'I think there's a real reluctance to put a precise dollar figure on how far we'll go per person toward "universal coverage of everything", but that's precisely

'I think there's a real reluctance to put a precise dollar figure on how far we'll go per person toward "universal coverage of everything", but that's precisely the conversation we need to be having.' This is only a thing in the US. In the countries with sane public health systems, they have zero problem saying "Look, we've got this much money to spend, we think this way of spending it gets the most bang (roughly speaking, QALY's) for buck, so if you want more coverage hit up the private insurance market" [1]. And you know what, those private insurance markets work great because they actually have to provide meaningful value beyond the public system in order for consumers to bother using them. As a vaguely relevant side note: Goddam it's difficult for me not to get angry about the diabolical state of the health system in the US and I don't even live there. There should be marches on the streets about this. You could radically improve the lives of the vast majority of 300 million people without spending an extra cent of government money on health if you just stopped being so goddam dumb about it [2]. [1] For instance, here is the website of the public pharmaceutical supplier in my country-- NZ-- who've hired lots of phys and maths grads I know: https://www.pharmac.govt.nz/about/your-guide-to-pharmac/factsheet-01-introduction-to-pharmac/ https://www.pharmac.govt.nz/about/your-guide-to-pharmac/fact.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita#/media/File:OECD_health_expenditure_per_capita_by_country.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...