1) Given that we're talking about hard facts and not speculation, what we know for certain is that the more privatized US system is both more expensive (by at least a factor of 2), less effective (in coverage of the populace, effectiveness per insured individual) and less popular and satisfying to users than the state-run healthcare systems of Western Europe. That's data that is exactly as solid as the data on marriage equality. Thus it's clear that if the US adopted a model like the UK healthcare system, costs would drop, while effectiveness and patient satisfaction would increase.
2) In terms of evaluating what we do know about free-market healthcare, the existence of Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA should all actually make other healthcare less expensive in the US, since what is happening is that most of the people in the poorest health (the old, the poor, and many people with serious injuries) are not driving up the cost of more privatized healthcare. Instead, what we have is a system where the rest of US healthcare is only responsible for the people who are in the best health and thus on average require less healthcare.
While it's true that the remainder of US healthcare isn't a complete free market, if you ignore Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA (which as I mentioned above does not either drive up costs or reduce efficiency for the rest of healthcare in the US and in fact should serve to do the reverse), then we have the closest thing to free market healthcare that exists in the first world, and it's utterly dismal (in terms of costs per capita, effectiveness per insured individual, & patient satisfaction) compared to all comparable (ie other first world) alternatives. Given that this is by far the best data we have, that's hardly a glowing argument for free-market healthcare. Combine this with the fact that it's equally clear that it's possible to provide excellent healthcare that is both relatively inexpensive, highly effective, and very well-regarded by users via the Western European model (which slightly is different from the Canadian model), and any argument that purely free-market healthcare would be better than the current US system and at least as good as the various systems in use in Western Europe demands extraordinary proof. I see a remarkable lack of evidence of such proof.
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zvi and
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Date: 2011-07-03 07:53 pm (UTC)1) Given that we're talking about hard facts and not speculation, what we know for certain is that the more privatized US system is both more expensive (by at least a factor of 2), less effective (in coverage of the populace, effectiveness per insured individual) and less popular and satisfying to users than the state-run healthcare systems of Western Europe. That's data that is exactly as solid as the data on marriage equality. Thus it's clear that if the US adopted a model like the UK healthcare system, costs would drop, while effectiveness and patient satisfaction would increase.
2) In terms of evaluating what we do know about free-market healthcare, the existence of Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA should all actually make other healthcare less expensive in the US, since what is happening is that most of the people in the poorest health (the old, the poor, and many people with serious injuries) are not driving up the cost of more privatized healthcare. Instead, what we have is a system where the rest of US healthcare is only responsible for the people who are in the best health and thus on average require less healthcare.
While it's true that the remainder of US healthcare isn't a complete free market, if you ignore Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA (which as I mentioned above does not either drive up costs or reduce efficiency for the rest of healthcare in the US and in fact should serve to do the reverse), then we have the closest thing to free market healthcare that exists in the first world, and it's utterly dismal (in terms of costs per capita, effectiveness per insured individual, & patient satisfaction) compared to all comparable (ie other first world) alternatives. Given that this is by far the best data we have, that's hardly a glowing argument for free-market healthcare. Combine this with the fact that it's equally clear that it's possible to provide excellent healthcare that is both relatively inexpensive, highly effective, and very well-regarded by users via the Western European model (which slightly is different from the Canadian model), and any argument that purely free-market healthcare would be better than the current US system and at least as good as the various systems in use in Western Europe demands extraordinary proof. I see a remarkable lack of evidence of such proof.