Since candidates are coming out of the woodwork for the 2020 presidential election, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Healthcare.
Regardless, of your political beliefs, most will agree that a fully funded functioning health care system is a must. You need hospitals that have basic medical supplies and more advanced equipment for surgical procedures.
Those things don’t come cheap.
However, other advanced nations have been able to make this happen.
The elusive Universal Health Care (UHC) that we Americans have been unable to have due to numerous factors. Primarily, for one reason: money.
Taxes are a huge component of making UHC a reality. That is how other nations are paying for it with varying degrees of success.
However, we cannot doubt Universal Healthcare’s popularity.
For example, it was recently reported that a Canadian family visiting America did not stop at any hospitals after they confirmed that their patriarch had died of a heart attack while on vacation.
Instead they drove for an ENTIRE DAY, with a corpse in the back seat to avoid paying the exorbitant healthcare costs here on American soil and the cost of shipping the body to Canada.
This is a TRUE story. I can’t make this stuff up.
Remember that article in the New York Times about The Velvet Rope Economy? The Doctor Is In. Co-Pay? $40,000.
Chris B. Murray for the New York Times The Velvet Economy article
That is the type of story that would scare anyone from going to the doctor in America.
So let’s talk about healthcare.
WHAT IS UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE?
Universal healthcare means there is a health care system that provides coverage to at least 90% of citizens, typically paid for by the citizens of the country via taxes.
Here in the US, thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the ACA (aka Obamacare), signed by former President Obama, the US has universal health care starting in 2014 using an insurance mandate system. But will it last?
Prior to 2014, the US no universal healthcare anything other than Medicare, but that is for the elderly.
However, most of the other developed nations do not make having a mandate necessary.
This is why the great healthcare debate rages on in the current White House. The Us is offering subsidies for healthcare and the current administration is not feeling it. But in other countries, no subsidy is necessary or rarely required, if healthcare is being funded by tax payer’s dollars. And we mean paying a lot of taxes.
We will get into that later.
WHAT COUNTRIES HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE?
Have you ever wondered what counties offer the coveted universal healthcare, but you never took the time to look it up?
Well, now you can find it right here.
That’s right. I did the work for you.
There are thirty-three developed nations. Thirty-two of the thirty-three developed nations have universal health care, with the United States being the lone exception. That is until the Affordable Care Act came along.
Americans can regularly be heard talking about UHC. Why do other developed nations have it and we don’t? What is good for the goose should be good for the gander mentality.
Well, you are about to find out.
The following list, compiled from World Health Organization (WHO) sources where possible, shows the start date and type of system used to implement universal health care in each developed country. Note that universal health care does not imply government-only health care, as many countries implementing a universal health care plan continue to have both public and private insurance and medical providers.
Country Start Date System Type
Click here for more source material on each country’s health care system.
Norway 1912 Single Payer
New Zealand 1938 Two Tier
Japan 1938 Single Payer
Germany 1941 Insurance Mandate
Belgium 1945 Insurance Mandate
United Kingdom 1948 Single Payer
Kuwait 1950 Single Payer
Sweden 1955 Single Payer
Bahrain 1957 Single Payer
Brunei 1958 Single Payer
Canada 1966 Single Payer
Netherlands 1966 Two-Tier
Austria 1967 Insurance Mandate
United Arab Emirates 1971 Single Payer
Finland 1972 Single Payer
Slovenia 1972 Single Payer
Denmark 1973 Two-Tier
Luxembourg 1973 Insurance Mandate
France 1974 Two-Tier
Australia 1975 Two Tier
Ireland 1977 Two-Tier
Italy 1978 Single Payer
Portugal 1979 Single Payer
Cyprus 1980 Single Payer
Greece 1983 Insurance Mandate
Spain 1986 Single Payer
South Korea 1988 Insurance Mandate
Iceland 1990 Single Payer
Hong Kong 1993 Two-Tier
Singapore 1993 Two-Tier
Switzerland 1994 Insurance Mandate
Israel 1995 Two-Tier
United States 2014? Insurance Mandate
Please be advised that the dates given are estimates. Universal care rolled out gradually in many countries. For instance, in Germany government insurance programs began in 1883, but did not reach universality until 1941.
WHAT TYPES OF HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS ARE THERE?
