| mrstickball said: 1. The VA still spends ~$9,000 USD per veteran. You can argue the cost of their care is higher, but if you could, please provide some sort of data that would seek to equate what kind of care the VA gives that would increase costs vs. regular insurance. For every veteran that needs extensive care, there are others that just simply get checkups every year. Your article also mentions significant rationing of care for veterans. I think those numbers would speak for themselves as to the effect of a one-payer system in regards to the American system of health care. That is, that in the US, other problems are driving costs up that aren't associated with a single-payer system (to which, I've always mentioned this in health care discussions). As for your argument about administrative costs on health care, your citation is very disingenous. Medicare spends much more in care than private insurance does, so even if it spends less on administration, it spends far more overall. Here's the chart that discusses your very argument:
2. For your argument on education, you have half of a point. Due to the government involving themselves significantly in the student loan process, they are subsidizing loans to make colleges richer. Much like they did through real estate and the Community Reinvestment Act. That is a key problem with crony capitalism and socialism in that monies are mal-invested, inflating the cost of a given service. Additionally, you never addressed my argument concerning lower education. We have the same system in place you are vouching for - full government controll of higher education - in K-12, and they still have the same problem of very high costs and stagnating returns on services rendered. Why would you want government to control these institutions when they've proven they cannot control costs or perform at a competitive level with other public systems?
4. Can you give a specific example of a corporation monopolizing an industry, then increasing prices? That is, unless your talking about government monopolies taking over an industry and increasing costs, then that may be a good example, and prescisely why I do not want government taking over an industry such as health care or education.
5. Digging in the ground involves work which is done by many different peoples. Printing money is done by one entity. That is why I have a problem with the way fiat currency is handled in the US. |
Might I ask where you're getting this $9000 figure from? All the reports I can find are from 2006 (Fortune: VA Hospital vs. Private Sector Hospitals), which say that VA costs per patient held steady at ~$5000 between 1996 and 2006, while private care had risen to ~$6300 as of 2006. It seems unlikely costs would have suddenly doubled over the next six years.
And that was the point I was trying to make: that while it is expected that costs for veterans would be more than that for your average patient, this is not the case for the VA, as far as I can tell.
As for rationing care, the only reason care was rationed at any point is because of the sudden influx of patients after we entered Iraq. A system that covers the entire nation would be far more stable, with a sudden and significant influx of patients being unlikely. Though it's not like private care systems could handle that any better.
Also, my source for Medicare administrative costs wasn't disingenuous. I specifically said that administrative costs per patient were higher for Medicare patients than private care patients. It's admin costs as a percentage of total costs that are higher for private care patients vs. Medicare, which isn't really that meaningful.
I'll try and respond to the rest of your post when I get more time.
