[mikem170]

> USA has top tier health care. It's simply not economical to give it to everyone who demands it

I've always thought that this is something basic that we need to address as part of any health care reform.

We can't afford to give everyone unlimited health care, so how do we determine the limits?

I assume that a lot of socialized health care systems end up using waiting lists, perhaps based on the patient's age, treatment cost, and probability of a positive outcome, with the option of going outside the system and paying for more/quicker care, for those who can afford it.

One person I discussed this with assumed that there was plenty of money to give everyone care as good as billionaires get. I don't assume that's true. Has it worked out that way anywhere else?

[Waterluvian]

I think for-profit healthcare can do a lot of unnecessary tests and treatments that fall far into diminishing returns or worse.

It’s not necessarily a good thing to want unlimited healthcare for all. Proper use of a scarce resource doesn’t necessarily mean it’s about rationing it with waiting lists and selective treatment. You can probably get quite far by first not overtreating a lot of people.

[ufocia]

Why do we assume that healthcare is a scarce resource? Sure, maybe some diagnostic/treatment equipment is not available everywhere, but the labor/cost issue seems to be created by regulatory capture, i.e. self-imposed barriers to entry. I agree that it is not in the best interest of the apex providers to change that. Telemedicine could be hugely disruptive if allowed to be practiced cross border between states. So would open collaboration of doctors between countries, e.g. I heard that some pathology operations are already utilizing labor in other countries, but having a domestic pathologist review the findings and signing off.