re: A big chunk of the "cheaper" part has to do with lower drug prices, it is on topic.
It is part of the cheaper. But single payer as opposed to 1000's of employers working through 100's of profit driven insurance companies, and all the paper work, profit, managerial salaries, inefficiency and marketing that that entails, stands alone as a "cheaper" argument. Our system is convoluted and dysfunctional, and as a result consumes 15.2% of GDP compared to less than 10% on average for countries with universal health care.
Tim, let me ask you this. If you were "designing" a society from scratch, and looking at health needs, would you have employers on a voluntary basis providing various levels of health insurance? Is that what they are good at (the core competency thing)? As a result of the folks coming back from WW2 and some bad decisions at the time, that where we are.
Where do we go from here?
*A "free market" solution? You would have to make it illegal for companies to provide health insurance. You think that would fly? Do you even want to go there?
*A single payer system? We can get there if we can overcome the industry lobby groups. More and more companies are supporting national health care because it would make them more competitive internationally and remove a tremendous cost burden. We can cover everyone, which is a good thing for society... the "richest country in the world".
Instead of looking at it through an ideological lens, look at it through a pragmatic lens. How can we make it incrementally better? |
