The Washington Post shocked many of its Democratic readers this week by telling the truth about the growing disaster in the UK’s National Health Service — a cautionary tale as a few Republicans plan to join Democrats to extend the failed Obamacare subsidies rather than reform our own broken health care system.
Socialism is in vogue in America. Various socialists are assuming greater power in the Democratic Party and mayors such as Zohran Mamdani (New York) and Katie Wilson (Seattle) are taking over the leadership of major cities.
I discuss the rising class of American socialists in my new book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution. The young voters fueling this shift have never experienced life under socialism and have no memories of the meltdowns in prior such systems. As former socialist and communist countries move toward capitalism, many Americans are embracing socialism, according to polls.
The Washington Post editorial board exposed the myth of nationalized systems in its scathing column on the UK’s National Health Service, which is asking sick people to stay away from hospitals as the system struggles to offer basic care.
The NHS has existed for years in a perpetual state of emergency. This was the case before the pandemic hit, and it has only gotten worse. Hospital corridors overflow and routine procedures get canceled due to a catastrophic event commonly known as “winter.” It comes around every year, yet the system, despite annual funding increases, still somehow remains unable to cope.
A campaign to keep people away from hospitals during the holidays is underway, which includes begging the public to seek out other forms of treatment for “less serious” injuries and ailments. The British press compares the messaging to “Covid-era stay-at-home pleas,” which included asking patients who needed care to avoid medical facilities in order to “protect the NHS.”
In November, some 50,468 people waited 12 hours or more in emergency departments, often on trolleys in corridors. This is the highest on record for that time of year. Some 2.35 million people went to A&E in November, the highest on record for that month.
What is troubling in the debate over Obamacare is that some Democrats admit that it has failed. Democrats touted the law with an enabling class of academic experts as promising lower health care costs in a system that would pay for itself. Obama himself spread the false claim that you could keep your doctor under Obamacare. (later called the “lie of the year.”)
It proved to be a disaster. Health care costs soared under Obamacare and Democrats stepped in to pass massive subsidies that pay a fortune to insurance companies without doing anything to correct the underlying problems.
The shocking increase in costs under Obamacare should galvanize a nation in seeking a major overhaul without delay. Health care is now unaffordable for many. Yet, that desperation is political gold for many in dangling subsidies before voters as an inducement to return them to power.
With the midterm elections approaching, Congress is about to repeat the same pay-now-worry-later approach. For some, the directions may even be reassuring. As Obamacare craters, it will become increasingly difficult to return to a market-driven system. Instead, many Democratic members want a single national health care system or a Medicaid-like system for all.
It does not matter that the UK is struggling with its own system to provide basic care, and NBC is describing the UK system as “broken.”
With the threat of the Democrats taking over the House in the midterms and producing gridlock in Washington, it is unlikely that the GOP can remain firm and unified on creating an alternative. Some will join Democratic members admitting that Obamacare failed, but this is not the time to correct the problem. Instead, we will pour more money into a broken system and kick the can down the road.
Clearly, England (whatever that is, anymore) needs to look to the US as a model of healthcare civilization. Yes, the US where injured and seriously diseased people literally flee ambulance and paramedics services out of fear of being bankrupted by them. Obamamania institutionalized capitalist healthcare (sic), as the enforced subjugation of health to the mean streets of profiteering is the crown jewel of Queen Michele Obama, millionaire health insurance executive.
“It’s the [freedom], stupid!”
– James Carville
___________________
Private-property free-enterprise industries functioning in the free markets of the private sector generate the best product at the lowest price.
KH the “capitalist” system you rant about is the only system that has Ever worked.
One of the things you left wing nuts do not seem to ever grasp is that Big Business DOES NOT WANT free markets.
Absolutely Obamacare was rigged – EVERY system created by govenrment will ALWAYS be rigged.
If it is not rigged by “Big Business” – and that will be near impossible to overcome, it will be rigged by some other interest group.
An actual free market CAN NOT BE RIGGED. Since it si actually a free market – all efforts to rig it provide the oportunity for someone else to undercut efforts to rig it and profit.
Look arround you – since the rise of actual free markets the standard of living of humans has increased at an exponential rate.
Humans spent nearly 1M years trying to increase standard of living enough to support villages.
We were lucky to see a 1% improvement in the human condition in 1000 years – much less the 3% was saw in 2025 and the 4+% that is likely in 2025.
Look arround further – What works ? What does not ?
Pick all the things in your life. What is more expensive today than 20, 40, 60 years ago ?
90% of your life is MORE affordable today than 20, 40, 60 years ago.
In 1965 Sears advertised a toaster for 19.95. Today I can get a toaster at Walmart for $12.99.
Many things cost less today in nominal dollars (before accounting for inflation).
EVERYTHING that is not heavily entangled with govenrment is cheaper in REAL (inflation adjusted) dollars.
But you need not trust data on inflation – it is trivial to work out the changes in cost yourself.
How many hours would you have had to work to buy a $19.99 toaster in 1965 ? How many hours today ?
Just about everything is cheaper today than it was 20, 40, 60 years ago.
What are the exceptions ? Universally the more heavily entangled government is in something the more expensive it is.
This should not be surprising. Coases law determined 70 years ago that bargaining is the most efficient way to provide goods and services, that the use of force – AKA government automatically and obviously makes things MORE expensive.
While this post trashes socialism – and deservedly so, the problem is not specific to socialism.
