Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to (Just think, we could have had free healthcare for all Americans.)

re: "free" healthcare for all Americans.
Tom Brosz — (archived)

If we had a public health care system that spends each year what Canada's relatively frugal system does, about $3,400 per capita, the U.S. government would be spending about a trillion dollars a year in health care. Each year. Every year. For years to come.

That's going to add up a bit more quickly over the next few decades than the Iraq war.

I know how the cash in the private health system moves, from businesses through insurance companies to providers. To short circuit this effectively would require shunting massive new taxes to those same businesses. Whether not having to pay for health coverage would balance it out, I don't know. I have yet to see anybody deal with the details on this, including the results of imposing price controls on private health care providers and pharmaceutical companies.

For the debt our current entitlements already add up to, just for the elderly, see here.

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