Posted 6/11/2024

The United States was once touted as the richest nation on earth. However, the U.S. does not have free healthcare. Mexico has free healthcare, joining a long list of other countries to provide free healthcare to their citizens. Among the nations that have free healthcare that we could find by doing a simple search on Google, there were Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Austria, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Belgium, Bhutan, Botswana, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba (yes, even Cuba), Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Kuwait. The U.S. boasted a GDP of 23.32 trillion dollars as of 2021. We took the liberty of doing the math and adding up the GDP of every country we could find that provides free healthcare to its citizens. We don't claim to be math scholars, but all of these countries combined had a GDP of about 33.99 trillion dollars - about 10.7 trillion more than the U.S. If you total the populations of all these countries, they would likely exceed the 340 million citizens of the U.S.

The U.S. healthcare system is among the most curious when it comes to efficiency, accessibility, and equity. Noting that while most countries rebuilt their healthcare system as a public good after World War II, America chose a market-driven approach. Employer-based insurance became the norm after wage controls in the 1940s led companies to offer health benefits to attract workers... Click Here.

The link between healthcare and employment was cemented when Medicare and Medicaid were introduced in 1965, but not as a form of universal coverage. Medicare and Medicaid only benefit a fraction of Americans and those with it still say it’s hard to afford healthcare... Click Here.

Political resistance to government-run healthcare, heavily influenced by insurance and pharmaceutical lobbying, limits the U.S.’ adoption of a single-payer or universal model, which has resulted in around 41% of Americans reporting medical debt and 36% admitting they skipped or delayed care in the past year due to cost... Click Here. 

It is not that the U.S. healthcare system cannot be remodeled, as there are other models that have proven effective in ensuring accessibility and efficiency. For instance, the Beveridge model, which is common in the UK, ensures fairness by having the government cater to the cost through taxes, making the cost free... Click Here.

Taiwan has the National Health Insurance (NHI) model, where one public insurer keeps administration simple and costs low. There is also the Bismarck model common in Japan and Germany; everyone contributes through employment, but the government regulates pricing and coverage... Click Here.

The U.S. has the capacity to enhance the healthcare system, but lacks the proper framework. Healthcare expenditures reached an estimated $4.64 trillion in 2024, about 20% of GDP, yet millions remain uninsured or underinsured... Click Here.

The absence of government regulation in the healthcare industry has opened the door for privatization to take over, giving the entrenched powers of private insurance a stranglehold on costs, which are now out of control. Corporations tend to view healthcare as a commodity instead of a right. The real reason that the United States does not have free healthcare might be shocking, but Click Here.