How do you feel about X in your country?

[palou]

DonFerrari said:

1 - So you have digged on the cost of the healthcare, law and tax structure, wages and all between the countries to come to the conclusion that X+Y is less than X?

I have nothing against government providing basic healthcare, as long as it is voluntary and not through taxation. The same argument you are making on scale can be made through association or massive health plans. Like instead of the federal government taxing corporations, people, etc and destinating a ever floating amount to healthcare you have a very specific and independent accountability for the healthcare... so if 200M people in USA doesn't want to either use the private sector through individual consult or plan they can sign up to a collective safety net.

The biggest problem with taxes and government budgeting is that they create taxes saying how they'll use the money but it usually is diverted to other places... and sure economy of scale can be beneficial on making cost lesser, but when you have the government holding that power and corrupt politician that means inflated costs all around.

As I said, I'm against government involvement as much as possible and prefer the options of private education and health, but those are two areas were I concede that due to people being bad at planning it is acceptable that the government make the safety net.

 

I mean, yes, equivalent services are significantly cheaper in Single-payer systems, for the government, than they are for individual consumers in the US.

 

It's the concept of consumer-sided monopoly. Companies are *forced* to accept prices and conditions set by the government, as there is no other way to access the market, at all. In the same way that a producer-sided monopoly hikes prices, a consumer-sided monopoly plunges them. Having several competing private healthcare providers would not allow this.

 

"The biggest problem with taxes and government budgeting is that they create taxes saying how they'll use the money but it usually is diverted to other places... and sure economy of scale can be beneficial on making cost lesser, but when you have the government holding that power and corrupt politician that means inflated costs all around."

 

I can see that being a problem in Brazil, less so in fully developed democracies, with appropriate systems ensuring transparency. The expenses of individual politicians, and any meetings they might have with potential contractors are *very* closely guarded. Occasional "scandals" do appear, but there is a difference in scale which needs to be stated, here - the biggest one in Canada, for the last few years, was that several senators had used government funds to travel with business class, instead of economy class as they were supposed to.