5 ms·
It's actually not. The CBO already built these models last year and reported that they reduced costs in nearly all cases, across the board[0]. It's only a hard
by thr0wawayf00 4y ago
It's actually not. The CBO already built these models last year and reported that they reduced costs in nearly all cases, across the board[0]. It's only a hard problem because some billionaires want us to believe that it's a hard problem.
From the summary:
> The report makes many sound assumptions but also some questionable ones that are overly pessimistic. Yet, overall, its bottom-line estimates should reassure those concerned about the economic feasibility of single payer: The CBO projects that such reform would achieve universal coverage, bolster provider revenues for clinical services, and eliminate almost all copayments and deductibles—even as overall health care spending fell.
0: https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20210210.190243/full/ https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20210210....
- sumy23 4y agoThere are political concerns as well. As the article mentions, healthcare spending is 17% of U.S. GDP (which is an absolutely insane figure). Healthcare jobs account for 14% of the workforce according to Census Bureau's 2019 American Community Survey. You can't get the first number down (17% of GDP) without impacting the second number (14% of jobs). I agree that single-payer would be a net benefit, but the U.S. hasn't shown much appetite for such tough political decisions.
- nopenopenopeno 4y agoThe same logic can be applied to literally anything in a capitalist society. If the current way of doing things employs people, we can’t possibly do it any other way.
- sumy23 4y agoYes, but 14% of jobs is a huge number. Healthcare is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, employment sectors.
- nopenopenopeno 4y agoThen replace 1% of it at a time. This is extremely basic stuff if you have any genuine interest in actually doing it.
- bombcar 4y agoIf you really want to solve it, and have the political willpower, you just do it over time. Nationalize all hospitals and insurance companies, and continue to run them as they currently are, and slowly streamline systems over decades, and don't hire replacements for retirees.
- robocat 4y agoTo agree: most wealthy countries spend somewhere between 10% and 12%[1] of GDP on healthcare. The USA is an outlier in %GDP, and total spending per capita[2], for lower life expectancy - check this graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_vs_healthcare_spending.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_vs_health... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?most_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
- thatfrenchguy 4y agoOnce you have universal healthcare, it’s still going to be hard. You still have a lot of clever providers trying to extract as much money as possible from the system and an insurer that needs to find out what the right price and cost/benefit analysis is. It’s super super hard, and the US is not used to do that.