AOC nailed it.

[Caliman73]

99. Not really.

Medicare is Federal Health insurance for elderly or disabled people. You pay premiums and there are coverage exclusions and gaps that were put in intentionally by lobbyists for the private for profit insurance industry to hobble competition.

The inadequacies in the health care system are there primarily because healthcare is largely a for profit commodity and health insurance is the mechanism by which the majority of health care is paid for.

There likely was a great deal more involved in this situation, however, the point remains that the "costs" associated and the payment responsibility for a life saving operation was denied because of a lack of funding and the denying party suggested private fundraising as an option.

What we have to decide as a nation, like many other nations have decided, is whether healthcare is a right, or a commodity. If it is a commodity, then we can just continue to operate as we have been. The market will sort things out and people who can afford the price points indicated, will get care, and those who cannot will do without. If healthcare is a right, then we have to figure out a better solution to fund healthcare than insurance, because the model that makes insurance feasible as a business is expanding the customer base and limiting liabilities which means not insuring people at risk of higher costs and finding a way to deny coverage that doesn't appear to be for the sake of profit (though it is definitely a part of it).

The appealing part of Medicare in the "Medicare for all" movement is that the satisfaction rating is typically higher or the same for Medicare than for other insurance the administrative costs are typically 3% to 5% as opposed to 15% (which is the limit imposed by the ACA) for private insurance. It is a model that is familiar to many people, which is why it has been set up as an alternative model.