[Sabertooth]

Well, I was thinking a bit longer term. We are going to a single payer system (maybe with intermediaries as a fig leaf to keep the insurance companies happy, maybe not). We are going to a single payer system because that is the only politically aesthetic way to ration health care.

I think a great deal of political blood will be spilt in pursuit of that aesthetic.

That way, the US can get down the percentage of its GDP it spends on health care closer to the figure in socialized Europe.

If that was the stated Big Solution from the outset, we'd be better off outlawing all forms of medical insurance and government assistance. Medical spending as a percentage of GDP would plummet at a rate far faster than the value of the care and services provided.

Not that I'd go that route, but I don't see it as any less oppressive than a single-payer plan.

More government meddling isn't the solution to problems created by government meddling. As long as we have the income tax, 100% deductible MSAs that allow for spending on health insurance are the way to go. User or private charity pays, that we may get the government out of the business at which it is singularly and wastefully inept: compassion.

[Torie]

I didn't say you would like it. I said it will happen. It is almost inevitable. Of course, the rationing will not be heavily publicized. It will be done by a thousand cuts, one long waiting room wait after another. Folks will get used to it, just like a frog gets used to water which gradually heats. And it will be "fair," because we will collectively all "enjoy" mediocre health care. We will be in it together, with no rich man an island of special privileges as it were. The ideal of the "village" will then be a bit closer on the horizon.

As I said, I know you don't like it. One cannot always get what one wants.