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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: bentway who wrote (648439)3/21/2012 1:55:19 AM
From: i-node  Read Replies (2) of 1580457
 
>> Excerpts from Fareed Zakaria’s piece on why “Obamacare” or at least the mandate is essential:

I listened to this program on Sunday. The guy is an absolute idiot on this subject (among others).

Switzerland is the ultimate free market – on their own and shunned the Euro. The Swiss passed an individual mandate and reformed their system along lines very similar to Obamacare. The reform law passed by referendum, narrowly. The result two decades later: quality of care remains very high, everyone has access, and costs have moderated. Switzerland spends 11% of its GDP on health care, compared with 17% in the U.S.

Most importantly, the system in Switzerland has an individual mandate, which is illegal in the United States (and the Supreme Court will tell us that later this year). Further, their system does not foster innovation at anywhere near the rate of the US system. They depend on us. And finally, they are a TINY country where government can still do things cost-effectively. The Ezra Kleins of the world will say, "Oh, look how cheaply the Swiss do it." But if we only had 8 Million people, we could have government price-controls in effect without the kind of economic perturbations that result in a country the size of the US.

And they have something like 3% of the population depending on some form of government assistance, vs. the US with something like 6.5% on food stamps ALONE. Add to that the other freebies (like Medicaid) and the figure is much higher.

It is silly to even compare the two.
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