health America's healthcare system sucks.

[heavens-champion 1,893]

I blame Barack Obama. Seriously, say what what you will about the other presidents, but Obama was terrible.

[Black Sabbath 2,484]

1 hour ago, heavens-champion said:

I blame Barack Obama. Seriously, say what what you will about the other presidents, but Obama was terrible.

How is Obama to blame for the problems with healthcare? 

[heavens-champion 1,893]

1 hour ago, Black Sabbath said:

How is Obama to blame for the problems with healthcare? 

He made Obamacare.

[Black Sabbath 2,484]

40 minutes ago, heavens-champion said:

He made Obamacare.

Leaving aside my personal feelings about the affordable health act for a moment, what about it ruined healthcare? 

Furthermore, the healthcare system in America has been god awful since before Obama became president so it feels a bit unfair to blame it solely on him.

[heavens-champion 1,893]

2 minutes ago, Black Sabbath said:

Leaving aside my personal feelings about the affordable health act for a moment, what about it ruined healthcare? 

Furthermore, the healthcare system in America has been god awful since before Obama became president so it feels a bit unfair to blame it solely on him.

......................... Never mind. I don't know.

[Anneal 2,194]

The real irony here is that the United States, on the contrary, has the best medical education and medical R&D in the world. The National Institute of Health gets a whopping annual budget of $37B, and the US admittedly has excellent cancer and disease treatment (that is, if it was affordable and accessible). And admittedly, while it's fairly easy to bash the United States for having a fairly backwards healthcare system, trying to reform it is not a particularly easy task. As US healthcare has never been universal, this means that transitioning to one would require massive upfront costs. People who wish to actually bring universal healthcare in the US have to acknowledge that it'll probably take years of not just cutting spending in certain fields but also raising taxes (which is why it meets so much opposition in the first place), and even if a transition is successful, universal healthcare is a constant struggle between balancing quality, cost, and access. This is still why countries who still have universal healthcare can still struggle with major problems – Canada has a shortage of doctors and excessively long wait times, for example. 

Personally, I think Taiwan's National Health Insurance model is one of the unsung success stories of universal healthcare (thanks to PRC-Taiwan tensions, Taiwan is not even a member of WHO) and is superior to Canada's similar model, since it's not paid for by general taxation but is directly funded by a monthly premium deducted from one's paycheck. They also take a note from France and store medical records on an electronic card, making it one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world, rivaled only by France herself. I lived in Taiwan for four years and something like getting asthma medication or a simple checkup can only cost a couple of dollars. I also got injured from a car accident once and getting wound treatment and a couple of X-rays cost no more than $50 per person.