The "cheaper" bit is really not as clear as you suggest. Given the difference in character of health care systems, things that are not considered health care costs in a government provided system are nevertheless included as costs in a free(ish) market situation.rEvolutionist wrote:Non sequitur. It would definitely be cheaper as every other advanced nation has cheaper health care than the US. When you take the profit motive out of healthcare and throw in bulk buying power of a central body, it's significantly cheaper. And you can maintain a higher standard private system as well, like Australia does.Seth wrote:No it wouldn't, it would merely be of inferior quality.rEvolutionist wrote:If Obama had of been able to implement a progressive health care system like in other countries, it would be significantly cheaper than what you have.
Also, prior to Obamacare, one of the reasons why American health care costs were higher is that the US had far better equipment and far more availability of advanced procedures. We had better equipment and more advanced procedures per capita.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/conten ... .full.html The article basically concludes that one of the big differences are underlying prices for things that go into health care costs. Doctors made more money in the US - and medicines, machines and other products cost more in the US than elsewhere. So, that adds up to more cost. Since the US had traditionally among the highest incomes in the world per capita, this makes some sense.Hospital beds and health professionals are, of course, not the only binding constraints on a health system’s capacity. Just as constraining, and possibly more so, can be the availablity of advanced medical technology. As shown in Exhibit 6⇓, Canada has far fewer computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners per capita than the United States does. Indeed, Canada’s endowment with this type of equipment lies considerably below the OECD median, although Canada’s is the fifth most expensive health system in the OECD.24 As is further shown in Exhibit 6⇓, Canada’s health system also delivers far fewer highly sophisticated procedures than does the U.S. system. For example, the U.S. system delivers four times as many coronary angioplasties per capita and about twice the number of kidney dialyses.
This is what was weird -- the the "00s" we were constantly treated with press reports about how the US health care system delivered worse care than Cuba and Costa Rica. Absurd, bizzare claims that are belied by just waking into a US hospital or doctor's office compared to such countries.
What's happened since 2010 with Obamacare is that the cost of healthcare per capita in the US has gone up dramatically, even though the proponents of Obamacare kept telling us it was needed to make healthcare more affordable and reduce costs. They were going to save hundreds of billions in "fraud" prevention. They were going to save costs in unnecessary medical procedures, and save money by putting in preventative care things which were guaranteed to save money overall.
Bottom line is that none of it was true. It was a big fat lie. When they were selling it to us, I predicted it was a big fat lie. I told everyone I could that it would make things more expensive. Nobody cared. They believed the lie that it was "giving" healthcare to people. No, it wasn't. It was just making me pay for other people's healthcare. I now pay three times the premium for almost the identical coverage as before Obamacare's mandate coming in force (which was 2013). From 2013 to 2016, my insurance premiums just fucking skyrocketed. Nobody even says thanks. They just say "fuck you, you worked hard, got a degree which you paid for by working while going to school, and you worked 60-75 hour weeks for many years.... fuck you, you're 'lucky' and you only could do that because the government built the roads."
