Healthcare is an economic nemesis. We want a perfect solution to an imperfect problem.
IMHO the reason health care CAN ONLY go up is because we keep learning. For example, if you have zero knowledge about medicine then there’s no cost associated because nobody can or will do anything. The more you know the more you can do, and it needs to be paid for. As science progresses, we learn more and more, leading to more and more possibilities of things we can fix.
At the same time, we’re all afflicted with different problems while there’s a scarcity of people that can assist with each.
So, two questions
1. What is the least fraudulent-ridden approach, driving the most efficiency?
2. Considering peoples’ lives are at stake, how much profit is reasonable?
When life and death are at stake you can gouge people unethically. That said, profit drives innovation, ultimately bringing new solutions at a lower cost for all. How do you calculate the moral and ethical boundary?
I’m so tired of hearing about “free healthcare” in other countries, when there’s no such thing and they’re, to some degree, subsidized by American citizens paying for the full cost of new drugs and technology.
I have elderly family in the UK, waiting ages for care that keeps getting delayed. I don’t have the heart to tell them, they’re calculating ‘cost benefit’ and waiting for you to die.
Then we still die anyway, all at different ages - no ‘equality’ at the end of it all.
Yup. Milady and I were legal residents of Germany for decades as I worked around the world. Americans would talk to me for "free healthcare" in Germany, and I would disabuse them with the explanation of the Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung and Private Krankenversicherung system, in which we were required by law to participate. Our Krankenkasse was reasonable for us. It was not free.
The free and failing model is the British NHS -- which also exists alongside private care for those who can/will pay. The British socialists have "sold" this myth for a long time, with Canada's inept system as another poster child for long waits and denials of care.
Our American Left spouts lies with such fluency and frequency that gullible believe them. Moore's Cuban lie comes to mind in this time as Communist socialism fails there. But at least it's "free."