2 ms·

>I don’t think it is at all clear that costs wouldn’t go up under a public healthcare system in the US. I'm a simple mathematician, so I'll admit that I tend t

>I don’t think it is at all clear that costs wouldn’t go up under a public healthcare system in the US. I'm a simple mathematician, so I'll admit that I tend to look at issues where numbers are involved a bit too simply sometimes. Having mentioned that, shouldn't it be self-evident that costs will go up? You'd essentially be playing an actuarial/insurance game and on-boarding an enormous number of new beneficiaries. Naturally costs will go up. Costs per capita will go up as well due to issues like logistics. Issues that are avoided currently by, for example, simply not providing services in certain areas. (I suppose issues like logistics are not so much "avoided", as they are "offloaded". For instance, people in rural america where senior citizens sometimes have to drive 60 miles to get emergency services.) On the flip side of all that, I suppose the entire point of government healthcare is to provide necessary services for people who are not currently being served. So at least we can see the benefits of the extra money in the goveernmental case. ie - everyone is served. Which can't be said for the current system despite its enormous expense.

smeyer 7y ago
I'm not an expert on what costs would do under a public healthcare system, but I think "self-evident that costs will go up" is very much wrong. You add new beneficiaries, but you also change major cost centers. For example, the healthcare industry spends a lot of time and money on medical billing, on the side of providers sending bills and insurers paying them. Clearly some of this would be reflected in new and different bureaucracy, but probably less of it (and certainly not self-evidently more). Also, preventative care can be much better than reactive care. Sure, a public health care provider would have to spend more money on insulin for diabetics when all of them are covered, but maybe it will spend less on emergency room visits for patients who suffer serious complications of poorly managed diabetes and can't pay the ER bill.

smeyer 7y ago

I'm not an expert on what costs would do under a public healthcare system, but I think "self-evident that costs will go up" is very much wrong. You add new beneficiaries, but you also change major cost centers. For example, the healthcare industry spends a lot of time and money on medical billing, on the side of providers sending bills and insurers paying them. Clearly some of this would be reflected in new and different bureaucracy, but probably less of it (and certainly not self-evidently more). Also, preventative care can be much better than reactive care. Sure, a public health care provider would have to spend more money on insulin for diabetics when all of them are covered, but maybe it will spend less on emergency room visits for patients who suffer serious complications of poorly managed diabetes and can't pay the ER bill.