alt Hacker NewsSo I happen to be in Costa Rica for the month. Just like every other 1st world country, it has managed to have universal health care that is better and cheaper without private insurance.
Even if you do get private insurance for quicker access, it’s still much cheaper than the US.
I just spoke to someone who flew down here to save $30K on dental work.
The problem isn’t the ACA, it’s the ass backwards American health care system. I was at a meetup of American ex-pats here and half of them said they established residency here to join CAJA - the health care system
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ACA enshrined the worst parts of the American healthcare system for years to come. It is a politicized victory that is the best solution for no American citizens. Places I’ve been with fully privatized healthcare or single payer are both significantly better for consumers.
Insurance companies have raised prices to restore profit, were briefly a mandatory expense, and will exist for years to come.
Costa Rica is a beautiful country. But it is in no way “first world”.
It has no military, and is effectively dependent of the US and in best cases neighboring countries. It has excellent weather and soil which account for its fruits exports… and outside of some niche industry, is mostly reliant on tourism which means importing money.
I love that country and have been many times. But if it were god forbid wiped off the face of the earth, it would be sad and annoying at best.
Costa Rica has “free healthcare” / healcare from taxes because it has 5 million people, about 1/2 of New Jersey.
This isn’t some mechanism that the US just refuses to use. It’s a matter of scale. You either don’t know and should remain silent on the topic, or do know it and lack the honor to not state it.
It's a difficult fix, because the real issue here isn't who pays, but how much it's paid, total. If the cost of care in the US was the same as the cost in, say, Spain, the vast majority of people would have little problem paying out of pocket, and having just high deductible insurance for really big ticket items. At the same time, it'd be easy to have the government pay for it all. The US system is just very expensive in general, so it's a problem regardless of who pays for it.
Most of the costs are ultimately salaries to Americans, and money handed to American companies, so most savings would come from someone's livelihood. That's why we cannot reform: The party that actually cuts costs will build resentment for decades, and create a blip of unemployment. Nobody wants to do that, and therefore you aren't going to be a serious, relentless attempt at cutting costs. We've seen how the attempts that the ACA made were counteracted by consolidation at all levels.
Serious cuts have to have no mother. Say, if we ever did have an AI that worked well enough at this, and outcompeted primary care physicians. Foreign pharmacies bypassing all controls and being able to hand you much discounted drugs the day after. Telemedicine and cheap travel put together to make surgery that didn't involve an ER visit just as easy and much cheaper than using the US system. Straight out disruption, because the incentives are such we sure aren't getting improvements in regulation.