This is a facile argument
My key argument was not the anecdotes, but the health statistics numbers. Or do you also think, like LB, that countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Germany, etc. report "phoney stats"?
This is a very important issue, that's bubbling up to the top for many Americans. Companies right and left are limiting health coverage for their employees, and health care costs are relentlessly rising way above the inflation rate. And, it seems to be a uniquely US problem.
In addition to being a political issue, it's also becoming a fundamental competitiveness issue for the US economy. We are already spending 15% of GDP on health care, versus an average of 10% in other developed countries, even though we have the youngest population. When the boomers start joining the senior ranks in large numbers later in the decade, and the age profile of the US population matches that of Western Europe and Japan, there are estimates that say we will be spending as much as a quarter of our GDP on health care. These are devastating numbers, especially when socialized systems are able to do the job at less than half this cost. And yes, rationing of health care is necessary under any system -- otherwise, it will consume almost the entire GDP of a country.
We desperately need health care and tort reform. And if you believe that other developed countries don't report "phoney stats", a quick way to fix our system is to adopt theirs.
One of the few things I like about Kerry, by the way, is his health care proposal. He essentially wants the government to subsidize catastrophic health care costs, thus eliminating one of the key reasons for skyrocketing private insurance premiums. |
