Re:'It's a money game to them':son takes on UnitedHealth ove...
by harmmonica on Thursday February 13, 2025 @05:19PM
(#43042161)
Not that you accused me of this, but I didn’t say it couldn’t work. Was just pointing out that Republicans would prefer to privatize (almost) everything to provide some background for the parent.
To give my personal opinion, if given only choices on the poles (fully private vs single-payer), I’d vote for single-payer. And I’d actually do it because I think the ROI would be enormous, though difficult to quantify. I do think it’s tricky (at best) to have health care fully private because the profit motivation can be cut throat. Maybe you’re right though it could be private but with heavy regulation (sort of sounds like what we have today though for working-age people). And you didn’t say regulate it but I’d have a hard time agreeing private could work without regulation.
A private health system can work. There's nothing inherently bad about it. A private system with some subsidies for poor people can work fine.
The problem is that in our health system, the incentives are misaligned. There is no market for insurance policies outside the ACA, most people have no power to choose their insurance provider.
One easy fix is to prohibit employer-sponsored insurance entirely. At most, allow employers to provide vouchers that can be used only for healthcare purchase.