171–180 of 1001 posts
There have been studies like this for decades, going back to at least the Clinton administration. And nothing will come of it. Too many entrenched interests, regulatory capture, and lobbying + political donations.
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Same here in the UK. If you need to see a specialist, you regularly have to wait months, assuming you can even get a referral in the first place.
This is frequently true in the USA as well. My provider's dermatology department is pretty backed up and couldn't make me an appointment for an excision until November. Fortunately it's not urgent.
https://benchmarkcanada.org/Governing_Healthcare-Wait-Times....
The US does far better than the UK and Canada.
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$1 trillion less profit.
Not really. Private health insurance would still exist alongside for the more wealthy (including nearly everyone on HN) that doesn’t want to wait a year for their public system MRI. Same thing that plays out in other countries. The U.S. already has a form of this in so-called concierge / premium providers too. Lots of profit to be made.
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That would be a massive hit to our GDP.
In all seriousness, this would be a massive stimulus to the economy. Americans are consumers at heart. All the money saved on insurance and/or other healthcare related costs would then be spent elsewhere. Cars, clothes, TVs, Labubu dolls. People will use the savings to buy things. In massive quantities.
We've been down this road. ACA was predicated on studies like this, to no avail (it turns out that intense opposition chips away at it over time regardless of these studies). I'm of the opinion that, if your solution requires perpetual majority control of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, your solution is in fact a campaign slogan. I'm not saying that this is what is happening now , but I am saying that…
ACA has saved tons of lives. Due to the intense opposition, it was not structured in a way that could save money, but rather structured in the way that it could get through congress. Additionally, as somebody who was around pre-ACA, I can not tell you how much better, in every single way, the post-ACA healthcare world is. Pre-existing conditions? Access to healthcare as an individual? These are life-changing possibil…
The failures and politicization of the ACA have caused us to be a little too dismissive of its successes and popularity.
Protections for pre-existing conditions and allowing children to stay on family plans until 26 in particular have made an incredible difference in a lot of people's lives and are wildly popular. So much so that it would be close to political suicide to try to remove them as evidence by Republicans controlling all three branches of government including both chambers of Congress and there is no serious talk of repealing them.
There is belief among a lot of its supporters that universal healthcare would have a similar wave of support if enacted and that the opposition is mostly irrational political arguments rather than people's true feelings about an actual policy. This is why the "ACA" polls higher than "Obamacare" despite those being two terms for the same legislation.
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$1 trillion more efficient in allocation of resources, freeing up money for consumer spending on everything.
Are you saying the government is an efficient allocator of resources?
It was not for a lack of motivation or a lack of cut-throat pursuit, consequences be damned.
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I don’t think “political suicide” exists anymore.
We still have Social Security for now. Entitlements are sticky for better or for worse.
We've been down this road. ACA was predicated on studies like this, to no avail (it turns out that intense opposition chips away at it over time regardless of these studies). I'm of the opinion that, if your solution requires perpetual majority control of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, your solution is in fact a campaign slogan. I'm not saying that this is what is happening now , but I am saying that…
ACA is not Universal Health Coverage. So this would be different enough. And you don't need perpetual majority control, only sensible politicians for about a generation (like FDR/Truman/Eisenhower/JFK) to lock in a popular entitlement.
We've been down this road. ACA was predicated on studies like this, to no avail (it turns out that intense opposition chips away at it over time regardless of these studies). I'm of the opinion that, if your solution requires perpetual majority control of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, your solution is in fact a campaign slogan. I'm not saying that this is what is happening now , but I am saying that…
ACA has saved tons of lives. Due to the intense opposition, it was not structured in a way that could save money, but rather structured in the way that it could get through congress. Additionally, as somebody who was around pre-ACA, I can not tell you how much better, in every single way, the post-ACA healthcare world is. Pre-existing conditions? Access to healthcare as an individual? These are life-changing possibil…
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> if your solution requires perpetual majority control I think once universal health coverage is established, it amounts to political suicide to try to take it away again.
I don’t think “political suicide” exists anymore.