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Politics : Ask Michael Burke
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To: Knighty Tin who wrote (110313)12/30/2007 9:18:09 AM
From: Freedom Fighter  Read Replies (1) of 132070
 
>Or, we could just cover everyone the way every other industrial nation does and immediately become more efficient and reduce costs. <

IMO, that would be financial suicide.

First off, the rest of the world does not give the same level of health care to its citizens that people in the U.S. "with coverage" get. So to give everyone in the US health care would require the US spending a monstrously higher percentage of GDP on healthcare than those other countries or a sharp reduction in the level of health care that most people that are lower middle class and above get now. The latter is politically IMPOSSIBLE.

In addition, as is always the case with anything government does, just because something functions reasonably well for a period of time that does not mean it will continue doing so over the long haul because eventually more and more decisions will be based on politics instead of sound economics and the resources of the country.

Medicare has been functioning reasonably well a long time, but everyone knows it's massively underfunded over the long haul and a looming economic and healthcare disaster. It was government/politicians that accomplished that by wildly overpromising. Similar problems loom elsewhere in the world. IMO, to expand government's role, is simply foolish idealism and short term thinking.

This "goal" of covering everyone is very noble and we should work in that direction. But putting healthcare into government would guarantee long term failure and economic disaster.
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