If UHC is so great, why would Britain deny women breast cancer treatment drugs due to cost?

By implementing UHC or a public option in the United States, the health care system would not necessarily resemble the same thing as in Britain. We already have a large private health-care apparatus here in the United States, which coincidentally is largely producing the same limitations that you describe as occurring in Britain: people being denied needed care because of high costs, because of pre-existing conditions, or because they are uninsured.

What a public option in the U.S. would do is reduce health care costs by introducing more competition into the system and also by increasing the quality of care by providing more funding and resources for the health care system.

More funding for health care would not only help society become healthier by making sure everyone is covered for all their medical needs, but it would force the existing private health-care providers to compete with the public option and provide a higher standard of care.

Suppose the worst case scenario that you are describing from the UK occurred here, and the public option here couldn’t pay for necessary medications. People would still have a private option to pay for their drugs. And that is what we have now without the public option. However, most likely the public option would overall help people to obtain necessary medications and care, which is the reason for implementing it. There is even a push in the current legislation being drafted that private insurance companies not be allowed to discriminate against people or withhold care based on pre-existing conditions.

The philosophy behind implementing UHC and a public option in the United States is that by having more competition among insurers and health care providers, they will be challenged to provide higher quality care at a lower cost. Also, more people will be covered under UHC.