Expensive health treatments can easily bankrupt any western government. None of those developed countries can afford to spend their money indiscriminately on them. So instead they turn to waiting lists, death panels and very often saying no but not in your face (since that is politically frowned upon) but thought delays and countless committees and bureaucracy until the patient expires...

I know that's what you hear and read on Fox News and other "News Sources" daily. But here in Germany, there are no "death panels" or long waiting times for cancer treatment.

Also we don't need "pre-auth" and other Bullshit before we start standard treatments.

The real death panels are sitting in your Insurance Companies Offices as seen by the news coverage around United Healthcare et al lately

I am yet to see any western nations go bankrupt for universal healthcare.

I have three second-hand cancer experiences from family here in Australia (Dad, Mum and my half-sister - under 35/yo). All three were detected early thanks to regular checkups and screening (covered under Medicare), treated in major hospitals (Dad was in a rural hospital, Mum and half-sister in Metro major city hospitals) and are all alive and certainly not in debt. The biggest cost was parking at the hospital, drinks from the vending machine and the PBS medication (all PBS medicine costs $31.60 for adults, and $7.70 for concessions).

Any PBS medication has the full-cost price printed on the label for reference, more often than not the printed prices go from $300 - $2,000, but I remember that these aren't the full price anyway since our government collectively bargains for cheaper prices on OS medication).

I can't imagine having to pay for treatment AND the insane full price of medications, it must be so much more stressful for families going through cancer treatment.

Americans, don't let the media and your government tell you otherwise. Universal healthcare is cheaper [0] and more effective than whatever archaic system you have now.

I am so god damn proud of our system in Australia, it's not perfect, but damn it's so efficient for critical care, thank heavens for Medicare and the PBS.

Oh and for those that say "well doctors aren't paid very well"... they are. My brother-in-law is a surgeon and he's doing pretty well for himself, bought a new Audi last month for his wife, heading to Europe for a month-long holiday with his family and just moved into a new house.

[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD?most_...

> but thought delays and countless committees and bureaucracy until the patient expires...

So then you would expect life expectancy in the US to be higher than in Germany, France, UK?

It is not.

Private/public here in Japan works okayishly well. I have never heard of anyone getting bankrupted over medical bills, and have had loved ones going through surgeries and other complex issues.

As soon as you said "death panels" you invalidated your entire point, I'm sorry.

Did you make all of this up or just so credulous that you repeated what someone else made up?

Is there a legitimately good reason for all those treatments to be so expensive, or is that, to a large degree, capitalism extracting capital from the market? Why is American insulin so expensive when compared to that from other countries?

Theres a (now old) memo that specifically outlines which talking points carry most salience amongst the audience. Those terms are present here in your comment. (Luntz - The language of Healthcare 2009)

Even with waiting lists, people get healthcare. They get better health outcomes per $ spent. America can provide excellent cutting edge healthcare, which is especially great if you can afford it. At some point, you have to decide whether having most of the bell curve taken care of, is more / less important in terms of rhetoric and priority.

> waiting lists, death panels and very often saying no

As we all know, American insurance companies never deny coverage, nor do you ever have to wait in an American hospital. /s