[mikeyouse]

It also ignores that huge swaths of the country have no choice at all and the only hospital within a hundred miles is only viable due to huge Federal subsidies. We’ve been helping a close family member navigate that scenario and sure, he could vote with his dollars but it would involve a three hour drive to a neighboring state for an 80-yr old. I’d rather just enforce minimum quality standards on everyone like most other civilized countries rather then relying on “the free market” which so far in my experience has just led to PE goliaths swallowing entire health systems to focus on bill collection and union busting.

[nradov]

CMS does enforce minimum clinical quality standards on hospitals (at least those that accept Medicare). The problems in areas without meaningful competition tend to be more around shortages of qualified practitioners, high prices, and abusive billing policies.

[whatshisface]

I can't imagine anyone would object to minimum quality standards for anything receiving federal subsidies.

[collingreen]

edit: didn't realize I was feeding a troll. Feel free to ignore.

I expect the objections are in how quality is measured and enforced.

It reminds me of education system in the US - most people (project 2025 aside) think it's good to have a public education system; having a pipeline of skilled workers makes it easier to build an economy filled with a diverse set of businesses.

However, the attacks start to fly when there is disagreement about who should be allowed to teach, how they should be measured, and how they should be paid.

[whatshisface]

Settling everyone's differences about rural medical subsidies might be a good stepping stone to an NHS.