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It’s good to remember these kinds of corrupt disasters whenever someone says we can’t afford to pay for things like universal healthcare and free public univers

It’s good to remember these kinds of corrupt disasters whenever someone says we can’t afford to pay for things like universal healthcare and free public universities in the US.

adventured 8y ago
Universal healthcare would cost approximately $4 trillion per year at today's per capita spending figures. You might get that down to $3.5 trillion if you hammer down costs in the system big time and ration care as all socialized systems do. The F35 will cost $20-$25 billion per year averaged. Several of the most liberal states in the US - including California, New York and Vermont - have all looked at doing universal healthcare. They all run away immediately when the cost estimates come back.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  I wonder what an investment of $20 billion a year in training additional doctors (and NPs and so on) would do to medical costs.
  - salawat 8y ago
    Not much. You're at the mercy of a capped number of practitioners getting sanctioned into practice a year. This creates artificial scarcity. Also, you still have the blatant consolidation of the medical industry into a gigantic monolithic hybrid of pharma, hospital, insurer, and artificially scarce doctor. The solution is not to pump more doctors into a system geared to extract multiple industries worth of profit. Instead, it should be investing in increasing the capability of individuals to provide and manage their own medical care. This means more accessible diagnostics tools, fewer barriers to entry in getting access to good medical literature. Investing in teaching people how to do research, and make medically relevant observations, or to at least be able to tell when "First Aid" stops, and more advanced facilities are needed. When "First Aid" can encompass using a small, affordable X-ray device cheap and easy enough to safely use in a residential home, THEN you start seeing healthcare costs plummet. Same goes with Pharma. We have an exceedingly low capability to create environments conducive to productive research per capita. The brain power that can crank on these types of things are artificially limited by the inability of many who may have the interest and time to get access to facilities to make meaningful observations and potential discoveries. Come up with acceptable test analogs. Document, enumerate, and simulate as much as possible so someone can pick up a protein, shove it into a tissue and see what interactions may happen. Make the information accessible, and start working on boiling it down into learnable paths where a person can get the 80%, but still drill down into the more specialized. Cheaper, more prolific research and education is the key. NOT letting the market sit on top the misery of the hurt and dying and demanding the toll be paid. Empower first. Optimize last.
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      I meant sensibly invested, so removing the caps would be part of the investment. I figure if you move from a tight doctor market to a looser doctor market, it becomes more likely that people are working for themselves and competing for patients and so on.
- knuththetruth 8y ago
  No it wouldn’t, you just also implement nation-wide, government-controlled price setting like they have in Japan, as well as debt-forgiveness for doctors. They have 120 million people and it is works fine. Cheaper, everyone is healthier and lives longer.
- 3131s 8y ago
  No source on that figure whatsoever? Given that OECD countries spend on average about 9% of GDP on healthcare and that US GDP is 21 trillion, your estimate seems 2x too high.
mattnewport 8y ago
It's also good to remember them whenever someone says that we can.

It’s good to remember these kinds of corrupt disasters whenever someone says we can’t afford to pay for things like universal healthcare and free public universities in the US.

adventured 8y ago

Universal healthcare would cost approximately $4 trillion per year at today's per capita spending figures. You might get that down to $3.5 trillion if you hammer down costs in the system big time and ration care as all socialized systems do. The F35 will cost $20-$25 billion per year averaged. Several of the most liberal states in the US - including California, New York and Vermont - have all looked at doing universal healthcare. They all run away immediately when the cost estimates come back.

maxerickson 8y ago
I wonder what an investment of $20 billion a year in training additional doctors (and NPs and so on) would do to medical costs.
- salawat 8y ago
  Not much. You're at the mercy of a capped number of practitioners getting sanctioned into practice a year. This creates artificial scarcity. Also, you still have the blatant consolidation of the medical industry into a gigantic monolithic hybrid of pharma, hospital, insurer, and artificially scarce doctor. The solution is not to pump more doctors into a system geared to extract multiple industries worth of profit. Instead, it should be investing in increasing the capability of individuals to provide and manage their own medical care. This means more accessible diagnostics tools, fewer barriers to entry in getting access to good medical literature. Investing in teaching people how to do research, and make medically relevant observations, or to at least be able to tell when "First Aid" stops, and more advanced facilities are needed. When "First Aid" can encompass using a small, affordable X-ray device cheap and easy enough to safely use in a residential home, THEN you start seeing healthcare costs plummet. Same goes with Pharma. We have an exceedingly low capability to create environments conducive to productive research per capita. The brain power that can crank on these types of things are artificially limited by the inability of many who may have the interest and time to get access to facilities to make meaningful observations and potential discoveries. Come up with acceptable test analogs. Document, enumerate, and simulate as much as possible so someone can pick up a protein, shove it into a tissue and see what interactions may happen. Make the information accessible, and start working on boiling it down into learnable paths where a person can get the 80%, but still drill down into the more specialized. Cheaper, more prolific research and education is the key. NOT letting the market sit on top the misery of the hurt and dying and demanding the toll be paid. Empower first. Optimize last.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    I meant sensibly invested, so removing the caps would be part of the investment. I figure if you move from a tight doctor market to a looser doctor market, it becomes more likely that people are working for themselves and competing for patients and so on.
knuththetruth 8y ago
No it wouldn’t, you just also implement nation-wide, government-controlled price setting like they have in Japan, as well as debt-forgiveness for doctors. They have 120 million people and it is works fine. Cheaper, everyone is healthier and lives longer.
3131s 8y ago
No source on that figure whatsoever? Given that OECD countries spend on average about 9% of GDP on healthcare and that US GDP is 21 trillion, your estimate seems 2x too high.

mattnewport 8y ago

It's also good to remember them whenever someone says that we can.