>>Nothing Trump is proposing will lower the cost of providing access to health care to the poor.
Nothing will do that. Health care is expensive because everyone expects top shelf care. I know old people who complain constantly about the high cost of their prescription drugs. They’ll pay a $100 a month for a statin, but I insist on a generic and it costs me $5. Same for their BP meds, etc.
As long as we maintain that health care should be “fair”, the costs for the poor will only increase. Of course, if you talk about the cost-effectiveness of top-tier statins for a 75 year old vs a 45 year old, you get screamed at about “Death Panels”.
So, we don’t want single-payer.
We don’t want mandatory insurance.
We don’t want advisory (”Death”) panels to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of treatment based on the patient’s overall health.
We don’t want the poor in the ER.
We don’t want the poor in our doctor’s office.
We don’t want to force doctors to work for free.
What do we want? (I know what it is, but I want someone to say it.)
Health care is expensive because it is heavily regulated, trial lawyers causing very expensive malpractice insurance and defensive medicine among other things. Defensive in terms of running tests, etc so they don’t get sued, not because it will improve your outcome. It is also expensive because the customer rarely directly pays for the services rendered anymore. The customer is now the insurance company.
We want a truly free market that is allowed to innovate and compete with each other.
And no, everyone should not be treated the same. If you pay for your care, you should be able to pay for the level of care you want without penalty. You earned it. It should be like paying to go out and eat. You can go to McDonold’s or you can go somewhere with a higher level of service/quality.
And the bottom line, life isn’t fair and the government can’t make it fair.
We want to eat our cake and keep it too.