The problem is that government is ALWAYS an added cost. Socialism is just one of many economic systems that always fail – they fail because more govenrment means more cost and less efficiency.
More government means lower increases in standard of living.
For the past 75 years study after after study has found EVERYWHERE that the optimal size of govenrment is smaller than whatever the govenrment conducting the study has.
Universally it has been found that for every 10% of GDP that govenrment consumes the rate of improvement in standard of living declines 1%.
Those on the left like to rant about fascism – but fascism is the antithesis of free markets.
Musollini the father of fascism defined fascism as
Everything in government
nothing outside govenrment
nothing against government.
Fascism is just socialism where the FORCE is overt. Socialism by men with guns.
John Say, that $19.95 toaster in 1965 from Sears Roebuck was solidly built and might still be working today. If it had issues, it was worth getting it repaired. Today’s $12.99 toaster from Wal*Mart is probably a piece of junk from the get-go, won’t last all that long, and rather than get it repaired, when broken, would be trashed since a new one would be cheaper to get than repair the existing one.
“John Say, that $19.95 toaster in 1965 from Sears Roebuck was solidly built and might still be working today. If it had issues, it was worth getting it repaired. ”
Myth.
Find me a 1965 Toaster still working. But yes a 1965 toaster was more repairable – because the minimum wage in 1965 was 1.25 – that means that it cost 2 days of MW labor to buy the toaster – and you could afford to pay $5 or 4 hrs of MW labor to repair it.
Today the Toaster requires 2hr of MW labor to buy and if it was repairable would not be worth repairing – because it would take more than 2hrs of labor to repair it.
I would further note that often the things that purportedly made the 1965 more repairable ACTUALLY made it more expensive and more fragile. As one example – the 1965 Toaster was screwed together the 2025 one is riveted – Rivets are MUCH cheaper than screws they also work better, and last longer but they are much more expensive to repair.
But that does not matte r- because no one is going to pay for 2hrs of labor to repair a toaster you can buy new for less.
Not even if it is EASILY repairable.
Absolutely we increasingly have a “throw away” culture. Why ? Because it makes m,ore economic sense for a country with a high standard of living. I am sure you can find people in Bangeledesh who will repair your walmart Toaster today. That is because the standard of living is lower and therefore 2hrs of time to repair a $13 toaster is worth it – because buying it new would cost 7hrs of labor.
in 1965 we also repaired Ball Point pens. Today if your pen does not work – you throw it out – because you can get a 10 pack for a $1.
“Today’s $12.99 toaster from Wal*Mart is probably a piece of junk from the get-go,”
Pretty much false. Throughout the world Manufacturing nearly universally is required to conform to ISO 9001 standards – that is a PRIVATE standard and compliance is private. US and EU companies do not buy parts of products from companies that can not meet the standard.
That standard requires a proven maximum 6 sigma defect rate – that is 3.5 defective units out of every Million produced.
That is the NORM globally for production. No Company anywhere in 1965 could come close to 6 Sigma.
“rather than get it repaired, when broken, would be trashed since a new one would be cheaper to get than repair the existing one.”
Correct. So long as our standard of living is high inexpensive products will NEVER be worth repairing.
That has nothing to do with the quality of the product and everything to do with the price of labor.
It is very rare that we repair something we can buy new cheaper.
It is very rare that is a wise choice.
The economic rule of thumb for cost to repair versus replacing is 50%.
Additionally, if you want to evaluate cost of 1965 money against today 2025 you need to look at the value of a 1965 dollar against today’s 2025 value. Hint: A gallon of gas in 1965 was .18 to .22 cents, a starter home was $45,000, a new car was $4,000 and a small bottled coke was .25 cents.
The blood sucking money mongers figured out that if parts were cheap people would repair, if parts were expensive they would buy new.
Relativity
“if you want to evaluate cost of 1965 money against today 2025 you need to look at the value of a 1965 dollar against today’s 2025 value.”
You can do that if you want – but it is actually highly inaccurate – though it usually produces similar result to what I did above.
Price goods from different time periods in hours of labor needed to buy them.
That is the absolutely perfectly accurate way to compare two different time periods.
Inflation figures are not calculated consistently over time, and equally important you can not add inflation figures.
“Hint: A gallon of gas in 1965 was .18 to .22 cents, a starter home was $45,000, a new car was $4,000 and a small bottled coke was .25 cents.”
according to DOE the price of gas in 1965 was .30 and that is close to what I remember.
But again the accurate comparison is that the hours at the average wage need to purchase.
In 1975 the average wage was 2.75 that means you could buy 10gal of gas for an hours work.
The average hourly wage in 20205 was 31.75 – which means that you can buy 10gal of gas for an hours work.
“The blood sucking money mongers figured out that if parts were cheap people would repair”
Nope – the primary costs for repairs – or nearly anything is labor.
If a toaster could be repaired in 1965 with 2 hrs work – that is $4.50 plus parts.
If todays toaster takes 2hrs to repair – that is 63.50 – nobody is going repair the toaster.
BTW it will ALWAYS be true that as standard of living rises – repairing will be less and less economical.
If you could send your toaster to China to get it repaired – it would only cost $10
If you could send it to Bangeledesch – the cost to repair would be $.20
And a $13 toaster would be a luxury item requiring 3 weeks wages to purchase.
“if parts were expensive they would buy new.”
It is never parts costs that are determinative.
I would further note that even parts costs are really determined by labor.
