So, this actually reinforces my point, many many people in Europe have private health insurance despite having free healthcare supposedely.
If european healthcare was so amazing AND free, why would people do this? It makes no sense. Of course it does when you realise the cost of free healthcare, which is that it just isn't that great in terms of quality, or you have insane waiting lists, even if it is free.
You're missing the cost of people not seeing a professional until it's very late into their illness and have to either undergo expensive procedures, end up disabled or die. Which is exactly what is happening in the US and is reflected by life expectancy. Private healthcare is just too expensive to the society as a whole. And you keep saying insane waiting lists, but critical procedures are prioritised accordingly and you don't have to wait long if you have a heart disease or cancer. Just to be clear, all healthcare systems have their own problems and not one is perfect, but the one in US is absurdly bad.
Blaming short life expectancy on the US healthcare system is pointing to a tree in a forest.
There are A LOT of reasons for this. For example fentanyl probably took quite a bit off it, considering over 200,000 people are dead at this point from it.
So does the obesity crisis.
Now - I think we are probably more in agreement than not, I think there are huge issues with the US healthcare system, the entire fentanyl crises WAS created by the healthcare system, but still - I don't think the root issue, or problem to be solved is private vs public. Switching to public would just mean another set of problems.
For the record, I'm not from the US, and I mostly use private healthcare, despite there being so called free healthcare available in my country. It's just terrible. So it's almost the same as the US - rich people get healthcare, poor don't.
At least in Poland private healthcare is great when it comes to simple procedures, but as soon as you have serious health issues you end up in a public hospital.
People in the us visit healthcare providers about just as much, maybe a little less, it’s just that they pay 5x per visit compared to other countries in Europe due to massive regulatory capture and the behemoth of bureaucracy.
If european healthcare was so amazing AND free, why would people do this? It makes no sense. Of course it does when you realise the cost of free healthcare, which is that it just isn't that great in terms of quality, or you have insane waiting lists, even if it is free.