The Price of Pain: A Tale of Two Systems — America Without Universal Healthcare in a World That Has It
By Carl Cimini | Mind Chimes Magazine
There’s a certain poetry in a nation’s priorities. What it funds, what it fears, what it forgets. And in America, a land that enshrines life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in its founding creed, there is an irony so brutal it borders on satire: we are the only wealthy nation on Earth where getting sick can cost you your home, your job, your dignity—or your life.
Let’s take a walk through the world, shall we?
A World That Chose Care
🇨🇦 Canada.Universal coverage. Single-payer. Administrative costs low, outcomes high. Cost per capita: around $5,500/year.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom.The NHS: publicly funded, free at the point of service. Revered like a national treasure. Cost per capita: about $5,300/year.
🇫🇷 France.Hybrid system with mandatory health insurance funded by payroll taxes. High satisfaction, rapid access to care. Cost per capita: $5,400/year.
🇯🇵 Japan.Tight cost controls, high life expectancy, universal coverage. Everyone’s in. Cost per capita: $4,500/year.
🇩🇰 Denmark. 🇸🇪 Sweden. 🇳🇴 Norway.The Nordic model. Universal coverage embedded in the social contract. Funded by taxes, viewed as a public good. Cost per capita: $5,000 to $6,000/year.
🇺🇸 United States.No universal coverage. Fragmented system of private insurers, Medicare, Medicaid, employer-based plans, and 25–30 million uninsured. Cost per capita?$12,900/year—the highest in the world.
Twice the cost, worse outcomes. Only in America.
The Costs You Can’t Measure in Dollars
Now let’s move beyond the balance sheets, past the actuarial tables and into the marrow of the issue—into the lived experience of a nation without universal care.
Wellbeing as a Birthright, Not a Bank Statement
In nations with universal healthcare, the act of getting help doesn’t require shame, fear, or GoFundMe pages. You are not a burden, you are a citizen. You do not need to justify your illness to bureaucrats or beg your insurer to spare you from a $20,000 ER bill because your ambulance took you to the “wrong” hospital.
The psychological freedom of knowing you can seek care without risking ruin creates a societal calm that America can only envy. It is the difference between a nation walking around with its shoulders relaxed and one eternally hunched in anxiety.
Universal healthcare fosters trust, solidarity, even patriotism—not the kind wrapped in slogans, but in safety nets that actually catch you.
Job Lock and the Myth of American Freedom
We love to boast of our entrepreneurial spirit, but here’s a dirty secret: tens of millions of Americans stay in jobs they hate for one reason—health insurance. It’s called job lock, and it chains creativity to the corporate benefits department.
In countries with universal coverage, people can switch careers, start businesses, take sabbaticals, or care for loved ones without fear. In America, the loss of a job can be the first domino in a personal catastrophe—no income, no insurance, no care, no recovery.
Freedom? Not here. Not yet.
Preventive Care = Human Flourishing
In universal systems, preventive care is not an upsell—it’s a norm. People go to the doctor when they’re sick and when they’re well. Cancers get caught early. Chronic diseases get managed. Mental health is not luxury therapy—it’s care.
Contrast that with the American model, where untreated hypertension becomes stroke, unmanaged diabetes leads to amputations, and depression metastasizes in silence because copays are too high and therapists don’t take insurance.
You want productivity? You want resilience? You want national strength? Then build it on a foundation of health, not hustle.
The Myth We Bought, and the Lie We Sell
Why do we do this to ourselves?
Because somewhere between Reaganomics and privatization fever, we swallowed a myth: that public services are wasteful, that government can’t do anything right, that the market knows best. And so we handed over our wellbeing to profit-driven insurers and watched as healthcare became not a human right but a line item on Wall Street’s ledger.
The lie we tell ourselves is that we “have the best healthcare in the world.” No—we have the best healthcare money can buy. For those with money.
What we lack is a healthcare system.
What Could Be: The America That Chooses Us
Now imagine an America where:
* No one skips chemo because of a deductible.
* Every birth is attended without surprise billing.
* Every child gets glasses, every elder gets checkups.
* Every artist, activist, and entrepreneur knows they can leap into the unknown without losing access to care.
Imagine the cultural explosion, the human capital unleashed. Imagine the collective sigh of relief
.
What It Takes
We already spend enough. The resources are there. The infrastructure exists. The only thing missing is political will and a break from the delusions of American exceptionalism.
What it takes is not more studies, but more courage. Not more technocrats, but a movement. One that says: no more treating health as a commodity. No more pricing pain. No more pretending that patchwork is policy.
It’s time for universal care. Not as a reform. As a rebirth.
Call It What It Is
Healthcare for all isn’t radical. It’s civilized.
The status quo? Now that’s radical—a dystopia dressed in red, white, and blue.
Never call it the Healthcare Industry, its not an industry. Healthcare isn’t based on normal market forces. You can’t shop around a heart attack or a broken leg like a Chevy or a Ford, plus the marketing firm behind this so-called industry is The Grim Reaper, and they never miss the sale.
Carl Cimini is the host of the Mind Chimes podcast, a writer, filmmaker, and cultural critic who believes a better America is not just possible—it’s overdue.
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