[bendauphinee]

Depends on criticality. Yes, the US beats Canada for example on wait time in a lot of cases, however, as a Canadian I can walk into a ER and not have a co-pay.

I had my appendix out a few years ago, I walked into the ER at 2PM, had the surgery done by midnight, and was able to be discharged by 9AM the next day. The only cost was my parking, because I drove myself over. Meanwhile, I've also had friends in the US who were clearly quite ill, and made the conscious decision to not go to the ER because it would have cost them hundreds of dollars.

It's all a balance, but I'm happier with my single pay system, because for the most part, health decisions aren't at the whim of my bank balance being too low. I personally wouldn't be as disappointed in the US system, if the reason someone can get a surgery immediately didn't balance out with something like UnitedHealthcare's 32% rejection rate, because someone wanted a $10MM / yr salary or a $40MM yacht.

[Thorrez]

The US has a law that 80% or 85% of premiums needs to go to healthcare. So if an insurance company is already up against the limit, increasing the rejection rate will actually decrease salaries and yachts (because less money will be spent on healthcare, thus premiums need to be reduced, and the 20% available for employee salary becomes smaller).

https://www.cms.gov/marketplace/private-health-insurance/med...

Although, if increasing the rejection rate allows the insurance company to decrease individual premiums, which causes a lot more people to sign up for coverage due to low cost, that could increase total premium income, total spent on healthcare, and salaries.