What Are Your Political Views?

[palou]

epicurean said:

Soundwave said:

Healthcare is cheaper in other countries because they gov't enforces it to be. You pay more for healthcare because it's a for-profit business in the US. 

I can't speak to what other countries do, but in America they do a terrible job, if they do any at all, of regulating prices in anything they control.  Health Care costs were a small percentage of what it was before medicare came around, at which time everything skyrocketed.  Our gov't getting involved in anything raises costs.

That's because they half-assed it. What makes healthcare cheaper in other countries is that there is only one consumer (the government) that is negotiating prices with several producers. This gives the consumer a lot of power, and lets him drive the prices down. Like an inverse monopole. In the health industry, this is necessary, because demand is in many situations absolute (pay the cost or die), so the producer has almost free control over the price they demand (particularly with the retarded american copyright laws).

 

In countries where the healthcare system is entirely controlled by the government, prices are thus significantly lower, even before aca.

(Here a nice chart from 2010.) http://www-tc.pbs.org/prod-media/newshour/photos/2012/10/02/US_spends_much_more_on_health_than_what_might_be_expected_1_slideshow.jpg

Also, you live shorter than pretty much everyone in that list except Turkey, Mexico, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary (who all pay less than a quarter of what you were paying BEFORE the aca.)

 

The american government simply forced everyone to pay without serving as intemediate. This gives even more power to the procucer, and consequently raised costs.