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by georgefox 4694 days ago
> First of all the comment he was replying to was talking about services like housing, transportation, and healthcare, which already are provided by the market and aren't really things the government has any advantage in. As for all the stuff it does pay for, at best it costs exactly the same amount as you have to pay in taxes. But the government spends money on a lot of other things with your taxes that don't really benefit you. So you would save a decent amount of money. And with no competition, the services they do provide cost a lot more then they probably could.

Health care in the U.S. generally costs a lot more than government-run health care in other western countries.

1 comments

There is multiple reasons for this, and none of them support the conclusion that "government-run" healthcare is better.

The Current US System is the Worst possible system a culmination of decades of government interference in both employment laws which is irrevocably linked health "insurance" with employment and turned "insurance" into a services prepayment pozi scheme.

Government run systems control costs by having a Fixed Budget, which means each year they outlay X dollars, so if for example there are 100,000 Hip Replacements budgeted for the year, and your Number 100,001 well your SOL. This is called rationing... this is one way government control costs. the other is ignoring or limiting patents for drug companies, so drugs cost less overseas then in the US. There are 1000's of things like this that make the government run systems appear "cheaper".

Cost is not the only factor though, Quality of Care is very important and the US still has more Health Tourists than any other nation... there is a Reason for that.

Can you name a country that has the system you want, and has it work better and cheaper than most of the western world?

The US is the example of the most privatized health care, and it's almost twice as expensive as the #2 most expensive country. That #2 country has a semi-privatized system.