It is not the manufacturing cost for a part that matters it is the cost to deliver it to you.
John,
“In 1965 Sears advertised a toaster for 19.95. Today I can get a toaster at Walmart for $12.99”
In 1965 that toaster was made in America and likely would still be working today.
Today the Walmart toaster is made in China and will be lucky to be working in 10 year.
As to Coase:
“In his 1960 paper, Coase specified the ideal conditions under which the theorem could hold and then also argued that real-world transaction costs are rarely low enough to allow for efficient bargaining. Hence, the theorem is almost always inapplicable to economic reality but is a useful tool in predicting possible economic outcomes.”
Coase argued that his THEORY was almost always inapplicable to economic reality.
I suppose you got the Cliff’s Notes version and didn’t read all of that either.
I”n 1965 that toaster was made in America and likely would still be working today.
Not a chance.
“In his 1960 paper, Coase specified the ideal conditions under which the theorem could hold and then also argued that real-world transaction costs are rarely low enough to allow for efficient bargaining. Hence, the theorem is almost always inapplicable to economic reality but is a useful tool in predicting possible economic outcomes.”
Incorrect – his argument was that if transaction costs(economic friction) were low – bargaining would always produce optimal results – that is NOT hypothetical – it is REAL.
You are correct that in 1960 transaction costs were more significant than they are today in MOST cases.
Coases law was still applicable – not hypothetical. But in SOME instance transaction costs (economic friction) would weaken the advantage to free market bargaining.
It is NOT 1960. With very few exceptions transaction costs are many orders of magnitude lower today – totally unsurprising.
Rising standard of living ALWAYS means rising efficiency.
Today I can go into a grocery story wave my purchases infront of a scanner and then wave a payment instrument – my phone or a debit or credit card and everything is complete.
We are seeing experiments where you go into a grocery store and the goods are scanned and tallied as you put them inyour cart – without you doing anything, and you can just push the cart out the door to pay.
In everything you do today – transaction costs are orders of magnitude lower today than in 1960 and without any doubt they will be even lower in the future. Bitcoin or other digital currencies clear transactions in seconds, – your debit card typically takes hours, and credit cards take days. As a result there is $2T PER DAY in credit tied up in digital transactions. This is why the credit card companies are fighting a losing war against Crypto – they Make interest on that $2T in credit they extend every day. Reduce the transaction time to seconds and you will free up $2T in investment to go elsewhere.
Regardless, the point is that transaction costs are far lower than in 1960 and they are only declining.
So the discepancy between Coases law and “the real world” is a tiny fraction today of what it was in 1960.
There are exceptions – there are somethings were reducing transaction costs are very hard.
That is everything having to do with govenrment.
With govenrment in most instances inefficiency is a means of reducing corruption. Regardless we do not WANT government to be efficient. The Nazi’s are the example of efficient govenrment.
But that also means even more so than ever before – we do not want Government to be involved in the economy.
Because govenrment must be inefficient to avoid corruption. That is in addition to the fact that doing anything via FORCE is always less efficient than by agreement.
ATS
“The Coase Theorem is a simple proposition-in the absence of transaction costs, a Pareto optimal result will occur regardless of the initial placement of legal liability. ”
As you correctly observe “transaction costs” are the real world variable that can determine whether optimal results are acheived.
In the “Real world” Transaction costs are KNOWABLE. Therefore the deviation from optimal results is knowable – transaction costs are a linear coefficient – so there effect on optimal results is not only knowable – but EASILY knowable and calculable.
BTW Coases theorum is an economic law – just like the laws of supply and demand – meaning it is mathematically provable.
Just as Relativity is a theory.
Your argument pretends – like most left wing nuts that Coase can be ignored – because since transaction costs have a linear effect on the efficiency of outcomes that we can just ignore them entirely. That is like saying that because newtons laws do not work as we approach the speed of light we can just toss Newton completely.
The FACT is that outside of a few things like space travel, nearly every single bit of “:the real world” that humans experience everyday behaves perfecting in accordance with Newtons laws.
Absolutely if you are a cosmologist or otherwise dealing with the 99.9999999999999999999999% of the universe that is not humans on earth – Newton will likely give you the wrong answer. Of course the problem with newton’s law is that the error is exponential – not linear.
Therefore it is miniscule in the “real world” of humans but gargantuan in the cosmology of the universe.
But the discrepancy between the real world and Coase is linear and dependent on transaction costs.
And both as a matter of direct real world observation and as a matter of the reqiuirements fvor rising standard of living transaction costs are declining – in most cases to NEAR ZERO.
What you think is a problem in Coases law was trivially addressable in 1960, and is so small in most cases in 2025 that it can be ignored entirely.
Again I would note that Coases law is actually as immutable as the laws of supply and demand – which is the most immutable laws of economics.
At their core ALL laws of economics are just patterns of human behavior.
Socialism and communism would actually work if human behavior was not driven by self interests.
But in the REAL WORLD they are.
The laws of supply and demand do NOT say that every single human on earth will respond exactly the same to changes in supply or to prices. What they say is that in Agregate humans will ALWAYS respond to increases in demand with higher prices followed by increases in supply and lower prices.
You can find counter examples where a few people do not respond accordingly – but 99.9% of people will.
I would further note that Coases law and the laws of supply and demand are inherently linked. It is near certain that you can mathematically derive the last of supply and demand from coases law – and visa versa
In my entire life I have never read the “Cliff notes” version of anything.
