What Americans dont understand about Public Healthcare

public health care has been a constant reimagining topic of contention within United States politics as far back as I can remember it is a topic of contention of the current election cycle and will in all likelihood be in future elections again watching this American debate as a European living with such a health care system there is however something that has always been strange to me which is that not one proponent of such seems to have an idea of what it is how it would work how such a system would be built and what it would require from everyday citizens as well as society at large most American proponents of public health care seem to get their idea of what it is and how it works from a Michael Moore movie a movie that there's an absolutely awful job at presenting the systems we have in European countries all it really does is show us English and French doctors and nurses proclaim how superior these countries healthcare systems are and that's pretty much it but there's far more to it than that those two countries have vastly different systems and are more on the extreme ends of what public healthcare especially giving England as an example of a great public health care system is somewhat ridiculous because the NHS the National Health Service in the UK is one of the worst healthcare services in Europe created during the 1950s in the post-war consensus an age of massive centralized government organisations and public spending the NHS was plagued from the beginning with a massive entangled bureaucracy detangling and reorganizing the system during the 1970s barely fixed the problems things were made worse under the Fatih administration through the introduction of a management system intent on cutting back costs and increasing efficiency and substantial damage was done to the NHS by the government of Tony Blair he believed that the public service could be run like a private company despite having no market competition his government introduced a system of quotas and standards meant to artificially replicate market pressures this was meant to make the overall service more efficient but in the end accelerated its declining quality subsequent British governments have done little to resolve these issues not all is bad on the British Isles there in 1999 Scotland retained control over health care legislation from Westminster for the NHS Scotland they avoided the Frankenstein reforms Tony Blair forced on England created their own institutions smaller bureaucracy centred around 14 local health boards run by officials specific to manage DEA's regional health care needs of all Scotland's public health care performs better and giving England as an example to Americans of how a public health care system is supposed to operate and work is just a giant misconception and misleading England is an extreme example and it is more of an example of how not to do it France is on the opposite extreme the services look amazing to foreigners like the fact that every mother gets a nurse assigned to her by the government to help her ad for the first two to four years of motherhood until her kids are old enough to go to kindergarten which in France is also government-funded but what Michel mer and others who praise the French system don't show you is the enormity of costs and the size of the apparatus behind this system France on average spends between 12 to 15 percent of its national budget on its health care system every French citizen is required or to pay into a national health insurance fund the amount of the fee being determined by the individual citizens inka France also has taxes for example on gambling and casinos the revenue of which specifically goes straight into the national health insurance fund the system which is centralized and run by the Ministry of Social Affairs health and women's rights only works due to the massive amount of funds and resources allocated by the French state to ensure its viability it works because the French are willing to pay the taxes and fees required to make it work and this is where we go from Americans having wrong impressions about public health care today understanding of it being also somewhat flawed because the debate about a public health care system is about far more than silly pedantic meandering over whether or not it's communism it's a debate of a structure taxes and social sacrifices made as well as burdens upon the individual or society and large whenever I saw a Bernie Sanders or other US politician continues to talk about how much they want a public health care system the only thing they ever talked about is how much they wanted how great it would be for everyone but never about what it means for the country and how it would be structured built or implemented there are simply questions however that must be asked like is the US government even willing to allocate 12% to 15% of its annual budget into such a system how well would it bode with ordinary US citizens to levy additional taxes from them for such a system because the bottom line remains that tax is paid to ensure the functioning of such systems in European countries are not just levied from super-rich no they are paid by everyone so in the end this is a tax burden that will come down on ordinary working people just as well and if you do not have this conversation as you campaign for public health care you will eventually be forced to having this conversation when you try to implement it through the legislature beside the financing and taxation aspect of public health care there's an additional aspect never talked about in the US political debate if you are an American and you have ever been to Europe you may have noticed that coke tastes different here it's less sweet the reason is that our governments regulate the contents of sugar and take an interest in how healthy or unhealthy the protests we consume is some countries such as the UK even have a sugar tax Denmark has a tax and fat most European countries have hi tobacco tax Sweden has a very high alcohol tax European countries have the strictest regulations and food quality in the world even beyond just a simple what we