My position on health care is actually pretty simple. I am a capitalist and I do believe a capitalist solution would drive down costs and increase outcomes for the majority, and over the long run and on average, we could rise to be # 1 in life expectancy with such a system. However, we all know that we have the worst of all worlds right now. Obamacare made it worse and accelerated the cost increases, while worsening the outcomes for the other 90% that don't get free health care and who have to subsidize the 10% who do. That's the unfortunate truth.
Having said all that, if you were to give me a choice of spending $1 trillion a year on the military industrial complex or shaving off $300B of that to ensure all Americans had affordable care with decent outcomes, I'd say let's do it. One thing you and I agree 100% on is that a country of our size and GDP, should be able to figure out a way to ensure all Americans have good health care at an affordable rate. My problem with massive government involvement, takeovers, subsidies, and administration of health care is that every time the government gets involved at that level outcomes decrease and costs rise. Capitalism is always better at allocating resources and getting better outcomes for the majority. Does capitalism leave some behind? Yes, because on this Earth, Utopia is just a dream. In reality, the best we can do is serve the majority. No solution will ever be 100% perfect.
BTW, to make a system work for 320 million people is very different than managing a system for 30 million. Scale and 50 states with their own rules make it very difficult to manage versus small time, single standards for one small country make it much easier to implement. This is one of the reasons why the US is so far down in the rankings. We're simply much harder to manage.
I have not lost hope, though. The solutions won't come from government. Apple, Google, Amazon, and others are working on various aspects of health care that have the possibility of making broad swaths of health care cheaper, better, and more timely. |
