(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The coronavirus pandemic
is putting healthcare systems
around the world to the test.
In the US, it's also revived a debate
over one of the most divisive
concepts in American politics;
Should healthcare be free?
- We'll remove or eliminate
every obstacle necessary
to deliver our people
the care that they need.
- [Narrator] In the U.S. some are worried
about whether hospitals
can handle the pandemic,
and what COVID-19 treatment
might cost patients.
While in places like Europe,
Hong Kong, and Australia,
people are worried about hospitals too,
but not so much the price
tag of a hospital stay,
since that's generally covered by taxes.
(ominous music)
So we wanted to know,
what works in a universal
healthcare system
and what doesn't?
- I guess I have a unique
view in that I've experienced
I think five different
healthcare systems to date.
A healthcare system
doesn't exist in a silo,
it exists within a culture.
- We're gonna lead this
country into a Medicare for all
single payer program.
- We have a chance of killing Obamacare.
We almost did it, but we'll
do it a different way.
- [Narrator] In some countries,
universal healthcare is a
point of national pride.
(upbeat music)
Just look at the UK.
When London hosted the Olympics in 2012,
the opening ceremony
touted the UKs athletes
and its healthcare system.
- Lawson, who was Chancellor of Exchequer
some years ago, said, "The
National Health Service
"was the nearest thing that Great Britain
"has to a religion."
- [Narrator] Dr. Geoffrey
Rivett has documented the rise
of the UK's National Health Service.
- I'm a doctor, I'm in my 80s,
and I spent my entire working
life in the Health Service
or in government, controlling
the Health Service.
(suspenseful music)
- [Man] Zero hour in
London, Chamberlain speaks.
A state of war exists with Germany.
- So when for us the war broke
out on 3rd September, 1939,
major hospitals were
evacuated the country,
temporary hospitals were established,
and an emergency hospital
surgery which was free,
and organized by command
and control, took over.
From that moment, having got
a command and control system
under the threat of war, there
was no way of going back.
- [Narrator] As European
countries dealt with the demand
for medical care that
came from World War II,
many built in some form of
government run healthcare.
- [Man] This new Health
Service will be organized
on a national scale as
a public responsibility.
- Well what was going on in the US,
is that President Truman put the weight
of the presidency behind a plan
to have universal healthcare,
but he was unable to get
that through congress.
- [Narrator] That's Martin Gorsky,
he's a healthcare historian
and he's thought a lot
about how the American
healthcare system came to be.
- [Martin] You know there
were arguments at the time
about American character,
American national culture,
you know the famous pioneer spirit,
the freedom of the individual.
- [Narrator] American
culture evolved over time
and in the 60s, President
Lyndon B. Johnson,
enacted Medicare and Medicaid.
Today the US government
still funds some programs
that could be considered
socialized medicine.
Think Medicare for the
elderly and disabled,
Medicaid for low income Americans,
and VA Healthcare for veterans.
America also has some of the best doctors
and research facilities in the world,
but there's no universal program
that covers healthcare for everybody.
Kelvin and Enrique Childress
have lived all over the world
and their family has experienced a range
of both public and private
healthcare systems.
- So I grew up in Nebraska,
in the middle of the country,
in a small community.
And so when we first met each other
and then eventually got
together and got married,
her coming from a country
where there is socialized benefits,
like socialized healthcare
and stuff like that,
I definitely gave her
a hard time for that.
Very, very regularly up until,
we'd been married for four or five years,
and I still was giving
her a hard time of it.
- Up 'til we moved to the UK.
- [Narrator] Like in
most European countries,
any UK resident can walk into a hospital
and get free basic care from the NHS.
Most prescriptions cost just $10 each.
Kids, the elderly, and
patients with conditions
like cancer, or some cases of diabetes,
don't pay anything out of pocket.
If you want to pay extra for private care,
because you want to get
to see a doctor faster
or need more specialized care
than the NHS can readily
provide, you can do that too.
Having that option to go private is common
in most countries with
universal healthcare.
- In the states you are being provided
with a product and it's
being presented to you
as, it's more of like an
experience where you're going,
it's going to be a
really nice waiting room.
You're gonna have really nice chairs
and a TV on for you,
whereas when we go here,
the wait room is nice, it's fine.
There are chairs that we can sit in,
there's you know, you're
not gonna be sitting
in the cold or anything like that,
but it is a very different environment.
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] In both systems,
there's a cost to the care.
The biggest difference is
whether it's being paid for
by the country as a whole
or individual patients.
The budget to run the NHS in 2019
was roughly $170 billion.
That money comes mostly from taxes.
- Coming here, it was a pretty big shock.
You know negotiating a salary
and getting that first paycheck and going,
"Something must be wrong here."
And looking and seeing
you know, 30% of the check
was to taxes and all of those things,
but that 30% I mean, when we looked at it
and broke it down, what we
were paying for insurance
back in the States, it wouldn't have
been a difference really, I mean.
- I think it would be slightly higher.
- Yeah.
- And I think
there is no price on peace of mind.
- [Narrator] As a percentage of its GDP,
the US actually spends more on healthcare
than any other developed country.
It's roughly 17% in the US
and just 9.6% in the UK.
Researchers say, that's
because of higher prices.
The US has higher drug
prices, doctor salaries,
and hospital admin costs.
While much of the
healthcare sector in the US
is focused on turning a profit,
in a country like the UK,
the National Health Service is seen
as part of the government.
- [Reporter] All the main
political parties are promising
more money for England's NHS,
but it's needed now.
Already delays in treatment
and staff shortages
are at record levels.
- [Crowd] Save our NHS, save our NHS!
Save our NHS.
- When the government
dials back its spending,
the healthcare system
suffers cuts too.
NHS providers ended 2019
with a roughly $700 million deficit.
Some providers have
tried to make up for that
by cutting costs and
hiring private contractors
to run parts of the system,
like specialized care or food services.
- There are definitely cons.
So for example, if you're
getting something done
that is non emergent, it does take time
to get in and get seen.
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] As hospital services get cut
and the population gets older,
UK hospitals have become overcrowded,
causing sometimes months long wait times
for non emergency procedures.
(dramatic music)
Even if America were to create
its own universal
healthcare system one day,
it would look much different than anything
that exists elsewhere today.
The US already has a trillion dollar
health insurance industry.
There is hundreds of millions of dollars
spent on healthcare lobbying every year
and the cultural attitude towards taxes
is just different from other countries.
So politicians in the US have
proposed a range of changes,
from replacing the Affordable
Care Act altogether,
to a single payer system,
or a mix of private and public options.
- I think that it's easy for people
in smaller countries, like the UK to say,
"Well why don't they just do something
"like this in the States."
And I think it's really easy
for someone in the States to say,
"Well, you're a really small country,
"of course you can do it."
And I think both people are right.
- [Narrator] The coronavirus pandemic
has brought the government's attention
to the healthcare system.
Congress passed a bill
making all COVID-19 testing
free for patients,
the White House plans to pay hospitals
for coronavirus treatment
for people without insurance,
and states have been pouring resources
into providing care for
people during the crisis.
Still recent polls conducted
before the pandemic
showed many Americans just aren't sold
on the idea of a fully
government run healthcare system.
But coronavirus is likely to weigh heavy
on the minds of American voters
as they decide who will
lead the country forward
and what they want their
healthcare system to look like.
