“What we have now is not “insurance” it’s subsidy.”
Absolutely. A subsidy plus increasingly centralized administration. Basically, semi-privatized socialism.
The problem we face is in weaning people away from this ridiculously expensive system. The libs set it up to make withdrawal as painful as possible.
You are absolutely correct, and on all points. I (thankfully), have had pretty extensive medical training and I refuse to go to the hospital unless it is an emergency—of EPIC proportions. I managed a business (restaurant) a few years back, and we had a kid who cut himself. The owner’s wife (LPN) took a look at it and dressed the wound, and then said it would be ok, but told him to ask his parents if he should go to the hospital (sincehe was only 17). His mother (AN RN!) looked at it, and said it would be fine but her husband (the boy’s step-father) insisted that he go to the hospital ER because it wouldn’t cost anything. They gave him a few courtesy stitches and billed us in the thousands of dollars, IIRC, for a cut that an LPN and an RN had already said would be fine. That is the exact mentality that drives up the cost of healthcare (”It’s free, anyway.”) The fact is that it’s not free, and someone always pays, whether its in the socialized collection phase, or socialized distribution phase. There’s no free lunch, and the sooner people get that through their thick skulls, the sooner they’ll be able to be weened off the socialism.
I had a friend one time who worked for a lawyer (personal injury, ironically). She got into a car accident by running into a light pole, and I’ll never forget the day she lamented that the worst part of her accident (which required a lot of physical therapy, etc.) was that because it was her own fault, and her own insurance was paying, she had no one to sue! She was from California though, lol, there it’s ingrained from birth.