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Say it with me: MEDICINE IS NOT A MARKET GOOD.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2585909/

The solution is to socialize it.



As I like to say about England's NHS: It's free but you'll die waiting.


I mean, fifteen years of Tory rule does that. Looks like it'll finally come to an end soon.

The UK has slightly higher life expectancy than the US, at less than half the cost (and yes, that's including taxes; https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm). People die waiting here, too; they're just bankrupt as a bonus.


And the US you'll die homeless. At least if I die waiting on the NHS, I'm at home.


> The solution is to socialize it.

Yes a bunch of countries like Singapore, Switzerland, Netherlands didn't socialize it? And their systems seem to work pretty good?


- Singapore has Medisave, which is mandatory and strictly regulated.

- Insurers in Switzerland are obligated to insure everyone and can't make a profit on the base plan.

- Netherlands has similar requirement for cheap (and subsidized) mandatory insurance plans.


None of those are “socialized” which would be the government running the healthcare system.


Idealism doesnt help. You need to kill the corruption. ~60% of healthcare spending is already through the government.

You are just codifying the corruption.


[flagged]


It's so far from being the solution that the majority of the Western world implements it as a solution to the problem, and the citizens of those nations live longer and spend less, cumulatively, on healthcare than the United States.


> SOCIALIZING IS NEVER A GOOD OPTION

I mean... do you even knowledge? Words? Logic? Think?

Counterpoint number one: transit.

Counterpoint number two: utilities.

Counterpoint number three: healthcare.

In all three of those natural monopoly, little elasticity, high upfront costs, "goods", we have plenty of examples of countries and localities with "socialised" (centrally managed by a public entity, subsidised to cover some to most of the costs) and with "private" ones. Unquestionably "socialised" ones in similarly developed countries perform much better - lower cost in total and to consumers, better coverage, better outcomes.

You can have all things that make sense be managed centrally, and everything else left to a free (ish) market. It's not a binary choice all or nothing.

The UK is a perfect example because they privatised transit and utilities, and the result is a steep decline in quality with increasing costs, and that's not even counting externalities like water utilities dumping sewage in rivers and the sea.


But also, the free market is not the solution either, for inelastic goods dealing with life/death.

See, price of insulin.

OR, at least make a free market for real. Make insurance companies compete across state lines, make charges transparent not a surprise gatcha after the fact.

Nobody would take their car to get fixed and accept something like "I know you came in for oil change, but we decided to replace the break rotors, here is a bill, you have to pay or we don't give the car back".

Sadly, all the 'free market' politicians, are in the pocket of the industry and work to prevent a 'free market'.




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