You may have never heard of some of the above types of healthcare systems. That is why the definitions are being provided here.
Single Payer: The government provides insurance for all residents (or citizens) and pays all health care expenses except for co-pays and coinsurance. Providers may be public, private, or a combination of both.
Two-Tier: The government provides or mandates catastrophic or minimum insurance coverage for all residents (or citizens), while allowing the purchase of additional voluntary insurance or fee-for service care when desired. In Singapore all residents receive a catastrophic policy from the government coupled with a health savings account that they use to pay for routine care. In other countries like Ireland and Israel, the government provides a core policy which the majority of the population supplement with private insurance.
Insurance Mandate: The government mandates that all citizens purchase insurance, whether from private, public, or non-profit insurers. In some cases the insurer list is quite restrictive, while in others a healthy private market for insurance is simply regulated and standardized by the government. In this kind of system insurers are barred from rejecting sick individuals, and individuals are required to purchase insurance, in order to prevent typical health care market failures from arising.
What is free universal healthcare?
Universal health care is a system that provides quality medical services to all citizens. The federal government offers it to everyone regardless of their ability to pay.
Which country has free medical care?
According to Forbes, The two advanced economies with the most economically free health care systems—Switzerland and Singapore—have achieved universal health insurance while spending a fraction of what the U.S. spends. Switzerland’s public spending on health care is about half of America’s, and Singapore’s is about a fifth of ours.
HOW ARE COUNTRIES ABLE TO AFFORD IT?
Now let’s talk about them taxes.
Let’s start with Canada. The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) believes Canada spent approximately $228 billion on health care in 2016. That’s 11.1 per cent of Canada’s entire GDP and $6,299 for every Canadian resident. That per capita rate would put Canada near the high end of what other advanced economies pay.
Is health care free in Canada?
To review, per The Atlantic, Canadian healthcare basically works like Medicare, but for everyone. Medical care is free, and it covers almost everything other than prescription drugs, glasses, home care or long-term care and dental care. (Most people have supplementary insurance such as private insurance from their employers or the government to cover those things).
Does Canada have good healthcare?
Coverage and access. In both Canada and the United States, access can be a problem. Studies suggest that 40% of U.S. citizens do not have adequate health insurance, if any at all. … Yet, even if some cannot find a family doctor, every Canadian citizen is covered by the national health care system.
How is healthcare funded in Canada?
Basically, healthcare is being funded at both the provincial and federal levels. Financing the system is provided via taxation both from personal and corporate taxes. Additional funds from other financial sources like sales tax and lottery proceeds are also used by some provinces.
Do Canadians really pay more in taxes than Americans?
According to Investopedia, U.S. federal income tax brackets range from 10% to 35% for individuals. On the Canadian side, the range is 15% to 29%. Overall, it’s a bit more expensive to live in Canada than the US, and much cheaper than living in Europe. Taxes are higher, but generally people are paid more to compensate.
However, data from the OECD show that Canadians are lower-taxed than Americans. According to the Huffington Post, in the U.S., the same family would pay 14.2 per cent in taxes, a tax rate some 12 times higher than in Canada.
A brief note on France.
In practice, less than 50% of inhabitants in France pay any income tax at all; only around 14% pay at the rate of 30%, and less than 1% pay at the rate of 45%. According to the French tax authority, taxes range from 14% up to 45% for the wealthiest citizens. Like here in the US, there are citizens that pay no income taxes based on wages or other tax credits or exemptions.
WHY ALL THE UPROAR OVER UNIVERSAL COVERAGE?
First, we know right off the bat that no two countries are alike. Those that are third world are still trying to get clean water and internet access; therefore, universal healthcare is a privilege as water is a basic human need and a right. You know which one those countries are focused on.
However, the United States is by far the RICHEST country in the world.
Even with the deficit being 18 percent greater than last year, as the US is spending $4.4 trillion and has a revenue of only $3.4 trillion, which is a $1 trillion-dollar annual shortfall. We are still the RICHEST.
That is still the case even with the US debt being $22 trillion, and America owing the Chinese $1 trillion of that huge number. We are still the RICHEST.
However, roughly 15% of the US population are uninsured or lacking in health insurance coverage in some form.
Therefore, from people looking from the outside in, they are scratching their heads as to why we cannot offer universal healthcare to its citizens.
As you know, it all comes down to money.