Re:If Europe is more expensive, why do Americans pay more fo...
by narrowrail on Monday May 08, 2017 @01:03PM
(#14293435)
We were past that point when Clinton raised the issue in the 90's (or even Bob Dole). I just don't think a federalized system with central control/power is the prudent path to pursue until we get price transparency for healthcare costs.
Re:If Europe is more expensive, why do Americans pay more fo...
by ceejayoz on Monday May 08, 2017 @01:49PM
(#14293864)
We already have price transparency for our single-payer system. Medicare pays a specific amount for specific procedures - you can get a full list (https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-paymen...).
Our current path is demonstrably not prudent, with a good dozen or more examples of what appear to be prudent approaches to draw from.
Single-payer systems have a variety of implementations - Australia has a vibrant private insurance industry alongside their public system, whereas Canada forbids it.
It's quite clear that the US healthcare variant simply isn't working and isn't sustainable. I pay more for my family's health insurance ($2,000/month) than I pay for my mortgage, and it goes up 10-20% every year (both pre-ACA and post-ACA).
We're well past the point of saying "well, that experiment didn't work, what's everyone else doing that works?"