The free market system in the deliver of healthcare has been dead for many years and nothing is going to revive it. 82% of our hospitals are nonprofit or government owned. Almost a third of our doctors are salaried and the percent is rising each year. 1 out 3 American's healthcare is partially or fully paid for by the government.Seems like I've heard this before. Single payer eliminates the insurance companies, that's it. Most people today don't really have a choice of carrier. Because of costs, they have to accept whoever their employer selects. Once on the plan, most people are restricted again by cost to a select network of providers.Single payer is control of choices, options, quality, access that was NEVER intended to be a role of the Federal government in a nation that values unalienable rights and considers those first above all other concerns. Socialism, facism, and Marxism all presumably put the needs of the most at the forefront and do not recognize unalienable rights. And those eventually create such misery that they transition to dictatorships or totalitarian governments so that the government retains control.
As long as we keep arguing about whether government or insurance companies are to be the carrier, focus is drawn away from the major cause of high healthcare cost, the way we delivery healthcare in America.
When government doesn't screw up the free market system--before government screwed up the free market system for healthcare--insurance companies had to compete with each other to attract policy holders. Make the premiums unaffordable and the company goes out of business. And there was strong incentive among medical providers and suppliers to also compete so that the people would use them and the insurance companies would authorize them.
Make the hospitals provide free medical care to those who can't or won't pay or provide free healthcare courtesy of the taxpayer, however, and the free market system goes out the window along with our freedoms, choices, options, opportunities, and control over our own destinies.
As far as choice goes, you're limited to the insurance carrier your employer picks and to the network of doctors and hospitals the insurance company picks. The insurance company formulary determines the drugs it covers and the procedures it pays for is purely at it's own discretion. Of course you can have choice, but only if you can afford it.
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