I agree that Denmark don't scale. But that doesn't mean that the current system we have in the US is good or that the insurance based version is by any metrics the best possible solution for the US. You could also think in states instead.
If you look at it from a purely financial point of view the problem of the US system is that when given the choice, younger people don't insure themselves because they are healthy and so don't participate in financing those who are sick by costing the system less.
As they grow older and get sicker they end up paying insane prices unless they are paid by employees and even there the quality of the insurance varies and you still have some really absurd pre-existing conditions rules etc. If you don't have an employer to back you up you are basically screwed.
Obama Care is an attempt at solving this issue. It's not single payer but it's closer and hopefully it will help improving the healthcare system for millions of those without either healthcare or proper healthcare.
Now in my mind there is a middle ground where you pay most of your healthcare yourself (the checkups, the sinus infection etc) but you don't end up in endless debt because you become sick, your kid gets born to early and have to stay at a neonathal facility, for a longer period of time and don't have the right insurance.
And having been through the system I must say that if people think it's less beucratic than say they Danish system (which is much more social in its approach) then they would be mistaken. The sheer number of interests involved in any single episode creates complexity way beyond what seems reasonable.
So agree it's not possible to take a small nation and apply what they do, but it is possible to look at the current system and realize that the healthcare system in the US is def not a feature but rather a system with plenty of room for improvement.
Sorry - edited my post to make clearer the fact that I'm not saying the US's healthcare system is good. I just think that comparisons with other countries are futile. My comment was intended to be a general one about the way politics works in the US.
The countries in the EU which is 400mio serms to be handling this ok and thats even with national laws. You might say the realpolitics will nok make it possible but its not a scale problem but rather a political one.
Insurance is a competing market and companies can discriminate by age so the young don't subsidize the older though the insurance system.
You could argue that the healthy subsidize the sick but that's the point of insurance. It's like saying the living subsidize the life insurance payouts of the dead.
They discriminate in so many other ways. Thats all fine and good they are privately owned companies and can do what they want, but it's not a good setup for healthcare.
If you look at it from a purely financial point of view the problem of the US system is that when given the choice, younger people don't insure themselves because they are healthy and so don't participate in financing those who are sick by costing the system less.
As they grow older and get sicker they end up paying insane prices unless they are paid by employees and even there the quality of the insurance varies and you still have some really absurd pre-existing conditions rules etc. If you don't have an employer to back you up you are basically screwed.
Obama Care is an attempt at solving this issue. It's not single payer but it's closer and hopefully it will help improving the healthcare system for millions of those without either healthcare or proper healthcare.
Now in my mind there is a middle ground where you pay most of your healthcare yourself (the checkups, the sinus infection etc) but you don't end up in endless debt because you become sick, your kid gets born to early and have to stay at a neonathal facility, for a longer period of time and don't have the right insurance.
And having been through the system I must say that if people think it's less beucratic than say they Danish system (which is much more social in its approach) then they would be mistaken. The sheer number of interests involved in any single episode creates complexity way beyond what seems reasonable.
So agree it's not possible to take a small nation and apply what they do, but it is possible to look at the current system and realize that the healthcare system in the US is def not a feature but rather a system with plenty of room for improvement.