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NOTE: This is meant as a reply to guylhem's response below. It is true that the percentage of GDP the US is spending and will be spending in the future is not
by lyudmil 14y ago
NOTE: This is meant as a reply to guylhem's response below.
It is true that the percentage of GDP the US is spending and will be spending in the future is not sustainable, but you're making an argument for universal healthcare. The reason costs are skyrocketing is that you have a privatized system that's (oddly) subsidized by the government. Patent laws give pharmaceutical companies monopolies on different types of drugs, while on the other hand the government is forbidden to negotiate with those companies on the price.
You also have huge overhead (31%) due to the inherent inefficiencies of running this kind of system through the private sector. For example, you need at least two doctors for each transaction - one to diagnose you and prescribe treatment and one working for the insurance company making sure that you actually need that treatment.
As for the argument about demand reduction, I agree that if you had much more demand, even reduced costs may make it unsustainable. However, in the real world that is demonstrably not happening. It simply isn't the case that universal healthcare is more expensive if we consider the evidence.
- guylhem 14y ago[temporary monopolies exist to preserve innovation - but let's leave that issue aside] It might be possible that the overhead will vanish if universal healthcare is implemented. It seems unlikely to me, but a good part of the argument for universal healthcare depends on that. Yet people just don't vanish or "lie down and die". Those who are making a living from the overheads will certainly want to go on doing that. Universal healthcare will just give them leverage and moral support (think of the patient!) to do it on a scale that will dwarf the gravy train of other government procurement contracts - at the taxpayer expense. It's IMHO a risk not worth taking.