Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris’s universal healthcare bill is a step towards a humane and cost-effective system. Naysayers are denying reality, writes emergency medicine physician Farzon A Nahvi.
We pay more than double what other countries do, and get worse results. Our life expectancies are shorter than any other developed nation. Children die in the US unlike in any other modern society. Medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. Our overspending in healthcare directly limits what we can do with defence, education and infrastructure.
If Canada is able to provide coverage for each of its citizens from birth to death, with no out-of-pocket-costs to any of them, all the while providing high-quality care with excellent patient outcomes at half the cost of our system, it is unacceptable to say that we somehow cannot.
If other nations can provide universal healthcare at a cheaper cost and with better results, then the United States must be doing something wrong.
