And in a painful decade or three, healthcare changed
lifted from comments, by reader vtcodger
You’re right that Single Payer is probably the best answer for the US. And it is probably where we will end up. But apparently, we have to beat ourselves up some more before the Washington-NewYork elite are willing to face up to reality. So, we’re going to go through a phase of mandatory health insurance — subsidized for low income Americans. And maybe we will at least enforce some efficiencies such as uniform insurance paperwork. Even many conservatives are amenable to that.
The problems we apparently are not going to face up to just yet include:
1. The high cost of training medical personell (who then must make high wages to pay for their education).
2. The high cost of prescription drugs
3. High overhead in private health insurance.
4. Overinvestment in costly diagnostic equipment. (In many cases it would be cheaper to move the patients to the equipment than to provide equipment in diverse locations).
5. Unwillingness to set up an affordable low cost basic health screening network to handle preliminary screening of patients.
6. Failure to put/require accessible “sticker prices” on health services.
7. A bunch of other stuff I can’t remotely keep track of.
Anyway, we might get better coverage and minor efficiencies out of round one of health care reform. There will be more rounds.
And in a painful decade or three, we’ll probably end up with single payer.
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lifted from comments, by vtcodger