I read Coase Directly. He is extremely easy to read, you should try
Kevin, how does one provide a sustainable patient-centered healthcare system that excludes capitalism?
How does one provide a sustainable public education system?
How does one provide a sustainable public highway system?
How does one provide a sustainable national defense system?
How does S. Meyer come up with questions that are easily answered by existing examples?
“How does one provide a sustainable public education system?”
Apparently, the writer was taught in a failed public school system and never learned how to think. Are the costs for public education going up? Yes. Is the public education system failing our kids? Yes. That means it is not sustainable.
“How does one provide a sustainable public education system? That excludes capitalism” – you can’t.
The cost of public education (as well as govenrment subsidized college education) has been increasing steadily and the quality has been declining steadily since the 60’s. What we have in unsustainable – the only question is how many bandaides are we could to put on and how much money are we going to waste before it fails.
“How does one provide a sustainable public highway system? – there is alot wrong with out public highways system, but fundimentally large portions of it are still free market. Government does not build roads, it just pays for them.
Our public highway system is sub optimal to a purely private system, but because of the heavy elements of free markets it is inefficeint but sustainable. There are significant amounts of rent seeking and corruption – but we have centuries of experience with that and again it results in inefficiency – everything related to govenrnment is and MUST be inefficient, which is why we should do as little as possible through govenrment. Regardless. atleast in the short term our national defense is sustainable.
‘
“How does one provide a sustainable national defense system?” Again similar to the highway system – significant portions of national defense are provided by free markets – or atleast freeish ones.
“How does S. Meyer come up with questions that are easily answered by existing examples?”
Except you did not answer them with existing examples that met the criteria he specified.
He explicitly required an example of a sustainable system that did not include capitalism.
You provided 3 examples – one of which is unsustainable and two of which are inefficient ALL OF WHICH include capitalism.
Kevin Hornbuckle,
Long before Obama was out of high school, my uninsured neighbor left the hospital ER rather than be admitted following a heart attack. He eventually got bypass surgery through a charity fund at the local hospital.
Michelle Obama has never been a health insurance executive.
The closest:
“In 1996, Obama served as the associate dean of student services at the University of Chicago, where she developed the university’s Community Service Center. In 2002, she began working for the University of Chicago Hospitals, first as executive director for community affairs and, beginning May 2005, as vice president for community and external affairs.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Obama#Career
Socialism failed compared to what? The US health care system has horrible outcomes compared to the rest of the developed world. If you aren’t rich you get crummy care. Health corporations extract money for doing nothing while forcing doctors to treat people in small visits. I had a bad spinal injury and heart failure. I’d be dead if I hadn’t gone to Guatemala. In the US they wanted to do robot surgery ($60K minimum) on me with no guarantees. In Guatemala I got the topline crisis doctors at the cost of a US copay. They warned me against an operation and I got physical therapy in my home with a sophistication unseen in the US for $20/hour. It cured me in 6 months. I was dying and now I am in better health than when I was 15 years younger.
Presumably, you’re writing this from Guatemala???
I hear Guatemala is nice this time of year.
Enjoy, amigo.
There’s your answer: Get rich and stop the b—-.
Where is the nation and government that was voluntarily created to serve the poor?
That was Karl Marx’s nonviable idiocy, manifested most prominently in 1917 Russia.
Forgive me for not believing a word you say.
The US health care system has horrible outcomes compared to the rest of the developed world.
That may be true now, but if it is true now, it wasn’t before Obama deliberately took away our health care insurance plans and doctors that he lied to use we could keep.
An anonymous commie Democrat – lyin’ Like A Biden that he would have shorter wait times to see a specialist cardiologist to assess him regarding heart failure in the UK or Canada as compared to the USA. And so, this commie Democrat abandoned the communist Obamacare plan he voted for and supported to use his excess income to be able to fly to Guatemala, to buy his way into healthcare there.
So you went to Guatemala for Free market healthcare, and your conclusion is that socialism works ?
The US healthcare system and the US education system are “socialism lite”
And the failures in the US are directly attributable to the involvement of government in healthcare.
I would further note that Healthcare is not all that complex.
In the past century+ 3 changes have raised global life expectance from 45 years in developed countries to nearly 80 in the bottom of the third world.
Those changes are all CHEAP.
Antiseptics,
Antibiotics,
and IV Fluids.
All the myriads of other advances in healthcare have had negligable impact on life expectance.
almost 2 decades ago my Mother got terminal cancer. Incredibly expensive drugs prolonged her life and the quality of that life by almost a year. But NOTHING was going to save her. She was in and out of the hospital repeatedly during that year. When she was in the Hospital she was in a special Cancer wing. She had a private suite, Marble floors, wood paneled walls, Two Entertainment systems – one in almost a separate room where family could be with her, they could eat, they could watch TV separate from her, they could even sleep in the room with her.
She had ONE nurse at a station outside her room monitoring her 100% of the time.
NONE of this increased her life span. But it ALL increased the quality of her last year of life.
And it was all incredibly expensive.
And that is the REAL difference between Healthcare in the US and Guatemala or much of the rest of the world.
The US has nearly the least healthy population in the world. We do not get enough excercise, we eat too much and badly, we have double the rate of diabetes of the rest of the world. Most of us make the worst health choices in the world. Yet our life expectance is near the top of the world ? That is also why our Healthcare is expensive.
