US Supreme Court Upholds Affordable Health Care Act

[kandrathe]

There are lots of countries with publicly-funded universal healthcare systems that spend less than what the US does right now, and provide equal or (more often) better care.

Boy, that's hard to quantify. You cannot just compare a country with a universal coverage plan to the hodge podge of stuff we have. Our laws make health plans unique by state, so every state is different (which is why we have such a thing as "BCBS of MN" as opposed to "BCBS of WI" across our eastern border. The government has layers of Medicare A, B, C and D covering most of the things the elderly want -- except they missed some stuff so AARP (and others) offer Medicare Advantage (add on premium services for those who want to pay more). And, the poor have multiple programs (SSI, food (Dept of Ag.), Housing(HUD), Health care(Medicaid), etc. none of which coordinate well together.

In our state we have "general assistance" which is temporary (30-60 days) and meant to cover poor people in transition (moving into the state), S-Chip for children (and their families), we have Medicaid, and we have MNCare (like RomneyCare, without the mandate) that *must* cover anyone who is not covered by the former, and who are denied or cannot afford coverage through other insurance. With enough safety nets, you catch most everyone. Maybe you can see why it costs more, when you have this many entities all attempting to perform the same function.

The US is in a enviable position by being last on the healthcare train, really. They can examine in minute detail all of the systems already in place and use those blueprints to make a better one.

Maybe. About 1/2 the population is still desperately clinging to this idea of having "Free Enterprise" in our markets. And, it's not like the ones who've gone before have very affordable models either. They are just more affordable than what we have.

It won't happen though, because of the political polarization in the US. Every good idea one party comes up with is automatically a bad idea in the eyes of the other party.

Smoke screen. They intentionally are trying to divide us so we don't see how messed up it is.