Socialized Health Care in the USA

[Jester]

I'm not convinced it's actually cheaper...

As Pat Moynihan once said, you're entitled to your own opinion, but you aren't entitled to your own facts. Look at health care expenditures per capita. The statistics are diligently collected by every developed country. Compare them. Unless you have some funky math for making five thousand less than three thousand, every developed country enjoys cheaper health care than the US does.

Just because you believe it sort of works in some OECD nations (contrary to much of my own research)...

It has maintained the populations of Canada, Australia, Europe and New Zealand at lower prices for decades. What more do you want to prove that it more than "sort of" works. It actually works. What research exactly shows otherwise? Because I've lived in a couple of these countries, and, while no system is perfect, I can assure you they are fully functioning, and have been for a long time. I have relatives whose lives have been saved, seen kids whose sniffles have been looked after, my own flesh and bones treated. It works.

...doesn't mean that any flavor of single payer universal health care must taste equally sweet.

Truth. However, the experience is that, from the Canadian private single payer system, to the British socialism-on-the-cheap NHS, to the Norwegian cradle-to-grave, they're all cheaper than the current American system by a country mile. Take your pick of flavours, and unless you think that the American government has some special distinction as being uniquely incompetent, it ought to at least save you a bundle of money, both on taxes and insurance.

And... So far, every "good" point I've raised you dodged or ignored.

I believe the word is "rebutted," although I certainly plead guilty to ignoring some points on the basis that I only have so many hours in a day. Whatever good points you have made, they have been surrounded by pages of ideological assertion: I believe in the free market, therefore somehow it must be right, even if the data all point the other way. Others do not necessarily share your gut feelings and suspicions.

Such as, Mr. Krugman's own admission that Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barrack Obama's plan were all basically equivalent, and he called them "Democare".

Yes, during the *democratic primary*. We're now a couple years past that, and dealing with actual proposals before the actual congress, which have a very different cast than ideas by, of, and for Democrats exclusively.

And, he went on to say that it would ultimately usher in a single payer universal health care system by driving private insurance out of business.

Yes. That's the whole idea. Show people how the new system can be better than the old one, which will soften the bizarre, implacable opposition to any proposed government health program (accompanied, ironically, by a staunch defense of the ones that already exist.)

Cheaper? Well, in one respect yes, in that I won't have to open up my wallet to buy the service since the government is giving it away for "free". So there is your choice. You can pay high taxes and buy private insurance out of your own pocket, or you can pay high taxes and use the government option since you can no longer afford private insurance.

Cheaper *per capita*! Less money spent per person, public or private! This is not a difficult concept. It's not just taking from the right pocket instead of the left pocket. It's taking less from *any* pocket.

Or, visually, THIS is your curernt health care system, in context.



You aren't going to become Cuba, but maybe you might at least move the purple line a little bit closer to sanity? Perhaps even move up a notch or two in the rankings? It's not like the countries above you have some special magic. Greece? Come on, surely the mighty USA can do better than Greece.

-Jester