Thread by @voxdotcom

1/ Vox's @dylanlscott traveled to Taiwan, Australia, and the Netherlands to find out how their universal health care works.

Here are nine lessons he discovered that Americans need to learn about health care. bit.ly/2Uha2kj

2/ Every developed country in the world has decided that health care is something everybody should have access to and that the government should play a significant role in guaranteeing it — except the United States.

3/ Every system for universal health care comes with trade-offs that should be taken seriously.

4/ Universal health coverage requires a lot of government spending and regulations. The US stands alone in how much of its health spending comes from private sources — and still doesn’t have universal coverage.

5/ Other countries put much stricter controls on health care costs than the US. America spends dramatically more for many common medical services compared to other developed countries.

6/ No matter the health system, the most complex patients are going to have the most challenging needs to meet. Nobody has figured out a silver bullet for fixing that.

7/ Private insurance can play a role in universal health care, but it comes with downsides. bit.ly/37Gr13a

8/ Health care providers are probably never going to be happy with a big government role.

But at the same time, providers everywhere are generally happy about the actual practice of medicine.

9/ Coverage isn’t enough. You actually have to get health care to people.

All of these systems, even with their varying approaches to insuring people, have had to add other reforms to improve medical care itself. bit.ly/2U4iqDu

10/ It’s hard to translate health care policy successes elsewhere to the US. Health care in the US varies by geography, age, race, wealth, politics, etc.

But, urges @dylanlscott, the US can do better.

bit.ly/2RXcVDP

11/11 Want to learn more? @dylanlscott is taking your questions on universal health care around the world in his @reddit AMA, today at 2 pm ET in r/politics.

First, catch up on our Everybody Covered series: vox.com/covered

Correction: The x-axis in the original graphic was labeled incorrectly. We've edited the graphic to include the correct label of 4% instead of 2%.