A little obsession never hurt anyone

This never occurred to me. Not once. That Americans are against Health Care because they think it actually costs tens of thousands of dollars for a broken arm, hundreds of thousands for a complicated birth, millions for cancer treatment.

Sorry, that was uncalled for, I just liked the mental image.

So we are actually agreeing with each other, I think you possibly got confused (probably my fault) and took a different angle.

Let’s say that the cost of making a burger is $5, and a restaurant burger costs $15. Everyone says, “hey, that’s pretty fair. Five dollars goes for the burger, five for restaurant overheads - salaries and electricity and decor and so on - and five for the restaurant to make a profit.”

In the UK, they said “okay, we’ve decided that burgers are a human right, not something you should squeeze profit from. We will charge $10 for a burger. That’s the cost of the ingredients, plus the admin fees of making and serving it and so on. It’s a nonprofit, a National Burger Service. but you can still pay $15 for a private one at a premium restaurant if you choose.”

America looked at that and said “burgers are $45.”

“But America,” everyone said, “but …why?”

“Because burgers cost a lot.”

“Er, could you show your math?” Everyone asked, except they probably said “maths.”

“Yes. $5 for the ingredients, $5 for salaries and electricities and the restaurant decor and whatnot. $20 for profit. And another $15 to collect the profit.”

Everyone else says “huh, how … interesting!” And continue to provide their citizens with $10 burgers, which somehow functions.

So then some American citizens say “oh, we like the look of the UK’s National Burger Service. Should we do that too?”

And America goes, “what, suddenly you can afford to hand out $45 burgers to every random fucker you know? Burgers are $45, you fools.”

And the citizens say “oh, you’re right, that sounds expensive, sorry. Let’s not do that.”

And this thread, including Elodie, says, “by the way - burgers themselves, as burgers, are worth more in the $10 range, which is what other countries charge.”

And you’re like “NO ELODIE BURGERS ARE $45 BECAUSE YOU NEED TO PAY FOR THE CARPETS, AND THE BURGER BILLING DEPARTMENT, AND THE COLLECTIONS AGENCIES, OTHERWISE HOW WILL WE PAY THE POOR SERVERS?.”

But that is not QUITE what we are talking about. Healthcare costs in countries with socialised medicine do not include the paying for the cost of the salaries of the billing departments because billing doesn’t work that way under socialised medicine.