[ryandrake]

The fact that a single person is "in charge" of the government, with the other two branches largely deferring all power to that one person, is a recent aberration from the norm in the USA. I'm for a single-payer health system that is administered by a well-checked regulatory apparatus and institutions that are not subject to wild policy swings at the whim of a single king-like leader.

[colechristensen]

>I'm for a single-payer health system that is administered by a well-checked regulatory apparatus and institutions that are not subject to wild policy swings at the whim of a single king-like leader

And I want to win the lottery, marry a princess, and for my childhood dog to come back to life.

We all want things.

When we're advocating for government changes we need to be realistic and make good choices. Right now throwing an enormous amount of power at a dysfunctional government (public health care) is an insane bid completely disconnected from reality.

We need people to care about the basic functionality of government and for it's various pieces to do their duty. They aren't, so maybe let's shelve the idea of handing over control of our healthcare to them until they can deal with their cowardice in front of an aspirational king.

[ryandrake]

At least elected governments are in theory accountable to the public through voting. Insurance companies and healthcare providers are not in any way accountable to the public, and the public has zero power (outside of regulation) to affect their actions. Just because public [X] is currently a bad choice doesn't make private, corporate [X] always a better choice.

[colechristensen]

Who cares about theory when the reality is a corrupt insane government was elected. We're not dealing with theory. Healthcare is too important to propose major changes based on theory instead of reality.

You DO have healthcare choices now. Consider the healthcare option provided when accepting a job is on the table, provide feedback to your employer about their chosen provider (i.e. say NO to United Healthcare). Even though it involves big life choices with private healthcare there ARE options on the table instead of what the electorate chooses every 2/4/6 years.

And people are pretty misguided. The typical HN crowd person would STILL HAVE private health insurance on top of the public care in almost any country today that has the public option. The public option is bad, slow, and has a habit of denying care. You'd be rich, you'd still want better care than what was available for free.