There is a difference between the free market costs and what the government would have to pay. You are somehow making the leap in logic that the money in the free market right now will somehow transfer to the government under UHS/C. It will just go elsewhere in the market and the government will have to either enact a new tax or increase existing taxes to pay for it, which will be an additional burden on the taxpayers.PureFodder wrote:
It's one of those great arguments about UHC that just won't die. The utterly perplexing idea that UHC will cost more money.
If a UHC system was introduced that was even within earshot of sanity then the cost for US healthcare will HALVE. That's right, US healhtcare cost per person are approximately twice the next most expensive system. Yes people, stop, take a deep breath and think about DIVIDING THE COST OF HEALTHCARE BY 2. This is the cost of UHC. You will be forced to save lots of money. Why is this the case? well running thousands of different insurance companies each with hundreds of different policies means a whole dirty great big stack of paperwork. The per person costs of running Americas healthcare system amount to 30% of the total costs. The amount spend on administering the US healthcare system per person is roughly 10 times the per person admin costs under most UHC systems. Add in advertising, profits and CEO pay and you start to find out why the system cost so damned much. Nothing to do with actual healthcare.
It's not like most people in the US cut a check for health care coverage. It is part of their overall benefits package and is funded, by contract, through their company. If the company no longer has to pay that because the government is going to take care of it, the company isn't going to increase the pay of their workers commensurately. Ergo...that money that was in the free market funding health care will now be elsewhere in the market funding something else...but not from the workers.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular