Ken Gardner

Two thirds of individual bankruptcies are medical related. The US spends about 15 percent of GDP on healthcare, about twice the ratio of other OECD countries with more efficient (and effective) healthcare systems. Broadly speaking, the principle of insurance is to pool risk across a group so that a catastrophic loss for one person is shared by the pool. Is that what your health policy gives you today? We talk about the dangers of socialized medicine but the US government already buys almost two thirds of healthcare in the US. Currently insurance is regulated at the state level. That should be federally regulated and the government could price services and pharmaceuticals and put the burden of profitability on providers. We price electricity and other utilities in this way because without it, the only places there would be electricity are the wealthy parts of cities. For the most part, healthcare companies insure the healthy population, and health insurer operating profit margins are single digits. So who is getting rich? The market is dysfunctional, inefficient and completely opaque. Have you ever tried to call around to price shop health care? Almost all of the time, you can’t get prices. A lot of the time the office admins don’t actually know. I have used health care in countries with national systems that permit private sector hospitals. Quality is fine and doctors get paid fine. Government regulates almost all types of business in one way or another. If you accept the idea of antitrust law you already acknowledge that markets fail and actors with asymmetrical power take advantage of consumers, there should not be resistance to reform. If I described a business that charged customers what they want, did not disclose prices, can literally lock up some customers who decline the services because it costs too much, and customers lose their entire livelihoods or lives if they don’t receive the goods, you would think I am talking about drug dealers. I am. Even the Trump administration issued requirements to lower the price of insulin for Medicare patients this year. Average price of a standard unit in Australia is about seven bucks. The US? $100.

It is complicated but not so complicated it can’t be fixed. There just isn’t the will. Vested interests are a lot more organized than consumers. It doesn’t have to be that way, but people get hung up on “freedom”. Individual Americans are less free as a result.

I think it is possible, maybe desireable, to have a government that takes care of somewhat self-reliant people.  I do favor some kind of low income housing for those without funds for housing although it may not be the level of quality that those with savings will have.  I do favor a SS program that forces all of us to save/invest enough to have basic living covered.  I think 4 days late is quick, don’t know those rules.  We need to balance this need with the need for the owner to collect rent, which is the way some fund their own retirement.  Last, taxes can’t raise beyond the point that allows today’s workers to save and prepare for retirement.  Several parts to this problem.

Yes, yes…thumbs-down to the anarchist. Move along, nothing to see here, folks.