Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tverbeure 1520 days ago
Instead of advocating for and gambling on a "free market" health care system that has never been tried successfully anywhere, and hoping that it will work out (because dogma?), why not advocate for systems that have been tried all over the world that have been proven to work?

I'd sign up for a significant increase in my taxes if the US system were replaced by the system that I experienced in Belgium for the first 30 years of my life.

And by successfully, I mean: everybody, irrespective of income or status, can expect to get the care they need.
2 comments
pitaj 1520 days ago
The free market healthcare system in the USA worked great up until regulations pushing out mutual aid societies completely changed it. Costs were affordable for everyone.

http://freenation.org/a/f12l3.html

link
throwaway0a5e 1520 days ago
It takes an exceptional breed of ignorance to say "just implement whatever <country> has" as if that is a silver bullet and that the same forces that caused the current debacle wouldn't also do their magic on anything we attempt to transition to.

If it was as easy as paying out way out of the problem we'd have done it already.

link
tverbeure 1520 days ago
It also takes an exceptional amount of knee jerk assery to interpret my comment as "change the US system to the Belgian one". The Belgian system is one that works more or less from my experience. Most inhabitants of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and others will claim the same for theirs.

Nobody is claiming that the US should copy the system of some specific country verbatim. But it's equally dumb to dismiss the common traits of these other systems, and say "nah, let's do just the opposite."

link
throwaway0a5e 1520 days ago
>It also takes an exceptional amount of knee jerk assery to interpret my comment as "change the US system to the Belgian one"

Well you literally said "I'd sign up for a significant increase in my taxes if the US system were replaced by the system that I experienced in Belgium for the first 30 years of my life" so why don't you tell me how that was supposed to be interpreted?

America shares a very long border with a nation with a functional healthcare system and we generally prefer to compare to them.

link
tverbeure 1520 days ago
I wrote "why not advocate for systems". Notice the plural form. Did you assume that by writing "all over the world", I actually meant the superpower of Belgium?

What all those systems have in common is that they are a mix of free market and strong regulation. The opposite of "let's do even more free market than what we have now."

I don't know how the US can get there. It's probably impossible, just like school shootings and the "No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" argument.

link