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Fun fact, the US Government subsidizing healthcare actually pays more now than it would if it used a singlepayer system. There would be less deficit if we got rid of privatized healthcare.
But Republicans will fight tooth and nail to stop that from ever happening.
Other fun fact: the costs to users are absurd if you compare them with EU. Both costs of the insurance and out of pocket costs.
The most successful racketeering scheme in history, really. Literally trillions of dollars stolen annually.
Republicans will fight tooth and nail to prevent brown people from accessing health care.
Republicans are extremely racist, exhibit A is Eric Schmitt, but I still think the race divide is manufactured to distract people from the real problem: wealth disparity.
Republican voters are just as poor as everyone else, but they vote the way they do because of racism.
Look at the latest news from Arkansas:
Meanwhile:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_Arkansas
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Arkansas
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election_in_Arkansas
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election_in_Arkansas
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidential_election_in_Arkansas
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_presidential_election_in_Arkansas
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_in_Arkansas
You have to go back 29 years to find them voting for a Democrat:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_presidential_election_in_Arkansas
Sort of a chicken or the egg situation, but dealing with the wealth disparity is effective and dealing with the race divide directly isn’t. After Obama and BLM the USA is more politically polarized than it has ever been, and nazis have risen to power.
If you want to mobilize people to turn against Republicans, stop telling them “This is a problem that affects me and NOT YOU.”
Even if that’s true (just assuming you’re correct for now), wouldn’t the effect on the industry overwhelm whatever savings? Sure, if you focus just on the deficit, maybe, but there are a lot of jobs in health insurance/administration/etc. Those people would be unemployed, or (WAY more generously) need to be retrained and transferred to other jobs. Plus there would likely be massive legal challenges, especially around all the religious hospitals, which are often the only care in an area, and working through that would cost billions.
I’m very pro-single payer/socialized healthcare in the US, but I do wonder what a transition would look like. If tomorrow, Congress passed (lol) a bill for socialized medicine (lolol) and was willing to pay whatever it took (lololololol), I bet we would increase the deficit significantly during the transition, which would be maybe 5-10 years. By the time we made that back from efficiency savings, it might be more like 30+ years. Wonder if there’s a model or white paper of that.
I’m skeptical that cost overall is a good argument in favor of single payer, at least in the short/medium term. Now, that’s the fault of the current private healthcare industry, not the fault of socialized medicine. My strongest argument is in terms of a human right to health, and an improvement to civilized society.
Those people would be unemployed, or (WAY more generously) need to be retrained and transferred to other jobs.
I don’t find “the orphan grinder technicians would need to find new jobs” a very compelling argument, but I imagine the orphan grinder technicians and their families do.
We should probably have basic income and stronger social programs, too. But we have a republican party that would rather die of measles than see their outgroup have one iota of comfort.
Also, “it would be expensive to improve our quality of life, so let’s leave the nightmare in place” is a bonkers view.
I’m skeptical that cost overall is a good argument in favor of single payer, at least in the short/medium term.
But maybe this is the important part. An argument for who? I think most of the people who oppose single payer health care are doing so for emotional reasons, so facts and charts won’t compel them. They might lie to you and themselves about how the money doesn’t work out, but those are lies.
If a government institution is inefficient, about 80% of the time it was very deliberately starved by conservatives.
Claims will still need to be handled, the government just aims for net zero instead of profits for CEOs and shareholders. If companies choose not to participate in the new system it will not be due to lack of job availability but rather loss of profit incentive for rich assholes.
The thighs on that cat tho
Not for profit HMOs - if you have access to one in the US, you should cut over. They’re not perfect, but they often provide better coverage than PPO.
Crazy thing is watching my spouse, who works for a major PPO insurance company and has access to one of their best plans. Most of her coworkers jump to a spouse’s Kaiser plan if that is an option.
Even the employees know that their best plan options still suck.
No, no. Me owning the pot is when it’s efficient! (efficient at giving me money) Otherwise other people would get the money and that’s when it’s inefficient.
Central planning doesn’t work.
That’s why you need a dozen or so billionaires making all the decisions.
More money means more smarter
I don’t know if there’s a great chart showing how privitization increases the costs at every level, but knowing that the USA spends 1.5-2x as much as any other developed nation should be enough.
Ultimately, it should be obvous that health care is incompatible with free market economics because of course a person will pay any price for good health.
