Democratic would-be presidential nominee Bernie Sanders likes the Hungarian healthcare system

He said in a tweet that their program to create a universal healthcare system in the United States is called crazy by many people there, but it is the reality in Hungary and several other countries.

According to Index, Bernie Sanders is the informal leader of the left-wing of the Democratic Party and has a very good chance of becoming the nominee of the party in the 2020 presidential election. Currently, he is only one delegate behind his main opponent, Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

One of Mr Sanders’s main promises in the election campaign is to introduce a universal healthcare system accessible for all Americans and funded by the state. Currently, the United States does not have such a system, and 

Republicans think that such ideas are crazy

because they undermine the freedom of competition between the different private insurance companies. Index says that in the USA, only people above 65 receive state-funded healthcare treatment (the so-called Medicare), and Sanders would like to expand that system to every American citizen. Besides, there is a separate system for low-income individuals, the so-called Medicaid, and veterans receive state-funded healthcare as well.

• Hungary – Critical labour shortage in the healthcare system
• New negative record in the Hungarian healthcare system
• Serious errors in the Hungarian healthcare system

The left-wing of the Democratic Party, led by Sanders, says that there are

millions of Americans who do not receive proper healthcare, or if they do, that is very expensive for them.

Therefore, the current system does not serve the interests of the people and the state. In contrast, they say, in many countries of the world, state-supported healthcare systems do much better than the private one in the USA, which is very uneconomical. Based on the information of Index, the USA spends 17 pc of its GDP on healthcare. The private and the national sector’s share is fifty-fifty pc. Meanwhile, Germany, France, or Great Britain spend only 10-11 pc of their GDP on healthcare, and 4/5th of this amount is provided by the state.

The would-be presidential nominee wrote in a tweet that even though his opponents think that creating a universal healthcare system in the USA is crazy, there are many countries in which it already works, for example, Hungary.

Remember: our "crazy idea" of universal health care is a reality in:

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Chile
Czech Rep.
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Portugal
S. Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switz.
Turkey
U.K.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 13, 2020

Of course, Mr Sanders does not know what problems Hungarian healthcare struggles with. These include the labour shortage concerning not only doctors but also nurses, the underfunding of the sector, or the outdated equipment most hospitals have to use.

Anyway, the reforming the healthcare system of the United States is not among the rights of the president but that of Congress, so even if Mr Sanders is elected, he will be able to do nothing without the support of the legislators.

Source: index.hu