Don’t call it “free”, it sounds like you are so out of touch with reality that you don’t know that healthcare has costs.
The word is “universal”. In my country, I paying for healthcare, but not as much as wealthly people here do. That’s the main argument for it: the rich subsidize healtcare for the poor.
In my country I pay for health INSURANCE through income tax. I get healthcare for free. I call it free because I don’t pay to go to the doctor or the hospital. ** So why is this distinction important to me? Because this means I don’t have to worry about paying for healthcare. I don’t save any money by not going to the doctor. I don’t loose access to health care if I loose my job. As long as I am a citizen here, money and healthcare are two unrelated concerns.
I know that money is going from my salary and in some way to the hospitals etc, there’s no way around that. But this way I don’t have to worry about it. Not when paying my bills, not when needing health care.
Exactly if it comes out of tax technically it isn’t free but at the same time you also don’t really notice it.
Saying that you pay for health care through taxes it’s a bit like saying that you pay to walk down the street through taxes, technically of course you do pay to walk down the street through taxes, but it is such a bizarre thing to say.
That’s actually a really good analogy. Most people would accept that going for a walk is free, and that tax money (in most cases) paid the path.
I don’t like the term “free healthcare”, because most of us would be paying for it in taxes, it would be more accurate to call it “socialized healthcare”.
Saying “I want free healthcare” allows the media to twist your words and make you look like some “entitled brat” that “want everything for free”.
Keep it simple and call it “healthcare”. No need to qualify it with anything.
The ones who still think Obamacare and ACA are different things definitely need a catchy label and marketing if they’re gonna vote for it.
Or just lie to them, their own leaders have learned it doesn’t matter what you tell them. Call it the “everyone gets a puppy” Bill or whatever. Then tell them they got a free puppy. They won’t know they didn’t.
This is exactly what we need to do. Its literally the only way to combat a populace that simply does not want to be educated. Just fuckin lie, then post your actual platform online. People who actually care will read it, everyone else will think that the dems are campaigning on eliminating the sun to cool the earth during the summer, and during the winter well just tow a new sun to orbit.
Counter-point: calling it universal/single-payer distinguishes it from what we have now. Which I would argue isn’t actually healthcare, at least by modern standards in other countries…
It healthcare has a own risk (literal translation, I’m not sure about the English term) in which the first costs are out of pocket until you reach a certain amount (400-800 depending on your insurance package).
So it’s not ‘free’ as you don’t pay for all of it, but you can’t go into crippling debt over medical payments.
I think you’re talking about deductibles. But in the truly socialized healthcare system you wouldn’t have deductibles anyway because you don’t pay out of pocket for anything.
Under the UK system you do pay for some drugs as an outpatient, but we’re only talking like £6 (honestly it makes you wonder why they bother). But you never pay for in-house medicine and you don’t pay for procedures at all.
The government doesn’t have any money. They decide how to spend our taxes…
Thats the problem. The media and too much of the usa wouldnt accept “socialized healthcare” becuase that sounds like socialism and enough people arent educated enough to know what that really means
Medicare For All
Universal Healthcare
Single-Payer System
Whatever, someone needs better PR
It sort of is free though.
With private healthcare your coverage price goes up with medical needs. So the one time you need healthcare is the one time that you have to pay more for it.
With socialized healthcare you just pay the same base rate as everyone else, regardless of if you have complicated medical needs or not. Also in socialized healthcare if you don’t have a job you don’t pay anything, but you still get medical care.
Charity is the bandaid covering a societal failure
There’s no virtue signalling in paying taxes
To be clear, it isn’t free healthcare. In Canada we pay our taxes and the government administers the health insurance system. In Ontario where I live it’s the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. It covers most doctors visits and most treatments. I have Hodgins Lymphoma and am nearing the end of my treatment. Dozens of doctors visits, CT scans, x-rays, an echo cardiogram, a respiratory study, two PET scans, and all the drugs and the only thing I’ve paid for out of pocket is parking, and the hospital where I’m being treated just put in free parking for cancer patients and gave me a parking pass. Our government negotiates the price of drugs at the national level and regulates drug prices. Companies aren’t allowed to raise the price of a drug that is on the market unless there is a corresponding improvement in benefit to the patient. They can’t add a coloured band to a capsule, rename the drug (Losec to Prilosec, for example) and double or triple the price. Generic drugs are the same. That’s why epipens are $100 here and not $600 like in the US. There has been no substantion improvement in their benefit to patients so the price can’t go up.
Universal healthcare isn’t perfect but 22 of 23 highly developed countries in the world have it and the US profits before people system is grotesque.
I don’t think many Americans in favor of universal healthcare think it’s going to cost nothing. Of course, taxes will increase. But we already pay for private healthcare. Most of us via a payroll deduction.
We do as well. I have private coverage for things that OHIP doesn’t cover like a private hospital room, massage, physio, and other therapies, eye glasses, dental, and prescription drugs. It’s much, much cheaper than in the US because it is single payer and heavily regulated.