299 The Problems With Healthcare

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">America's healthcare costs are approaching 20% of its GNP. It's incongruently expensive because it's a natural monopoly, which means people have no choice in what they pay. How many ads do you see claiming lower prices for medical care? Where are the sales? Worse, in many situations consumers of healthcare have no choice whether to buy because their life literally hangs in the balance. When consumers have choice, like with elective surgeries such as Lasix and breast augmentation, prices are relatively cheap due to Market Pressures, but most of healthcare is not amenable to Market Pressure, there is no cost containment. For example, critical care is unpredictable, inconvenient & presents an insurmountable knowledge gap. This translates to inordinately high monthly insurance premiums due to lack of competition or market feedback.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The people responsible for the lion's share of healthcare use, The Old, consume more from society than they produce. Basically, young people are working, not for themselves, but for supporting old people, it’s simple demographics. Universal healthcare can be easily demagogued: opponents rise the specter of "Death Panels," how doctors don't get paid enough, and how the U.S. already leads the world in medicine. These are distortions intended to return to dog-eat-dog healthcare, because in general, the opponents of Universal healthcare are the ones with retirement benefits, Medicare & the VA; who are self-interested because their place at the public trough is diminished if more people are allowed in. Americans don’t like to incur debts we can’t pay, so rather than receive needed medical attention and checkups, those who can’t afford it, go without, their quality of life suffering from nagging, untreated disabilities; finally, when their conditions worsen, they must seek medical attention and lose everything. Healthcare is a basic Right of every citizen, and people will surrender some of their liberty for it, just as they will for protection & jurisprudence.</p>