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The choice is pretty simple but the reality isn't as much...
Seriously, in a world where we have universal healthcare, like what Australia or Canada has, you shouldn't have to make that painful choice. With universal healthcare costs would also go down so not only won't we have to make these tough choices but healthcare would be cheaper so 100k would go alot further...
Only someone with zero understanding of economics would make such a statement.
Using YOUR logic, college education costs, which have unlimited guaranteed federal student loan money, should go down yet they have skyrocketed. Please see if you can explain why this is the case using basic laws of economics. (Hint supply & demand.)
Maybe if we weren't ruled by insurance companies, we wouldn't have to play this "Let's Pretend We're Haiti" game.
Yet another complete mischaracterization of the situation.
The people have gotten exactly what they've demanded when they demanded the government "Do something!" Well the government did something and what they did was interfere with the free market. Economics giants like Adam Smith and Frederick Bastiat wrote very clearly about what happens any and every time the government interferes with the free market. They all state the things guaranteed to happen when government interferes with the free market is the cost to the consumer of the goods or services regulated will go up and or the supply of those goods and services will go down.
More government intervention will necessarily cause the prices to go even higher and/or the supply of healthcare to go down unless the action taken by government is to remove all laws and regulations on both the healthcare market and the insurance market. This includes completely eliminating Medicare and Medicaid as these two government programs are huge manipulations of both healthcare and insurance markets.
I don't care how noble politicians make their claims for new regulation sound, those regulations are guaranteed to increase cost and/or diminish supply. Again, this is basic "supply & demand" of economics 101.
I guess I'd say your system is pretty ****ed up if setting a broken leg costs the same as dialysis and cancer treatments. I suppose if you got most of the greed, pencil pushers, and bean counters out of the way, you could reduce the costs of all of the above significantly.
What is "greed" and who do you know that doesn't run on greed? Don't each of us try to do what's in our own best interests? Isn't that exactly what you are doing when you demand a lower price for healthcare services, where you pay less and get more services? Doesn't that make you greedy?
Implementing a 25% national VAT tax (like many European/Scandinavian countries already have) would be adequate to fund it. Boom. Done. You're welcome.
Yet another person willing to vote for the cost of healthcare to skyrocket. A 25% VAT would cause consumerism to drop significantly. Unemployment will then skyrocket and even less will be spent on consumerism. With the passage of this single law our nation will go from a first world nation to a second or third world nation in a matter of a couple years.
I pray you high minded people never get what you ask for because you have no idea how much economic harm you will cause.
Pretend the federal government has $100,000 to spend on healthcare per year. Resources are not unlimited, they can't confiscate 100% of everyone's pay without shutting down the economy, and they can't print money endlessly either.
So for the $100K they have, they can spend money on:
A. Hans. 80 years old, drank too many buds and has liver disease. Care costs $25K
B. Lotte. 35 years old, has leukemia (which might be curable). Care costs $25K.
C. Jane. 60 years old, needs ongoing dialysis. 25K per year
D. Willi. 90 years old, no serious diseases but needs long term care. 25K per year
E. Suki. 70 years old and needs heart medicine but is otherwise healthy. 25K per year
F. Leo. 50 years old, lifetime heavy smoker, and got lung cancer. 25K per year.
G. Sasha. 15 years old, broke her leg playing high school soccer. 25K to fix it, one time.
H. Britt. 85 years old, cancer patient and bedridden. 25K per year
You've got 8 people who need care and can cover 4 of them without breaking the bank.
What do you do?
Thank you for the excellent post. This thread deals with the harsh realities of government interference with the market. It shows perfectly the reduction in supply when the demand goes up in the example you gave.
Yet another complete mischaracterization of the situation.
The people have gotten exactly what they've demanded when they demanded the government "Do something!" Well the government did something and what they did was interfere with the free market. Economics giants like Adam Smith and Frederick Bastiat wrote very clearly about what happens any and every time the government interferes with the free market. They all state the things guaranteed to happen when government interferes with the free market is the cost to the consumer of the goods or services regulated will go up and or the supply of those goods and services will go down.
More government intervention will necessarily cause the prices to go even higher and/or the supply of healthcare to go down unless the action taken by government is to remove all laws and regulations on both the healthcare market and the insurance market. This includes completely eliminating Medicare and Medicaid as these two government programs are huge manipulations of both healthcare and insurance markets.
I don't care how noble politicians make their claims for new regulation sound, those regulations are guaranteed to increase cost and/or diminish supply. Again, this is basic "supply & demand" of economics 101.
But we're already not in a free market when it comes to healthcare. Hell, I can't even buy prescription contact lenses from any legit provider overseas due to laws of the USA.
Yet another person willing to vote for the cost of healthcare to skyrocket. A 25% VAT would cause consumerism to drop significantly. Unemployment will then skyrocket and even less will be spent on consumerism. With the passage of this single law our nation will go from a first world nation to a second or third world nation in a matter of a couple years.
I'm not seeing how. This has actually been studied by many economists. The only way the large amount of tax revenue needed to fund social programs for all while harming the economy the least is to flatten every other kind of tax (income tax, etc.) and implement a national VAT tax:
Quote:
"The United States has by far the most progressive income, payroll, wealth and property taxes of any developed country. Scandinavian social democracies like Denmark, Sweden and Norway have quite regressive direct taxes, as do the Netherlands and Switzerland.
...The disparity is even starker when you bring sales taxes into the mix, as VATs are an extremely important source of revenue for most European countries as well as Australia and Canada
...This isn't an accident. UC Davis's Peter Lindert has argued in his book "Growing Public" that European social democracies were only able to develop the programs they did because they used efficient consumption taxes that didn't lower growth as much as progressive income taxes, particularly those on capital income. European countries needed tax systems that could raise a lot of money without hurting growth, and only regressive consumption taxes fit the bill.
...[Researchers] Prasad and Deng found that the progressivity of countries' tax codes is negatively correlated with the amount of redistribution they do. In English: The less progressive the [tax] code, the more progressive the system."
Pay close attention to what that scatter plot chart tells us... Note that the highest levels of government benefits and services are provided by countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium) in which taxes are flat (everyone pays the same tax rate) or regressive (shown as the negative values along the bottom axis, meaning a greater tax burden is placed on those with lower incomes). And note where the USA falls on the graph. The USA has the most progressive tax system and therefore is least able to fund social program "wants" like single-payer Medicare for All health care, because the tax base is too narrow and overly dependent on the top.
"Here let me make up this completely unrealistic scenario"
How about a realistic one?
The entire developed world can do this, and we are FAR wealthier then many. That is a fact, and reality.
Let's have some fun why the " What if" game.
Assume
Sasha and Lottee are illegal immigrants, or
Sasha and Lottee are refugees, or
Sasha and Lotee identify as Muslim and wear burquas, or
Sasha and Lottee identify with the BLM movement, or
Sasha and Lottee worshipped Hillary, or
Sasha and Lottee have criminal records.
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