this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2025
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Even if you have a job that pays for health insurance, it's still not as good as a universal health system with a single payer. There's deductibles to pay. In Canada, if I need to go to the ER, my biggest financial concern is paying for parking.
And even if you eliminate the deductibles, it's still not as good as a public health system because you also need to worry about whether a provider is in network and then your insurance company can just deny coverage because their whole point is to profit and not doing what their stated purpose is is an easy way to make more profit.
There are different models. For example in Portugal and in the UK there's public health system where you have the right to health care as a citizen, and it's paid by social security, which is a tax on you income. In Germany you instead have mandatory insurance, but the government pays for you if you can't. This you pay a % of your salary but it's not considered a tax. In the end it's just different models of the same thing.
Eeeeh. Isn't UK mandatory insurance too?
Because it says as a citizen, not as a human being.
No, it's called national insurance, but that's just the name they gave it when they started the national health service, state pension, and welfare for those out of work for whatever reason. It's just taxation.
It's free healthcare, not mandatory insurance. Nobody has to ever deal with an insurance company and decisions about your healthcare aren't made by profit motive driven companies.
If it does not cover all people, regardless of citizenship and residence, then I call it mandatory health insurance. Yes, it is state-run, but for me covering tourists too should be requirement for healthcare to be called universal.
I didn't call it universal, I called it free. A lot of tourists are covered because of reciprocal agreements with their countries.
It's not mandatory health insurance because you're covered whether you've paid the tax or not, cradle to grave, and the original hypothecated payments haven't covered it for decades.
It's free healthcare. I disagree very strongly with some people having an immigration ruling that they have no recourse to public funds, but that doesn't mean it isn't free healthcare.
Derp. You indeed did not say universal. My bad.
Are the insurance providers in Germany public or for-profit private entities?
There are both. Most people are on the public insurance which is non profit. Rich people sometimes move to private insurance.