[mtgx]

Majority of economists also prefer a fully private healthcare market over single-payer government-paid healthcare. How is that working out for the U.S. right now?

The two situations are kind of similar because in both cases the economists prefer "market efficiency" (so they say) over the poor (in this case startup companies) being able to afford the services that the rich (in this case big companies) can afford.

All that matters to them is "efficiency" in the sense that the rich can get to pay say $1,000,000 per year and get a super-efficient service back for their money, while the poor could only afford to pay $1,000 a year but also get "great value for their money" (just nowhere near what those people who pay $1,000,000 get).

In their minds this is great, because "efficiency" is the same. The only difference is that the rich would be able to get the best cures for say cancer, while the poor will die, because $1,000 can't buy them the cures.

[krrrh]

> Majority of economists also prefer a fully private healthcare market over single-payer government-paid healthcare. How is that working out for the U.S. right now?

It’s tough to say; there hasn’t been anything close to a fully private healthcare system for decades, at least since employer-provided healthcare became a tax-free benefit. For some rather large populations such as the poor (Medicaid), the elderly (Medicare), and veterans (VA) systems exist that are comparable to what we call single-payer in other countries.

Without a reference I don’t believe you that most economists prefer a fully private healthcare system, but few think the current system is very well-designed or functioning.