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Er3bus13 t1_j1tcnai wrote

If you aren't for Medicare for all then kindly just shut up. For profit healthcare is liquid shit and needs to go away.

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Scrummie_In t1_j1vkj5b wrote

I agree the best option would be medicare but unfortunately these giants (mostly "non profit" in this industry) aren't going away. They are too big. Plus top medical providers are tied to these large universities and labeled non profit so people think oh these are the good ones. While all local medical providers and family doctors are now forced to be under the machines of either UPMC (Pitt), Penn State health, or Penn Medical.

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ronreadingpa t1_j1wezq6 wrote

Same thing in the Reading area with Tower Health (Reading Hospital). They own / control much of the health providers, in particular, doctor practices. Few independents anymore.

In many respects, medical care is already very centralized and socialized. Might as well go all the way with Medicare for All or some variation of.

The current system isn't sustainable, though somehow has persisted longer than many thought possible. There have been discussions of socializing healthcare in the U.S. since the late 1940s. On an aside, there's a reason dental and vision are separate, which relates to insurance. That's a whole topic in and of itself. So, sadly, change may still be far in the future even now. 2030s or even beyond.

My guess is another pandemic (near inevitable without stricter global controls on virology, such as gain of function research, and other biological disciplines) or widespread nuclear incident (terrorism involving small tactical nukes of 10KT and less; CDC and other govt agencies have long been planning for it) could be the tipping point that leads to socialized medicine (one already saw that with vaccine production and distribution that was government subsidized). Hope it doesn't take another disaster for change to happen, but wouldn't be surprised if it played out that way.

Bottom line, socializing, despite some drawbacks, would be better than the current situation. Some say that's commie stuff, etc. Yet, most seniors like their government Medicare.

Furthermore, something like 1/5 of the entire U.S. population is on Medicaid. Plus even more on ACA (health marketplace that's highly subsidized). All in all, close to half, if not more are already utilizing socialized healthcare today.

Rambling on. Agree with many others the current system needs to be changed.

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