We also don't have a not for profit healthcare system because our country has arguably the best specialized physicians and surgeons in the world. These highly skilled technical people are extremely expensive and a government pencil pusher would obviously not allow someone to have a high risk/high reward surgery if costs more than 200 other surgeries combined. The failing of our healthcare system is not the cost of specialized procedures. It's the cost of simple things. We can make our system work but it requires price transparency to induce competition which no healthcare lobbyist wants.
So now... is it the greed of the specialists that makes or breaks the profit barrier? We charge an arm-and-a-leg for these doctors to get through 8 years of secondary schooling just to be able to start practicing. Then they have to pay God-knows-what to carry malpractice insurance, because if they fuck up they will be sued to high-heaven. Why is that? Because Americans want money for being caused harm. And lawyers rarely work pro bono on a malpractice suit? Everyone wants their piece of the pie. Everyone wants MONEY. They do not do shit out of the goodness of their heart. They do it because they want the MONIES, LEBOWSKI! We will never have a not-for-profit (or socialized) health-care system in this country, because nobody will want to pay for it.
For all the expensive specialists it makes little difference to outcomes and American men draw an especially short straw. In most developed nations there is some better connection between health systems and food standards. You could argue somewhat the US doctors are fixing sicker people. But if you have never experienced any other system.. Some interesting details here. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org...life-expectancy-compare-countries/#item-start Older chart.
Many other countries have excellent medical people as evidenced by the life expectancy of the people who live in them. They earn a good living and can run lucrative private practices. Move past the excuses and politics and solve the problems. Just like the Covid situation.
Interesting to note that many U.S. medical facilities near the Canadian border have attributed their drop in revenue to a Canadians no longer coming over the border for medical services since the border has been closed due to COVID.
Source? I could see this in rural areas where the counterpart has a metropolitan center nearby. Plenty Americans go to Mexico for medical services (with their socialized medicine) in border towns (elective surgery, dentistry, etc..), but that's due to cost reasons. https://www.newsweek.com/thousands-...ico-affordable-medical-treatment-each-1426943
As documented in previous threads with Canadian government reports as the source - over 10% of Canadians have made at least one trip to the U.S. for medical services. Most paid for these services out of pocket. Canada has a significant medical tourism industry primarily driven by the need for faster treatment - MRIs, knee surgeries, etc. Crossing the Border for Care Frustrated by long waits, some Canadians are heading to the U.S. for medical treatment. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-co...dians-increasingly-come-to-us-for-health-care
So that means almost 90% of Canadians have never gone to the US for medical care. And once we start breaking down the 10% I'm sure it will be clear that this is usually one off experiences and/or involving rich people. You continually overstate this as a reality in Canada. Even if there is some small kernel of truth to your theories, it's not really a factor in the lives of most Canadians. I have a retired decently well off friend ( sold his house a few years ago ) that needed hip surgery. He wanted it fixed in time for sports season. He considered doing it in the US to speed things up but in the end a spot opened up in Canada, he got it done "for free", and loves the result. If he had done it in the US, that's not a reflection of how he views Canadian health care. It was simply a timing and financial decision.
I'd like to see these government reports myself, the article cited gets nowhere near the 10% figure (granted, I skimmed)