I think it has to do with how easy it is to think about. I really believe there are a lot of people on the right whose implicit preference is to pay $10000/yr for healthcare to a private entity rather than $5000/yr to the government. When I get a tax bill the numbers are right there in black, this is how much was stolen from me. When I get any other sort of bill how much was 'stolen' is a portion but I have no idea how much so I basically write off the whole amount as necessary. It's probably the result of cold-war propaganda that seems to have never died off.
One thing to consider is that it’s very unlikely America could actually cut half of all costs by simply going universal. We’d have to ration care and implement price controls. Who knows if that is even politically viable.
And even we could reduce it by half, the only politically viable method of funding is a highly progressive tax.
People on hacker news would likely pay 20k a year and the average person would pay 2,500 or less.
>One thing to consider is that it’s very unlikely America could actually cut half of all costs by simply going universal.
It was just an example, but it's pretty clear that costs would be cut.
>We’d have to ration care and implement price controls. Who knows if that is even politically viable.
We already ration care, we just do it by how much money you have. Price controls? Pretty politically viable, just march some affected people up on stage. Hell you don't even need price controls, just make overseas drug importing legal. Right now we're a totally captive market, that's why they charge so much.
>And even we could reduce it by half, the only politically viable method of funding is a highly progressive tax.
Okay? Sounds fine to me.
>People on hacker news would likely pay 20k a year and the average person would pay 2,500 or less.
I mean that's how progressive taxes work and I don't have a problem with it, although your numbers are obviously pulled straight from your ass.
Yes, go tell physicians that you’ll cut their income to less than half of what they are getting now. Why wouldn’t they like the plan? The US healthcare system is very bad, but not easy to fix.
