<What if I am willing to buy health care beyond mediocre?>
There is no need to re-invent the wheel. Just look at how it's been done for many decades, in Germany or New Zealand or 20 other countries.
They all have basic health care, provided free or heavily subsidized, to everyone. Then, if you want more, there is a parallel private unsubsidized system, which will provide anything and everything you can imagine (if you can pay for it). If you want a pill that costs $2 each (when there is a pill for $0.02 that works just as well), it's available, and you can waste your money if you want to.
Also, there is no reason why Socialized Medicine can't be done in a way that includes competition, so you have a choice of doctors, clinics, hospitals, etc.
Also, Socialized medicine is not "mediocre". That is a self-serving myth. Just look at the results between countries. Use any objective measurement you want: infant mortality, life-span, deaths from preventable causes, days lost from work, etc. The U.S. is not #1 in any of those measurements. We aren't even in the top 10. We spend more, far more, than anyone else, but our results are mediocre. The results, in rich nations with socialized medicine, are consistently superior. There is a mountain of hard facts to back up this conclusion. |
