Didn't go well for South America in the 60s and 70s but perhaps, as economists are prone to saying, "this time will be different".
The fact that a handful of individuals have half a trillion dollars to throw at something that may or may not work while working people can pay the price of a decent used car each year, every year to their health insurance company only to have claims denied is insane.
This money is managed by small amounts of people but it is aggregated from millions of investors, most of these are public companies. The US spends over 10x that amount on healthcare each year.
There are lots of problems with our current approach to healthcare, but insurers aren’t charging you way more than the cost to counterparty on that contract should be.
You'd think the healthy working population wouldn't be that much of a burden to care for as well, but they have to go out of pocket and get insurance to provide for themselves after providing for everyone else.
There is a lot of graft going on for this to be the case. It may not be the fault of insurance companies but someone is stealing a great deal of money from the American people.
Now here's the million dollar question; are you aware of this obvious fact? Have you ever heard someone frame the socialized medicine debate in this way: "If we could be as efficient as the UK we could give you free healthcare AND cut your taxes!". If not, why not?
[0]https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health...
[0]https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
well not every other nation, but i know what you mean.
other nations are much better at managing overutilization by denying care where it is not needed. the US insurance system shields people from cost and encourages overutilization due to a number of stupid policy choices (aka refusal to have 'death panels' like in Canada/UK but also refusal to do away with massive publicly subsidy for health expenditure).
for a personal story, my parents basically get free MRIs from the state for little reason whereas people I know have to pay an arm and a leg for MRIs because their insurance is worse. at minimum, we could at least also make my parents have to pay an arm and leg for useless MRIs and doctors would stop encouraging them or lose patients.
[0]https://www.vox.com/2014/9/4/6104533/the-125-percent-solutio...
[1]https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/industries/summ...
[2]https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/hey-big-spenders-phar...
Economies of scale should make them cheaper. An MRI machine and technician that sits there unused half the day has to charge more per visit than one used all day long. Have too many customers? Get more machines and techs, now the MRI manufacturer is making more units, offering volume discounts...
Rationing of care doesn't explain why the individual units of care are themselves much more expensive. Compare inhaler prices in Canada vs the US, $10 in Canada $100 here[0], that isn't because too many of them are given out. It's theft.
Addendum: Further, the young and healthy ration their care quite a bit under the current system, they are taxed too heavily (to pay for the care of the elderly) to afford it for themselves so they go without.
[0]https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/...
you need someone willing shop and pick the cheaper options for competition to bring down prices. You also need someone willing to say "that's too expensive, I wont buy it" and walk away. Same is true for the inhalers. If someone will pay $100 before switching to the generic, that is what they get charged. In Canada, the state is only willing to pay $10, so that is the price. This is the demand side of the problem.
There is also a supply problem, where the state provides medical company monopolies through "certification of need". It is basically illegal to open an MRI clinic that would compete with an existing one in many jurisdictions.
https://radiologybusiness.com/topics/medical-imaging/magneti...
You think consumers wouldn't do that if they were able to do so? You call the facility and everyone says the price is "it depends". They decide what they are going to charge you after you have left. Is any other industry allowed to do that? Hire someone to paint your house and he comes up with the price after he is done?
> There is also a supply problem, where the state provides medical company monopolies through "certification of need"
I'm well aware of this. Isn't it interesting that the people who give some of the largest campaign contributions have these sort of laws carved out for them? Charge whatever you want, decide the price in a opaque manner after the fact, competitors aren't allowed to establish themselves without their permission, importing drugs from other countries is forbidden. The list goes on and on.
Then you would think, if there is this much rampant and obvious corruption the fourth estate would step in right? Oh, they receive billions a year to advertise prescription drugs. Advertisement that can't be that effective, sometimes for pretty rare conditions, things your doctor should be made aware of but really odd to tell people about in a massive ad campaign.
The mainstream media and both parties are paid handsomely to allow this to continue. The problem isn't people are fat, or death panels or any of the distractions. The debate isn't about socialized medicine vs private. It's not about "keeping your doctor". There is just massive corruption to the tune of trillions of dollars in the past decade. There needs to be criminal investigations.