I have a question. What would happen to the lines for health care in this country if the 40 million people currently uninsured were suddenly insured and got in line (and remember that many of these people are poor and perhaps in greater need of health care than the average person)? Wouldn't the lines for health care provision get a lot longer? So in that sense, maybe the quickness with which Americans can access care has something to do with the large portion of the population that has no access.
So which is preferable: everybody gets (say) 70% of what they want, or the top 1% gets 100% of what they want because they have the money for it, most people get (say) 60-80% of what they want, and 20% of the population gets nothing
Mind you, the richest of the rich will always be able to get what they want. That's true in medicine, that's true in other aspects of life. Even when abortion was illegal, wealthy women could fly abroad to get abortions, while poor women without those opportunites couldn't, regardless of who had the more meritorious case.
Also, the costs of insurance in this country, private and company-provided, are rising faster than inflation. Just to break even, companies are increasing the amount the employee pays anad reducing the benefits. We're all paying more for less. And why? One of the reasons is because insurance is a for-profit industry. Their primary goal is making money, not public health. Another reason healthcare costs are so high is because of all the uninsured people, who can't afford preventative maintenance so only get care when matters become acute enough to require a (much more expensive) emergency room visit. And since they can't afford that either, those costs are distributed to the rest of the patient population.
One last point: employer-provided healthcare puts us at an economic disadvantage with foreign competition. Domestic manufacturers must pay for their workers' insurance, which invariably means they have to charge more than foreign companies whose healthcare costs are absorbed by the government...
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Date: 2006-03-08 07:13 pm (UTC)One of Gladwell's commenters made an excellent point:So which is preferable: everybody gets (say) 70% of what they want, or the top 1% gets 100% of what they want because they have the money for it, most people get (say) 60-80% of what they want, and 20% of the population gets nothing
Mind you, the richest of the rich will always be able to get what they want. That's true in medicine, that's true in other aspects of life. Even when abortion was illegal, wealthy women could fly abroad to get abortions, while poor women without those opportunites couldn't, regardless of who had the more meritorious case.
Also, the costs of insurance in this country, private and company-provided, are rising faster than inflation. Just to break even, companies are increasing the amount the employee pays anad reducing the benefits. We're all paying more for less. And why? One of the reasons is because insurance is a for-profit industry. Their primary goal is making money, not public health. Another reason healthcare costs are so high is because of all the uninsured people, who can't afford preventative maintenance so only get care when matters become acute enough to require a (much more expensive) emergency room visit. And since they can't afford that either, those costs are distributed to the rest of the patient population.
One last point: employer-provided healthcare puts us at an economic disadvantage with foreign competition. Domestic manufacturers must pay for their workers' insurance, which invariably means they have to charge more than foreign companies whose healthcare costs are absorbed by the government...