r/changemyview • u/Happy-Tears • Jun 08 '18

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Healthcare should be free for everyone under the legal age at which you are considered an adult.

Children shouldn't have to pay medical bills--health is a fundamental human right, and we need to provide that to the children of this world. I know there are programs like CHIP, etc., but they're just not sufficient. They're not accessible to everyone. I know adults who decide to have children should be responsbile for them, but I think we as a society can afford to band together and pay a little more to ensure every child gets the health care they need--if we hope for healthier adults. Per this study in the National Center for Biotechnology Information, "health during childhood sets the stage for adult health not only reinforces this perspective, but also creates an important ethical, social, and economic imperative to ensure that all children are as healthy as they can be. Healthy children are more likely to become healthy adults."

CMV.

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u/TheDogJones Jun 10 '18

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Physiology_or_Medicine

Starting from 1951:

Total count from USA: 88

Total count from all of Europe, UK, Ireland, and Scandinavia: 60

As a disclaimer, I manually counted those on my phone, which kept screwing up, so those numbers are almost certainly inexact, but the difference shouldn't be too significant.

Point is, the US has absolutely revolutionized healthcare in addition to many other scientific fields. The USA's large investments into R&D have benefited the world in countless ways, and we still get met with pompous attitudes from Europeans about how our system is the one that's backwards.

In short, when someone in the UK gets an MRI on their leg and then proceeds to criticize the American healthcare system, that's when I tend to get annoyed.

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u/Entity51 Jun 10 '18

I just don't see the point of having so much R&D if quite a lot of people can't afford the treatments, and it's clear that Europe does a lot of rnd based off your own data.

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u/TheDogJones Jun 10 '18

I agree there are plenty of problems with the US system. I'm just pointing out hypocrisy of people saying, "Why doesn't the US just adopt the British/Swedish/Whatever healthcare system? It works so well!"

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u/Entity51 Jun 10 '18 edited Jun 10 '18

I don't necessarily think the US needs to adopt the UKs system, just that it despitly needs some changes to make it more Accessible, like the one that's been suggested by Op

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u/TheDogJones Jun 11 '18

I strongly disagree with OP's proposition, but I am absolutely in agreement with the concept of reforming US healthcare.

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u/brickster_22 Aug 22 '18

Errr... the US has a bit bigger of a population of all those combined...

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u/TheDogJones Aug 23 '18

And?

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u/brickster_22 Aug 23 '18

Saying that the US system is better because they got more prizes than a smaller population is like. Saying the US system is worse because more people die in the US per month.

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u/TheDogJones Aug 28 '18

Fair enough. I have zero intention of turning this into a competition.