This article compares the US to the UK – the People in the UK also live unhealthily as does much of the west, though the US still takes the prize for least healthy living. The UK has comparable interventions to the US and comparable results in life expectance.
But in the UK – wait times for treatment are far longer. And when you get Treatment – though the Medical treatment is about as good. Again – the whole world has IV fluids, antiseptics and antibiotics. The Quality of life aspects of the treatment are FAR lower than the US. Unless your care is not through NHS – you are likely on a Ward with other patients and nurses and staff shared with many patients.
If your goal is getting people healthy – the results are about the same as the US.
But if you are looking to enjoy as much as possible the time you must spending in the healthcare system – the US provides better than anywhere else in the world – AT GREAT COST.
But then luxury healthcare comes with luxury cost- except in an actual free market – where what is a luxury today is an affordable choice for everyone tomorow.
Do not forget sanitation, which is number one by far.
Antispetics are “sanitation”
I was thinking of things like sewers, clean water, and waste removal. They were number one, but antiseptics (handwashing) is a good addition. I think the second biggest is vaccines, followed by antibiotics. Antibiotics save huge numbers that are very sick, but most people are in another category.
A few diseases are suitable for vaccines. They have low rates of mutation and the antibodies from the vaccines last a lifetime.
The good news is those are some of the deadliest diseases of the past 5 centuries.
But all diseases are not suitable for vaccines. Many of us learned that from Covid. Unfortunately others are unable to learn.
That BTW is a clear sign of a low IQ – I do not car what your degree is or how educated you are if you can not make real world observations and draw obvious conclusions – you are not very intelligent.
I had great hopes of the Covid Vaccine. I fully expected we would have it in 6 months not 4 years.
But I also knew from very early on that it needed to be 99% effective and have a half life of atleast 2 decades.
Instead it has a 97% effectiveness and a 6-18 month half life.
That was not good enough and would likely result in exactly what we got – Covid becoming endemic.
The good news is that nature saved us – not govenrment, and covid mutated into something relatively harmless.
Regardless we should not engage in the idiotic mindless binary thinking of the left.
Some vaxxines are extremely beneficial in SOME cases.
Everything can not be vaxxinated against and many things that can we can not tryuly do so effectively.
Nor are vaccines harmless. In some instances the benefits greatly outweight the risks – but not in most cases.
And that is why we only have a few successful vaccines.
What you say is mostly correct, but what you say doesn’t move vaccines from the number 2 spot.
What knocks vaccines pretty far down on the list is that Life expectance at birth rose to near 80 Before significant use of Vaccines.
Everything else I mentioned was implimented by WWII and is therefor responsible for the increase in life expectance that occured shortly after.
Since approx. 1960 we have NOT seen the same rate of increases in life expectance at birth.
We have had massive increases in medical technology – and I am not trying to pi$$ on that.
But we are spending ever more for ever less return – ASSUMING that the goal is greater life expectance at the cheapest possible cost.
The FACT is that it is not. Much ofthe newer expensive improvements in healthcare have minimal impact on life expectance.
But significant impact on Quality of life.
Watch TV or movies that show hospitals in the 60’s or in India or China or even the EU or UK.
Then compare them to hospitals in the US today.
Most of us do not pay attention – but most of the BBC police series I watch periodically show victims in hospitals.
If you are not paying attention – you do not see any difference.
But if you pay a bit of attention – you notice that what you see is typically wards – with 6-12 beds – not dual or single occupancy rooms as in the US.
My wife just had thyroid surgery – the prep and recovery rooms for an outpatient fascility were better equipped than the ICU’s that I see in EU police procedurals.
This has minuscule impact on life expectancy.
Just as You can spend the night at the sleepy hollow motel or the helmsley Palace – both will give you a place to sleep, a TV and a bathroom. But the cost and quality are radically different.
US Healthcare is expensive – because it is luxury care.
I am fine with that – so long as the people receiving the care are paying for it, or paying for the insurance that delivers that care.
I am not OK with govenrment providing people with luxuries.
“What knocks vaccines pretty far down on the list is that Life expectance at birth rose to near 80 Before significant use of Vaccines”
Life expectancy at birth never approached 80 before vaccination was widespread. Infant and childhood mortality, which vaccines directly prevent, kept the average lifespan far lower than that. You could add better nutrition to the list. While many medical advances increased lifespan, they were not the primary determinants of life expectancy, though, as you note, they have greatly improved the quality of life.
“ASSUMING that the goal is greater life expectance at the cheapest possible cost.”
It is my opinion that healthcare costs can be reduced by 30-50% relatively quickly by reducing or ending government control, without an effect on the triad of cost, quality, and access.
The US healthcare system today is not the most socialist in the world.
But the US have not had a free market in most of healthcare for 60 years.
US Healthcare is quasi socialist.
Your healed praise on Guatemala. I know little about Guatemalan healthcare.
But the failures you identified in the US system are the consequences of our Quasi socialism – not free markets.
I would further note that I had a slightly similar experience to you in the US.
My right shoulder locked up. It was painful to move, I had very limited range of motion.
My orthepedic surgeon perscribed Surgery and 6 months of PT.
That worked and I have near full range of motion and no pain.
A year after my right should was fixed my left shoulder locked up. My PT told me quietly to skip the Surgery, and I went straight to PT. My left shoulder was fixed by PT faster than my right.
Wherever you are you can get good and bad advice.
