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The fundamental challenge of any universal health care system is that to cut our spending on health care to the level of other western industrialized countries
by secabeen 7y ago
The fundamental challenge of any universal health care system is that to cut our spending on health care to the level of other western industrialized countries will take $1 Trillion of annual revenue out of the existing system. There's going to be a lot of disruption and people who need new jobs when that revenue goes to other things in our economy.
- Loughla 7y agoReal question, not snarky: Why is this sort of downsizing always wrong for white-collar workers when blue-collar workers have been dealing with it for decades?
- koolba 7y agoThere’s a huge difference between downsizing caused by economic forces of the private sector and downsizing caused by outright elimination of an industry by elected officials.
- herbstein 7y agoBut that line is massively blurred when said downsizing of blue collar workers is a direct (and known) result of free trade agreements made by elected officials. You're adding one step to the chain, but the chain is still there.
- ablekh 7y agoHealthcare (as some other sectors) is full of inefficiencies and removing or, at least, reducing them cannot be seriously labeled as "elimination of an industry". I don't see how job market restructuring in healthcare industry due to proposed transition to the single payer model is different in its essence from potential significant job market restructuring across various industry sectors due to automation trend.
- asdff 7y agoSometimes you need the public government to step in and shut down malignant private industries.
- tropo 7y agoRoughly, that is 20 million jobs lost. (assume $50,000 each) Cutting $1 trillion is a change that affects 5% of GDP. This issue is part of why Obamacare kept the insurance companies. Killing jobs didn't go over well.
- n9 7y agoLooks like 1.7m jobs, not 20. I guess some folks make a whole lot more than 50k.
- burkaman 7y ago> There's going to be a lot of disruption and people who need new jobs when that revenue goes to other things in our economy. From the paper: "Improvements in system efficiency, such as reductions in billing tasks, will involve a contraction of the workforce. Although the country will benefit from lower costs, 936 000 administrative positions and 746 600 positions in the health-care insurance industry are estimated to become redundant. However, detailed transition plans have suggested either funding for early retirement options, extensive severance, retraining programmes, and relocation expenses for all workers in these sectors. Implementation of such a plan is estimated to cost $61·5 billion annually over 2 years, a sum which would be recouped within the first year by the health-care savings estimated here." https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)33019-3/fulltext#seccestitle90 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...