this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026
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That is literally happening under capitalism. You buy health insurance, and a private Healthcare group motivated by profit decides if you get medical care.
Hmm, and yet the US is not the only example of a capitalist nation with a health care system. The problem has more to do with regulatory capture. You can say that this is a consequence of capitalism, but then how do you explain other capitalist nations which do not have similar issues with their healthcare systems? There must be some aspect which is specific to the US, and personally I think it traces back to the degradation of antitrust enforcement under the Reagan administration, which allowed massive conglomerates to form.
Blaming this specifically on capitalism is too narrow, it ignores the broader sociocultural issues that lead to the current situation. Capitalism as it is realized in the US is more a symptom of underlying issues than it is the core of the problem. Attempting to replace capitalism with a different economic system will not resolve the problem.
I'd argue it's because the other countries have tempered capitalism with socialism to create strong social nets to protect people.
USA has one of the worst examples of health care: 17% GDP spending on health care. It's not just the most expensive private health care system, it's the most expensive health care system.
But it's also not a fully privatized health care system, or even the most privatized one. Roughly half of the insurance spending is public via Medicare, Medicaid, military, etc.
Switzerland's and Netherland's systems can be viewed as more privatized (100% of insurances are via private sector), and are way more efficient than the US system.
Looks like privatized health care + private insurance works the best, but it does seem to require some guardrails (which you might call socialism, I guess).
Feel like you're missing a ton of context for the system in the NL which I think is the most likely model for folks in the USA to accept if we were picking another healthcare model out.
Things like: there's a public fund that's paid into that covers end of life care and old age care. There's a ton of regulation and laws around how insurance companies operate and what they're allowed to bill for. There is a minimum standard of care and price ceiling all insurance companies must meet. There is a lot of oversight via the government ombudsman. There are subsidies for folks that have under x dollars to help them afford the basic plan (which all insurance companies have to follow).
Basically the competition in the private insurance marketplace in the NL is driven by trying to undercut each other's prices since there is a price ceiling for services. Other ways they can compete are better network integration, apps, ease of use, etc etc. It's also driven by the hospitals themselves and what they can offer.
Very much different than the USA.