infographics are permitted if they are educational and informative. They should aim to convey complex information visually and clearly. However, infographics that primarily serve as visual essays without structured guidance will be subject to removal.
3. Grey Area Moderators may use discretion when deciding to remove posts. If in doubt, message us or use downvotes for content you find inappropriate.
4. Source Attribution If you know the original source of a guide, share it in the comments to credit the creators.
5. Diverse Content To keep our community engaging, avoid saturating the feed with similar topics. Excessive posts on a single topic may be moderated to maintain diversity.
6. Verify in Comments Always check the comments for additional insights or corrections. Moderators rely on community expertise for accuracy.
Community Guidelines
-
Direct Image Links Only Only direct links to .png, .jpg, and .jpeg image formats are permitted.
-
Educational Infographics Only Infographics must aim to educate and inform with structured content. Purely narrative or non-informative infographics may be removed.
-
Serious Guides Only Nonserious or comedy-based guides will be removed.
-
No Harmful Content Guides promoting dangerous or harmful activities/materials will be removed. This includes content intended to cause harm to others.
By following these rules, we can maintain a diverse and informative community. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to the moderators. Thank you for contributing responsibly!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
the reality of a “single payer” system is not usually that the government pays for everything: public health will keep you alive, but if you want to be comfortable (eg private room, skip a queue: it’s not nice, but private surgeons still exist and use public services) then you can go private either through insurance or paying outright…
insurance usually also covers what we in australia call “extras” and that’s a whole category of private health (ie things not on medicare that everyone gets)… this is things like dental, massage, optical, etc
don’t get me wrong, this is STILL far superior to the shit show in the US, but it’s NOT simpler from a moving parts perspective - it’s MUCH more complex, just every day people neither have to worry about or pay for that complexity most of the time
Yeah, Australian system is currently trash, but only because we've let things slide back towards private health, not because a single payer system is not simple. It's only complex because private health is encroaching and government funding is waning. If we actually had a single payer system it would be simpler (but we don't actually).
So many low cost GPs and other health services are needing to charge more because the rebate is way too low.
Plus, in my opinion, some price gouging by some areas, by some (psychologists come to mind for recent crazy price inflation)
Get rid of private health, and we can just pay our insurance premiums to the government, and actually be guaranteed care, not this stupid tiered nonsense.
Dental, optical, and all these other "extras" should just be provided. We're one of the richest countries per capita in the world, it's embarrassing.
there are plenty of other extras though: agree optical, dental, better psych etc should be included
… but alternative medicine? nicer rooms? massage? these are things that people should have the option to pay for via insurance, and the public system certainly shouldn’t provide
public should efficiently keep everyone healthy; private should add some additional comfort choices to your life
If everyone skips a queue you will get another queue
private doctors charge more. one would assume more private health insurance means more doctors and surgeons to cover the extra
again, public health is about keeping people alive and reasonably healthy at low cost: it’s about efficiency; not comfort
you pay more for comfort, which means less efficiency but more availability
How does the cost break down in terms of private insurance versus single payer+private insurance? Basically what I'm wondering is if I currently have private insurance and it covers me for most things, what would be the difference if we switched to single payer (which covers far fewer things) and then I was also required to supplement with private (to fill in the gaps for what used to be covered but now isn't under single payer). I suspect single payer is great for people who don't currently have private insurance, but far worse for people who do.
In Australia we get a rebate on tax if we hold private cover. The rebate is generally larger if you hold better cover up to a certain level of income where you can clearly afford both.
Hospital + extras for myself and wife was about 3k last year.
For things like regular scripts I'm on some stupid expensive drugs but because of PBS instead of 20,000 per month I pay $35 ish per script until hitting a safety net threshold and it drops to $5 per script.
After turning 31 if you don't get private cover it costs more for each year you don't get it when you eventually do. It's to encourage people to get it if they can afford it. I'm not a fan but that's how it works at the moment