Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Where do you think the money is going? To the millions of people making a living in the health care system that have no actual role (direct or indirect) in improving the health of patients.
I think this is far too facile. It's like saying half your taxes go to government waste. I mean sure, OK, but how do you get rid of government waste? So far no one has been able to do it. So this is really an unwillingness to engage in the problem, which is absolutely endemic in the current discourse. The key problem is that 20% of our GDP goes to healthcare, and similarly 20% of our population is employed in healthc…
But that's the problem with your argument. Of course people have done it, nearly every developed country has.
> If you want to reduce healthcare costs in half, so that it is only 10% of GDP, then expect to throw 10% of the population out of work. That will include nurses, doctors, EMT personnel as well as administrators.
No, it won't. I'm talking about eliminating the positions that would only exist because of the private insurance system. Which is a massive amount of dead weight loss.
It's not remotely hard to understand conceptually, I mean EVERY dollar that's devoted to arguing over insurance bills is completely wasted. As are all the dollars spent on insurance advertising and marketing, and so on. Every dollar paid back to health care companies as dividends, or used for stock buybacks.
That's a lot of dollars.
Every time this argument comes up people in the US start talking about it like "Oh yeah? Sure but what's YOUR solution then smart guy? Stumped you didn't I?"
Um, no. My solution is the NHS. Like you can go there and look at it I swear it's a real thing, they have buildings and everything, just book a flight to London and see for yourself. Or, in US terms, Medicare for all, which is also a real understandable thing that exists, except for the "for all" part.