On top of that I don't think the U.S. economy can handle another massive government program on top of existing ones. I am mostly referring to the wars over seas. No other country spends so much on military. The U.S. spends a ton of money on military (and locking people up for drugs).
If the U.S. stopped those two things I think healthcare will be fine, but it won't. So more shit is just being added to an already inefficient and corrupt government.
Then there is the problem of people deciding that since they pay for your healthcare, they should be telling you how to live. There will be more bands on sugary drinks like in New York (though that was struck down). Or what extreme sports you can play, etc. That really bothers me because it will mean more shit that people aren't allowed to do that only harms themselves.
We can discuss Austrian economics until the cows come home, but in the mean time, the US spends nearly twice as much as the UK on healthcare (as a percent of GDP) [1] and 45,000 Americans die every year due to lack of coverage [2]. I'm glad reform is happening. I wish it were more aggressive.
> 45,000 Americans die every year due to lack of coverage
Sorry, no. That claim is often made, but it's just nonsense.
Every time we've had a BETTER sort of study - had the chance to examine a situation in which people are randomly assigned to either have low-deductible health coverage or not have it - there has been no significant health benefit to having the "better" health coverage.
The first such study was the RAND study in the 1970s. The most recent one was the Oregon study described here:
Quote:
"a large-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) of what happens to people when they gain Medicaid eligibility shows no impact on objective measures of health. Utilization went up, out-of-pocket expenditure went down, and the freqency of depression diagnoses was lower. But on the three important health measures they checked that we can measure objectively--glycated hemoglobin, a measure of blood sugar levels; blood pressure; and cholesterol levels--there was no significant improvement."
I'd prefer reform that removed the current structural inefficiencies instead of piling more on. Reform doesn't necessarily mean more government involvement.
The U.S. government also spends more on healthcare per capita than Canada [1]. Seems pretty socialized to me already. The U.S. government is a corrupt piece of shit. Passing laws mandating health insurance for everyone isn't going to fix things.
That chart is admittedly pretty terrifying. But the article itself argues the big reason is because Canada's nationalized healthcare plan has more leverage and price control capabilities than US Medicare. That seems more reasonable than simply attributing it to corruption.
I'd actually be quite interested to see polling data on this. I wonder if, given the choice, most Americans would choose to continue funding wars/national security or fund healthcare for all. I would actually imagine wars would win in a landslide unfortunately.
The federal government can't control healthcare because of this. It would probably work better on a state level (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_refor...).
On top of that I don't think the U.S. economy can handle another massive government program on top of existing ones. I am mostly referring to the wars over seas. No other country spends so much on military. The U.S. spends a ton of money on military (and locking people up for drugs).
If the U.S. stopped those two things I think healthcare will be fine, but it won't. So more shit is just being added to an already inefficient and corrupt government.
Then there is the problem of people deciding that since they pay for your healthcare, they should be telling you how to live. There will be more bands on sugary drinks like in New York (though that was struck down). Or what extreme sports you can play, etc. That really bothers me because it will mean more shit that people aren't allowed to do that only harms themselves.