I am forming my argument here based on my experience living in the UK and My stance is that there is no one size fits all. Both universal healthcare and private healthcare come with advantages and disadvantages.
Private Health Care
Some of the pros of private health insurance are:
- Speed: less waiting times and seen by consultants quicker.
- Quality: The quality of care might be more a beneficial factor for some.
- Privacy: Being able to have things such as you're own room for instance.
Some of the cons of private health insurance are:
- Cost: Some insurance companies may exceed your budget.
- Exclusivity: Private medical insurance won't cover you for pr-existing conditions, current medications etc.
- No 24/7 Private A&E: Although with private health insurance there is a thing such as private urgent care, it is not open 24/7, nor does it provide ambulance services.
Universal Health Care
Some of the pros of universal healthcare are:
- Cost: The NHS is cheap; not free. Citizens of the UK still pay for the NHS but it is taxed via National Insurance contributions albeit it is very cheap.
- inclusivity: You are covered for almost everything within the NHS for example except some dental and optical treatments where you have to pay extra in some cases.
- 24/7 free access to A&E: Pretty self explanatory this one.
Using Both Universal Healthcare and Private Healthcare
Pros of using Both Universal Health care and Private Healthcare:
- The best of both worlds: I can only see pros here (no cons) and this is it; depending on your individual circumstances and if you can afford it then I think a good solution for you would be having access to both universal healthcare as well as having access to the benefits that private healthcare offers providing you really think it over it decide would really suit you to have private healthcare too.
What are your thoughts?
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Now, the problem with having both private and public healthcare is that the public healthcare is funded by everyone, while private healthcare is only funded by the end customer. This makes private healthcare non-competitive, since public healthcare is already funded by every single individual, and deciding to use private healthcare will have them pay on top of that. There is just no way to compete against that, and the only reason the private healthcare market survives at all on mixed markets is because just how inefficient public healthcare is.
Most nations featuring both public and private healthcare subsidise the private market heavily, to somehow balance the scales.
Exclusively private healthcare market would feature the most efficient healthcare system possible. I do not think such a market has ever existed anywhere, however, simply because how much power the government gains by taking control over the industry, making it one of the first targets in the governmental expansion process. The reason we have such insane healthcare costs in the US, for example, is because the government dived into the private market early and, through allegedly anti-trust and copyright laws, as well as safety regulations, took it under control. Those drugs costing millions dollars we hear about nowadays? They would cost a few hundred bucks, if countless agencies were not required to "inspect and approve" them, and if the right to make them was not given to a small conglomerate of companies having lobbists in the parliament.
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This week I had a tooth pulled. I've been waiting over 6 weeks since I went to my dentist and he sent me to a dental surgeon. I laid in a hall with a ruptured quadricep tendon for three hours before I got treatment. EXTREME PAIN. There are cases where one is better than the other, without doubt. Universal is FAR better for the majority, as records prove. I wish some people would STOP talking about it as FREE. Nothing is free. If we take what we pay for Medicare and a supplement, co-pays, and (ridiculous) drugs, put it together and take the cost of hundreds of HUGE buildings, CEO costs, CFO costs (etc.), "health care "junkets" to expensive places each year, company vehicles, corp. jets, hundreds of employees salaries, away from private health care companies and reduce it to one large government building and smaller offices in each state, the cost of our "great health care" would plummet! Is the largest building(s) in your state an insurance building?? Almost without a doubt. THAT is part of our health care cost … a large part.
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