Democrats caused the problem. Democrats excerbated the problem with extensions. Democrats have no solutions. Democrats demand to keep excerbateing the problem with more extensions. Democrats promise to.fix the problem this time if you just vote for them.
Solution: Government assisted suicide. Please kill yourself to keep healthcare costs down! What a plan!
Trump had a better, cheaper plan than Obamacare around 9 years ago. A year ago that had eroded to having a concept of a plan.
The Republicans have no solutions at all.
Dear Prof Turley,
The UK is a cautionary tale of unrestrained capitalism and untrammeled corruption .. . Starmer seems determined to spend all their money (and Russian sovereign wealth!) defeating Russia in Ukraine while his subjects cue for healthcare in a dilapidated, outdated Royal infirmary.
Obviously, excessively centralized economies don’t work. Unrestrained ‘capitalism’ is a perversion of the ‘free market’ and health care innovation. That’s the cautionary tale for the U.S. – a vast, unregulated maze of healthcare ‘providers’ all competing for the ‘common dollar’. .. 2025 est. 30% of total U.S. budget for a pig in the poke.
I’m convinced the free market .. . along with free speech, sweet baby Jesus, the Hippies, Rock&Roll, free sex and Rap music is what will Make America Great Again.
Apparently, our main ‘competitors’ are China, most BRICS countries and the rest of the world.
*prove me wrong.
Responses are not what is required.
Being demonstrably correct in proper behavior is.
Start by being the honorable person you were created to be.
We are born to be without sin and thus absolved of any potential transgessions.
alfred
“The UK is a cautionary tale of unrestrained capitalism and untrammeled corruption”
ROFL
“Obviously, excessively centralized economies don’t work.”
No ANY government involvement in the economy beyond the basic rule of law.
Prohibitions against the use of force, or fraud, as well as enforcing agreements are ALL that is necescary.
There is massive amounts of economic data to prove this.
” Unrestrained ‘capitalism’ is a perversion of the ‘free market’ and health care innovation.”
I have no idea what you are talking about – and I doubt YOU do.
There are 3 necescary social contract restrictions on the Free market.
The punishment of the use of force – criminal law
Punishing those who do not live up to their agreements – contracts law.
Requiring those who harm others to make them whole – tort law.
This is ALL that is necescary – not just for optimal free markets, but for consistantly rising standard of living.
Further all of these are A posteriori – After the fact. We Punish the use of Force to get your way – AFTER you use it.
All a priori govenrment regulation is harmful to all of us.
” That’s the cautionary tale for the U.S. – a vast, unregulated maze of healthcare ‘providers’ all competing for the ‘common dollar’. .. 2025 est. 30% of total U.S. budget for a pig in the poke.”
Clearly you know nothing about what you are talking about.
The US has one of the most regulated healthcare systems in the world.
If you think we have unregulated healthcare – Please get into providing healthcare – you should easily be able to make a killing undercutting the existing market.
You can ALWAYS tell when you do not have an actual free market. How ?
Because in Free markets prices ALWAYS decline over the long run.
Please provide ANYTHING where “real prices” have increased in the US – EVER over a period of atleast a decade that did not involve government ? ANY example ?
Chicken wings
KFC 15 peice in 1965 3.50 MW 1965 1.25 or just less than 3 hrs work to buy the bucket.
KFC Dunkit Bucket Combo 2025 $12.00 MW 2025 7.25 or just more than 2 hrs MW work to buy the bucket.
The price of raw wings, once difficult to sell, became a hot seller when properly marketed from around 50 cents a pound to over $3. That price rise wasn’t due to the government. It was due to the free market.
I can not find “wings” prices from 1965 – the KFC bucket is full Chicken peices. Like drumsticks and thighs.
Wendy’s has a 50 peice chicken nugget deal today for $15.
I regularly buy the value meal at just about even FF joint, That is a burger, fries, a drink and 4 nuggets for $5.
small fries a burger and a drive in 1965 would have cost $0.75 – no nuggets. The $5 meal costs the same in real dollars, and included Nuggets.
BTW this gets much worse if you price by average wage rather than Minimum wage.
The average hourly wage in 1965 was 2.55, the average hourly wag in 2025 is 31.76
John,
No matter how much you post, Turley isn’t giving you any extra credit points for the semester. Pay more attention in his classes.
Here again, Americans enjoy the freedom of the Constitution.
Article 1, Section 8, provides Congress the power to tax for ONLY debt, defense, and general welfare.
Article 1, Section 8, does not enumerate any power of Congress to regulate healthcare, which is not general.
General welfare does not include national healthcare.
The general public, or the whole of the citizenry, does not require general or the same types of physical care and attention; it requires specific, individual, and particular treatment.
General welfare does not include at least 250 non-general, particular, individual, specific, separate, and distinct clinical healthcare professional sub-industries.
Americans enjoy private property and free enterprise to be conducted in the free markets of the private sector.
Scientists conduct basic science, and doctors, who are scientists, conduct healthcare provision freely and privately.
Congress enjoys no power by the Constitution to tax for, fund, operate, or regulate the science or healthcare industries.
Free market competition generates the best product at the lowest price.
A system of courts is provided by the Constitution for citizens to obtain redress.
That the communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) among you crave power and desire the imposition of their dictatorship does not bear.
Communism did not exist in the Constitution when it was adopted, and communism does not exist in the Constitution now.
Volunteer fire departments and volunteer police way back when. When fire insurance first came on board the fire department checked for insurance before putting out a fire.
