this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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Healthcare cannot be free as long as there are humans in the loop. Either you pay for yourself or you pay for everyone.
If you want your labor to be paid for, then you have to pay for the labor of others. Doctors, nurses, medical office assistants, etc., all put in significant hours of work. And many of them are in massive educational debt. And there's no way we can guarantee that the government will allocate the money they take from us in the way we wish.
Other problems can be solved, yes. As an example, there are homeless people, and there are abandoned homes across the country. The sooner we bring the two groups together, the sooner we'll see improvement.
But we can't expect construction or contracting companies to do the necessary labor for free, either. The money will have to come from somewhere - and governments have repeatedly shown that they're not equipped for the task. Either you pay for yourself or you pay for everyone. My experience says that I don't have the money to pay for everyone who won't be able to pay me back. So I'll pay for the things I need and use, and let everyone else do the same.
I'll ask a question: How much of your premium do you think goes towards profits, insurance-related bureaucracy (both on the company and hospital side) and other non-care insurance items? Hint: More than a quarter of a hospital's employees are only there to handle insurance. Hint2: Some doctors—particularly in the field of mental health—find the whole thing so ridiculous that they straight up do not accept insurance.
I'm sadly aware of how ridiculous the insurance situation is. In our current legal (and legislative) environment, the fact that we don't have firm tort limits is problematic. It means that doctors who might be accused of malpractice either will do so flagrantly, or refuse to act without massive barriers (provided, of course, by the insurance companies). There are a lot of things that need to change to upset it and I think any of them would be valuable.
Reduce the public financial aid availability - schools will lower their tuition costs and fees eventually, or they'll find themselves with far less students. That way, doctors & lawyers don't end up saddled with a lifetime's worth of education debt (and side benefit - neither does anybody else).
Instate firm lifetime tort limits, so that a doctor (who's already saddled with debt) doesn't have to fear for his career with every patient. That will sharply lower insurance loss rates and payouts, which should impact premiums. Less fear for doctors, less work for lawyers, less work for actuaries.
Those two broad changes alone would fix a lot of issues.
If you do need some form of public insurance, don't insure the patients. Everyone is a patient, supporting them might not pay back. Instead, set up a government funded malpractice insurance fund for all medical (dental/psych/etc) doctors. That encourages more people to become doctors, sets a de facto limit on the insurance plan and premium, and supports the skilled and educated people we actually want.
If I understand your position, it sounds like you're hoping that the impacts of reduced benefits will somehow trickle down to the people who are currently most affected