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> It is really interesting how the American mindset is to never look abroad to see what works and what doesn't. Oh we definitely look abroad. In fact that's on
by leepowers 10y ago
> It is really interesting how the American mindset is to never look abroad to see what works and what doesn't.
Oh we definitely look abroad. In fact that's one of the major arguments for a single-payer system in the U.S. - such a system exists successfully in every other capitalist democracy. So why can't we make it work here?
And this looking abroad is not a tonic against bad thinking. Conservatives routinely look at health systems in other countries and decry them: long waiting lists for elective procedures, high marginal income tax rates, etc., etc. Any flaw in another system is magnified and considered a non-starter.
Obamacare was based on an older Republican plan which had been implemented by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. But in the run-up to Obamacare conservatives hyperventilated about "death panels" and how the ACA was going to destroy the economy. None of which came to pass.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> In fact that's one of the major arguments for a single-payer system in the U.S. - such a system exists successfully in every other capitalist democracy. Every other OECD country ("capitalist democracy" is a problematic category) except Mexico has some form of universal coverage, but not all are single payer, several are hybrid public/private systems.
- dgellow 10y ago> "capitalist democracy" is a problematic category A problematic category? What does that even mean?
- acdha 10y agoDidn't “except Mexico” change in 2012? https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/mexico-universal-health/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/mexico-universal-...
- leepowers 10y agoYou're absolutely right. I often conflate "single payer" with "universal coverage", which you rightly note are not the same thing. By "capitalist democracy" I simply wanted to point out that a country can have a healthy and thriving free market economy and universal coverage at the same time. (e.g., Germany, Japan, UK, and many more). It's a counterfactual to small-government conservative hyperbole, which holds that universal coverage necessarily destroys and disables a nation's economy.