Cheap socialists

A few years ago my wife suffered a few consecutive serious medical emergencies, which involved air ambulance and ground ambulance treatments and transports, ER treatments, emergency surgery, and hospitalizations.  Had we been uninsured we would now be in-debt more than we could expect to recover from.  She would not have been able to finish college.  I would not be in college.  We would not be able to own a home.  We would simply work our asses off as we always have, in true fear of getting sick again.  I am so incredibly thankful that we didn't have to go through that.  Our lives would be so different.  I know there are people in this country in that exact situation, and it breaks my heart.  If my wife and I had lived in a third-world nation, with no access to advanced medical care, she would simply be dead.  I am so incredibly thankful.

I work in healthcare, and in a nation with so much medical capability I feel responsible for meeting people's basic healthcare needs, and yes, I'm willing to pay a few extra pennies for it because the alternatives are the status quo, or turning people away from the hospital to go die in the parking lot.  In the country where I live, healthcare workers have higher incomes than any other industrialized nation, while also paying almost the lowest personal tax rates (beat only by Mexico, Korea, and a couple others).  And somehow, we manage this without everyone in the country able to pay their medical bills, regardless of whether they work or not.  The current laws don't even require the ER to treat everyone; only to assess everyone and then treat them if they are having a true emergency (which is by far not every patient).  They aren't required, and yet they don't turn anybody away in a non-emergency for inability to pay even though it would save any ER thousands and millions of dollars.  And why not?  Well, one reason is obviously liability, but just as much because it wouldn't pass the newspaper test.  It would be found absolutely socially appalling not to provide healthcare to people who ask for it, and no amount of explanation would snuff the outrage.  This is because at our most basic level we find it unacceptable not to take care of people.  We just don't want to pay for it.

Americans are for some reason afraid of the world socialism.  All it means is taking care of the basic wellness of your society.  And we do it already.