The will of the people is clear: illness ought to be ruinously expensive, health insurance ought to be a privilege for those who can afford it. The democratic process has considered the issue quite seriously, several times in recent years, and decided on the present situation. There is overwhelming bipartisan support for keeping healthcare pretty much as is, with very slight variations between red and blue.
Barring a major change in public opinion, any improvement in healthcare will have to be undemocratic.
I thought quite a lot of research showed that voters across the board are actually in favor of more Europe-style/better health care policies, but that they vote against their own interests because of partisan issues/politics.
If that's true, you might still be right in practice of course, but at the very least there's a bit more hope that things can change.
This isn't like some temporary blemish on democracy, it is democracy. People have different opinions (partisanship) about what ought to happen in the public sphere (politics) and outcomes are dictated by the people's actual votes rather than expert opinion about their best interests.
I'd be down for a technocrat philosopher-king, but that's not the world we live in. In fact, technocrats are being soundly rejected by both left and right.
It is pretty successful at driving down costs.
Unsurprisingly, it was targeted in the thankfully now failed TPPA, because god forbid a government flex its muscle and keep the market competitive.
Kinda like what IBM is trying to do with Watson.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/306224-us-postal-services-...
I don’t know the right answer but starting with a good system that works seems like a good idea.
> Controllable income, which takes into account operational expenses including compensation and benefits, excludes the $5.8 billion payment mandated by the government to prefund the agency's retirement benefits. > > Excluding the obligation, the Postal Service would have recorded net income of about $200 million in 2016.
I don't expect government entities to make a profit; as long as they're run reasonably well (and they usually are), well, that's what taxes are for.
Also, holy shit this is a brain disease: "Congress enacted a law that bans Medicare from negotiating drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. However, since Amazon Health would act as a private corporation dealing with other private corporations, it is hard to imagine Congress could prevent it from getting favorable prices for its patients."
Great. Instead of fixing public policy for the benefit of the public, create a monstrous new private entity that sucks blood money from the public.