What happens when 500 million people start to go to the few private hospitals? It looks like there could be some nice election-year “progress,” but that isn’t g

What happens when 500 million people start to go to the few private hospitals? It looks like there could be some nice election-year “progress,” but that isn’t going to magically make more private beds appear. Perhaps funding and fixing the public hospitals might be a higher priority otherwise, private hospital prices will increase. This plan has the potential to create some serious health cost inflation. If everyone now has $7200 to spend, that’s just going to raise the prices because long waiting lists will lead to people who are private pay being able to access care more easily if they are willing to pay higher prices. But, “health insurance for all” sounds better as an election slogan than “we are going to fix the structural issues with our public hospital systems.” Employees not showing up to work in the public hospitals? Pay them more and fire them when they don’t show up. Medicine shortages? Then buy more as well as audit the current usages of medicines to reduce waste. Not enough beds? Buy more. Fixing the public system is going to be far more sustainable than suddenly giving everyone $7200 when there isn’t enough capacity. The math doesn’t work with 500 million people unless they expect utilization rates to stay the same — which they won’t there are probably 10s of millions that don’t use the system at all, but they sure will when they can afford it. I think this politician is making promises he knows will be impossible to keep, but will help him win an election before the people realize that it was an plan with no possibility of actually increasing availability of care.