Obamas most despicable act to date.

[mrstickball]

@Mafoo -

That is the core of the problem. We spend more GDP than any other country on healthcare. It seems that most people's answer for this is to have the government take care of it.

That does absolutely nothing to take care of the costs of healthcare. Manus argues that administrative costs will be saved under a single-payer system. That may be true, but administrative costs are a fraction of the total expenses incurred by healthcare. So under a single-payer system you may reduce prices by 5%, but the problem is that you need something that reduces prices by 50%.

Furthermore, if the government pays for everyone, then that means that the percentage of GDP the US pays out for healthcare will go UP because you have more people requiring the care.

So if the government pays for it, then taxes will be required to balance out the costs of a national healthcare bill.

In such a system, taxes would rise by 20% to cover the costs of taking over the healthcare field. America would become one of the most-taxed nations in the world. Do you think that would really be advantageous? Doubtful. Cost of living would go up, and Americans, despite having healthcare, would have far less money to spend than they do now.

The other answer for that 20% tax increase is to forcefully lower the amount of GDP spent on healtcare. That could only be accomplished through forcing a rationing schema for those under the system. In such a system, would that really be a fair tradeoff? Forceful rationing for a 5% decrease in healthcare costs?

That is the elephant in the room. Americans have far more discretionary income than French, British or Germans do. Because of lower taxes, our citizens have far more money to spend and live off of than European counterparts. If you force healthcare on Americans, then that advantage goes away, and we become as expensive to live in as Europe. That would cause America to be far less competitive and decrease overall quality of living in the states.

Of the top 10 countries, in terms of cost of living, European countries make up every country on the list. That is something that I think our European friends aren't wanting to discuss in the conversation.

So I gotta ask to Europeans commenting on this list:

How do you like paying 30-40% more for every good and service in your country for your free healthcare?