eat and drink it is also how we buy that is regulated the UK for example banned the advertising of candy and sweets using cartoon characters or any other advertising method that specifically targets children outside of food there are government incentives and initiatives to keep citizens healthy from subsidized fitness and sport initiatives down to extensive fitness programs for school kids why let's leave Europe for a great example for why Japan has a public health care system it is one of the best health care systems in the world in terms of quality and efficiency Japan is also the country we perform of the world's best health care systems that spends the least money on it because Japan also has the healthiest population in the world once you have a health care system that is financed by tax payers the tax payers and by that extent the government has a vested interest in the health and well-being of the taxpayers or rephrased if you are morbidly obese in the United States it is your responsibility or should I rather say your lack of responsibility it will reflect itself within the costs you pay to whatever insurance company you sign up with you pay the consequences not just in diabetes and cardiac arrests but financially in a country with a public health care system if you are morbidly obese costs for your resulting treatments are paid by other people's taxes it is consequently no longer just your responsibility if you are fat in the country with a public health care system you are a burden on society and there's a question to be asked and answered of whether the people of the United States can even put up with such a standard personal responsibility and independence is at the core of the country's identity seeing your actions and your life within the wider framework of how they impact society at large is not necessarily something attractive to many Americans additional taxation on unhealthy produce as well as a government sponsored and encouraged incentive to live healthy lives is also something that most Americans would probably not even accept a few years ago the former mayor of New York Bloomberg attempted to ban the biggest sized soda bottles and measures intended to incentivize healthy living for New Yorkers New York being a place that will probably be public healthcare protested that measures substantially to the point that it was rejected however in a conversation over whether or not to have a public health care system such measures are part of the conversation that are simply unavoidable yet the proponents of public health care in the United States don't ever discuss this American politicians who argue for public health care only ever say that they advocate for it but never actually lay out any policy plan for how they would finance such a system or even what such a system would look like but also more crucially how they would incentivize Americans into being healthier and that is an important conversation that must be had especially when you keep in mind how unhealthy the average American is a public health care system is not intended to be a daycare for obese people to continuously even out the consequences of their irresponsibility and if you introduce a public option without incentivizing a healthy public that is exactly what your health care system will turn into I personally don't believe a federal centralized public health care system like in France would work in the United States the country is too big the bureaucracy would be too large the taxpayers unwilling to pay and the political landscape unwilling to put up with such in France there's a consensus amongst both sides of the political aisle to ensure the healthy state of their health care system that bipartisan consensus does not exist in the United States if a Democratic president were to introduce it it would only exist until the next Republican president comes into office additionally I don't believe a centralized federal health care system is even desirable the system I prefer the most is one you've got a taste-off in the beginning of this video countries such as Germany and Austria employer system in which health care is federally mandated and even subsidized but implementation of the system is largely handed over to the individual states I don't believe that a top-to-bottom federal health care mandate would work in the United States and what I would propose to Americans who wish to have such a system is to abandon the idea of a federal public health care program the legalization of cannabis shows our reforms are best implemented within the United States namely through legislation in the individual states to then convince those in other states of the viability of the reforms I believe it would be better for the american advocates of public healthcare to campaign for public health care in their home states for state legislature and the governor's office not only are such efforts more likely to bring results but would also achieve a public health care system without the consequent possibility of having the federal government step in and dismantle it if those in power of it oppose it as the centralized British government would have done to Scotland if they hadn't retained control of their health care service in 1999 such a regional system is also more efficient and more in touch with the people within the comparable smaller state it has to serve and the advocates of a public health care system would also be more in touch with their own communities and therefore it would be easier to debate and implement subsequent other measures incentivizing healthier living and finding the revenue source for the system [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Kraut

Views: 2,865,026

Keywords: public healthcare, social healthcare, medicare, medicine, doctors, Europe, United States, America, Democrats, President, presidential, elections, Bernie Sanders, Warren, taxes, health, healthy, regulation, NHS, England, obesity, primary, candidates, fat, France, healthcare, Tony Blair, european, insurance, organization, public, sector, policie, alcohol, tabacco, sugar, candy

Id: U1TaL7OhveM

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 27 2019