>>Well, maybe I need to do some more expressing because that's either a badly missed point or a straw man. The question on the table is not about government helping people to have access to health care. The question is about doing so via switching to a different paradigm--a universal single-payer system. The government helps now. If it needs to help more, so be it. But helping is not the question on the table.
You said yourself that we help keep people from dying in car crashes through regulation. We hand out food stamps to keep dying people from starvation, etc. We don't nationalize the auto industry and we don't nationalize the food distribution industry. And we accept the fact that some people will still starve and some people will still die in car crashes. So what is different about health care that 1) we have zero tolerance for anyone dying from lack of a screening and 2) we're willing to brave this new paradigm to achieve that zero tolerance?<<
Karen -
Yes, I recognize that my statement about "helping people to have access to healthcare" was off the mark if the only question is whether or not we should have a single-payer, universal healthcare coverage system.
I do hear what you're saying, and what you're asking.
But it seems that when you keep asking what makes healthcare different, you are arguing a larger point than just the one about single payer systems.
I'll take another crack at the basic question, but first I'll turn it back on you. What is it about healthcare that makes it different from, say, the building of roads, the maintenance of police forces or armies, providing schools for our children?
I think the police forces and schools are good analogies, since there are private companies that provide security or educational services, but the government provides a base level of those services to all citizens.
We have a problem in this country, in that healthcare costs for the average citizen, and for the nation at large, are increasing far faster than the inflation rate, to the point where they are becoming a real national burden.
The rapidly increasing cost of providing health insurance for employees is forcing businesses to reduce the coverage they provide for their workers while still incurring costs that make them less competitive, globally, or to simply eliminate such benefits.
Working people who cannot afford private insurance, or who do not qualify for it, are at risk of losing everything they own if they happen to have one big accident or have one major illness.
Those things make it different.
You and I agree that the system has serious problems. The plethora of private, profit-making insurance companies that add complexity and cost to our system, without providing any benefit, as far as I can see, that a single-payer system wouldn't also provide, is, to me, a big part of the problem. It's not the only problem.
Factors such as malpractice insurance and the high cost of a medical education should also be considered when we're talking about reducing costs. I think a little government involvement could be helpful in those areas as well.
- Allen |