No insurance it burned and then the house next door went down etc sort of like the catastrophic fires in California. Inept gubment had no water in the reservoirs. Who pays? They’re honored by reelection instead and maybe promoted.
Guess where current jobs growth is. Health care. We’re funding it with only the best money can buy to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Fires catch your house on fire too but how does the health of others impact others? Express that as real harm.
Why extend the subsidies when the policies can be downgraded instead?
California has the answers.. First tax billionaires 5% of their assets, a wealth tax not an income tax, when you get that later extended it to everyone except wealthy politians..
Maybe Mr. Turely will expound on the Constitutionality of.a wealth tax soon?
The constitutionality of a Wealth Tax is irrelevant.
CA is hemoraging wealth – and this is why.
Nations and states ALSO compete in essentially free markets.
In fact the relationship of nations to each other is an example of Functioning Anarcho-capitalism
and it has worked for as long as we have had govenrment.
But the fact that we have a free market in governments means that Capital ill flow where it is best treated.
CA can enact whatever taxes it wishes – and the people of CA can decide if they wish to continue to live there.
Because Guess what ? Just as people are capable of deciding whether they want a $5 McDonalds Hamburger or the $2 on one the Value meal or the $19 one they can get at Texas Roadhouse, they are also capable of deciding whether the value in living in CA is worth the cost – such as the cost of a Wealth tax.
I can argue Why Wealth taxes are the worst possible form of taxation and the stupidest.
But sometimes People need to learn from their mistakes.
Regardless addressing Wealth taxes.
A wealth tax is a tax on investment.
Musk is estimate to be worth $3/4T – do you think he has 750B in diamonds and gold watches ?
Where is 99% of Musks wealth ? It is invested. Musk is one of the most successful investors in history.
His personal networth (and in fact that of EVERYONE) increases as a result of investment choices that BENEFIT OTHERS.
Musk is making money selling electric cars – no one else has made money selling electric cars.
Musk is making money sending things into space. NASA has cost Billions a year for 70 years.
Musk has reduced the cost of puting things into space by a factor of 100 AND made money doing it.
And driven everyone else’s prices down.
Wealth is incvested and that is exactly what we want.
^^^. Upgrade the language to get an understanding of globalization. 3rd world countries are now called developing countries or emerging economies or markets or emerging countries such as India.
It couches that in language with India is the 5th largest economy in the world. Sounds good until its 5th largest poverty economy in the world. The old standard were capitalism as 1st world, communist such as soviets 2nd world then came 3rd worlds. Most nations lived in the 3rd world.
Now they’re taking down the 1st world. People have noticed. They’ve destroyed the US, the UK, Europe. Communism so everyone can be mediocre. Odd isn’t it.
It’s fraught with dishonesty. It’s ignorant and filthy. It was the welfare system that helped as people learned to game the system.
It is hard to decipher what you are addressing ?
Nearly the entire world has improved dramatically over the past 60 years – and NOT through welfare.
The average # of calories eaten per day globally has more than doubled.
While the world population has doubled,
and the land used for agriculure has been reduced in half.
So we are growing 8 times as much food per acre today as 60 years ago,
and that food costs less.
Starvation today ONLY occurs as a result of politics and war.
In 1965 the nuns in school had us all putting Nickels in milk cartons for the millions of starving children in Bangelesch. Today the left rails because a few people die in a factory fire in Bangeledesh.
Working conditions should improve, but eliminating starvation si a far more important accomplishment.
All the improvements globally are the result of the same thing – the Failure and rejection of socialsm.
We do not have fully free countries in India and China and the rest of the “developing world”.
But we have far more economic freedom than 60 years ago, and the result has been the fastest rate of improvement in standard of living in all of human history.
India and China and … are NOT at the standard of living of the US – or even close.
But their standard of living has skyroketed over the past 60 years.
They accomplished those gains by SOME abandonment of socialism.
We should learn from them – not because they are better that we are, but to find out why that have been catching up so fast.
Regardless economics is NOT zero sum.
The benefits of more free markets int he developing world are not confined to the developing world.
The US benefits by being able to buy lower cost products from China and India and …
And the US benefits because as the standard of living in India, and China and … means they can buy more from the US raising our standard of living.
And your citation of the Constitution is?
When fire insurance first came on board the fire department checked for insurance before putting out a fire.
Things.That.Never.Happened.
Imagine way back when, before modern dispatch systems, where fire departments whether paid or volunteer, had instantaneous access to determine whether you had fire insurance and whether it was current? It was in a Rolodex beside their rotary dial telephones above where the Dalmatian fire dogs slept?
AND, tort lawyers were yet to be invented who would sue a fire department for not providing fire service despite the home owner paying municipal taxes to pay that service?
Tort lawyers didn’t exist who would sue that fire department on behalf of nearby home owners because their homes were damaged/burned because the fire department allowed the first house to burn?
Might have happened in one or two volunteer fire halls in America. Not impossible, but essentially a lie to use as an extremely poor metaphor.
” fire departments whether paid or volunteer, had instantaneous access to determine whether you had fire insurance and whether it was current?”
I’m not claiming that the original poster was correct in his assertion about letting an uninsured house burn – I very much suspect he was not. However, in the late 19th and early 20th century, insurers did issue small, stamped sheet metal placards intended to be affixed to the exterior of a house, that attested to insurance coverage. We live in an late 19th century house in a small town, and there was one of those laying around in the basement.
