| It is stupid to blame Obama or Trump even for the current state of Obamacare. The parties involved right now are resulting in a much worse than medicare solution as it is similar to the three wolves one sheep version of democracy (which is the whole premise of libertarian concerns about democratic socialism). It is an attempt to obfuscate the otherwise obvious corruption and theft that is healthcare. Here the wolves are the AMA(doctors), insurers, pharma, and the politicians claiming to want to solve healthcare. The AMA and insurers have insane billing policies based on assuming inept doctors and corrupt patients. Most insurance today is just passing on the discounted (actual) price on to the insured co-pay or deductible. They cover very little normal costs of medicine nor do they provide any actual services for their premium. The main reason we don't have universal medicaid/medicare is similar to why the IRS doesn't do electronic filing themselves. Billions of dollars of middleman and tens of thousands of otherwise worthless jobs are on the line. We need a private/public system. It will initially look costly and it will suck (differently) for doctors and hospitals. However, in five to ten years the costs will stabilize and insurance and other services will be more honest as they will have real competition. Also, he should try to just fly back to the UK for non-emergency issues. Most foreign friends I have just keep insurance in their home countries as it costs usually 100-200 a year. A $1k flight back to see your family is cheaper than any surgery in the US. |