I'm sorry if this isn't substantive enough for you but, for-profit hospitals providing universal care?
Do they have a conglomerate or a monopoly? Just asking. Too late to research now.
Originally Posted by eccieuser9500
I may be making some of this up because my memory's bad and I'm too lazy to look it up. They have withholding on wages, kind of like social security and Medicare here, only on steroids. The total rate I think is around 17.5% of gross wages for the employee and the same for the employer, so around 35% of what you make. Only instead of going into a Ponzi scheme, the money goes into something something like your own health savings account and an IRA. You can withdraw money to pay for medical expenses, education, to buy a house, and for retirement. You pay normal medical expenses out of your medical savings account up to some maximum, where excess major medical insurance funded by the government kicks in. Similarly if you deplete your medical savings account, government insurance kicks in.
Anyway, for the first $35,000 or so per year, you're the one paying the bills out of your medical savings account and/or IRA, so you've got a motivation to shop in part based on price, which allows the free market to work.
Their entire health care system as a % of GDP might cost what just Medicare and Medicaid cost here, yet their outcomes are much better. I read somewhere they've got the 2nd best health care system in the world.
