[fjejfjrjdjc]

I've been waiting to see a neurologist for a serious and worsening vision problem since May. For those keeping track, that's four and a half months. So between these high drug prices and low healthcare availability, why exactly are we so afraid of single payer again?

[aianus]

I live somewhere with single-payer (Ontario, Canada) and while it definitely increases access for the poor or unemployed, the wait times and service quality are far worse than they are for employed persons with insurance in the United States.

I assure you, we still wait 3+ months to see a specialist.

[mhb]

How does single payer create an incentive for increasing the neurologist supply?

[fjejfjrjdjc]

By turning healthcare into a humanitarian mission instead of a business venture. My local clinic is for-profit and found that it made better business sense to only have the most rudimentary neurology department possible since it tends to be expensive. Instead they focus on their financial bread and butter like flu shots and annual checkups.

[rayiner]

Humanitarian missions and charity are notoriously ineffective at achieving real change. See, for example, the utter failure of aid organizations to achieve any fundamental changes in Africa. Meanwhile, big drug companies and their anti-retro viral cocktails changed the course of the AIDS epidemic there almost overnight.

[fjejfjrjdjc]

And yet I continue to go untreated thanks to the profit motive...

[witty_username]

So? Money is a representation of human effort. Nobody wants to work for free or invest for 0% gain.

Is there a reason you think the price should be lower? (remember people working need money too)

[fjejfjrjdjc]

If you had studied economics, you would know that profit and income are fundamentally different concepts. The existence of profit (rather than breaking even) implies a market failure.

[mhb]

What's your control where you believe your wait for treatment would be shorter for the same quality of care?

[convolvatron]

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the doctors are making out like bandits here. Of course they do quite well, and since they are providing most of the value in the equation, every seems to be pretty happy about that.

Insurance companies don't practice neurology.