Fire departments issued those, not insurance companies.
” As Obamacare craters, it will become increasingly difficult to return to a market-driven system. Instead, many Democratic members want a single national health care system or a Medicaid-like system for all.
It does not matter that the UK is struggling with its own system to provide basic care, and NBC is describing the UK system as “broken.” …
” Instead, we will pour more money into a broken system and kick the can down the road.” -JT
It is not just the Healthcare System(s), its Capitalism that’s broken, and it is bursting out around the World. The threat your Children face is no longer an “existential threat”, its a real ‘clear and present danger’. GenZ knows it and is reacting to it.
Wall Street Week | Rattner’s trip to China, Nepal’s Gen-Z Uprising, Capitalism 4.0, Succession Cliff
This week, Willett Advisors’ Steven Rattner says China’s innovation is surging even as its consumers struggle, and warns that US trade policies won’t slow Beijing down. The real solution, he says, is doing better at home. And, a close look at the social media spark that ignited Nepal’s biggest youth-led protests in decades, toppling the government and revealing the power of perception in global uprisings against inequality. Plus, has capitalism lost its way, or is a new version already emerging? Later, a wave of retirements is reshaping America’s local businesses – succession planning could open opportunities for owners and private markets.
By: David Westin – Bloomberg Wall Street Week ~ December 6th 2025
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-12-06/wall-street-week-rattner-on-china-nepal-s-revolution-video
Chapters: (significant sections in Bold)
00:00:00 – Steven Rattner on China
00:09:34 – Nepal’s Gen-Z Uprising
00:23:44 – Future of Capitalism
00:35:08 – Small Business Succession
00:47:21 – Sharma and Authers on Capitalism
Ref. Book:
Ruchir Sharma – Rockefeller International Chair
Author of “WHAT WENT WRONG WITH CAPITALISM”
https://annas-archive.org/md5/e1b4fc16239b90b791bf5244d246579a
Or you could read a book by on of the 4 greatest economists of the past century that actually knows what he is talking about.
How China Became Capitalist
R. Coase
https://www.amazon.com/How-China-Became-Capitalist-Coase/dp/1137351438
“The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else”
https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-Everywhere/dp/0465016154
John Say wrote: “Or you could read a book…”
Better to keep things simple for the intellectually challenged, John. I would recommend beginning with Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson” https://dn720704.ca.archive.org/0/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.350603/2015.350603.Economics-In.pdf
Hazlitt’s E1L is excellent – and available for free.
But Coase is one of the 4 greatest economists of the past century.
I would also note that “How China Became Capitalist” is actually an easier read than Hazlitt, and a better primer on economics using Post Mao China as an example.
Fortunately for me How China Became capitalist was cheap when I bought it, it is now pretty expensive.
Regardless there is a very very long list of other excellent literature on economics.
Adam Smiths Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations is 250 years old and is as solid today as ever.
The great foundational works of other disciplines – not to be downplayed have NOT held up as well as Smith.
Anything by Bastiat is excellent.
I, Pencil by Leonard read is excellent – and there are myriads of excellent youtube videos – as well as spin offs I, Toaster, I, Whiskey.
Hayek and Mises are also excellent. Hayek unlike Coase is NOT easy to read.
John, any economist that is “great” should have been a billionaire many times over. Since none of them are, it seems like there aren’t any economists who understand economies well enough to profit from their knowledge.
Someone doesn’t understand the differences between the goals and motivations of a theoretical economist (like Hazlitt) and an investor (like Buffett). Or is intentionally evading those differences.
.
“revealing the power of perception in global uprisings against inequality. ”
We can blame our common enemy, partisan and political social/MEDIA, for stoking those perceptions.
Social media can only amplify what already exists. No amount of reporting of Bigfoot sightings in Cleveland are going to convince people to worry about Bigfoot in Cleveland.
It’s also true that what already exists can be baseless. There’s a group that believe the Earth is flat. There are believers that Trump won the 2020 election. That sort of thing.
Social media merely makes things louder. It’s up to people to decide if what that is is real.
No Anonymous capitalism is not broken, it is responsible for taking billions out of abject poverty. What is broken is an education system that for decades now has been indoctrinating the youth of the world by leftists, socialists and communists teachers and professors. Those poor later generations that advocate for “equality” will suffer the consequences if they achieve their stupid aims. Socialist equality is everyone equally poor with only the ruling class enjoying the riches of their impoverished society
To: Vincrod says: December 27, 2025 at 1:28 PM
(I am not trying to make a counter-point)
Capitalism does not work with ‘equality’. It works by ‘inequality’, it must have it in order for it to flow, from “out of abject poverty” those that Have-Not > to > the those that Have. It is broken is the sense that We have reached the end, that there are no more sustainable-resources to distribute, hence wealth, that of a Nation, that of a Society has been completely captured* and capitalized increasingly into fewer and fewer hands as it comes to a pinnacle. The same goes for Socialist and Communist societies, etc. .
(* relative to the size of the Population – 8.x Billion Today)
So it is a natural expectation that the forthcoming Generation(s) Z… will rebel with dogma such as the ‘Fight for Equality’ a mythical utopia that is counter to the ideals of Capitalism. It’s unobtainable and unsustainable to work within a Capitalistic Forum. “Equality” is all but a symbol of Hope.
Jonathan is writing about the past 250 years, all the while Others are writing about will it survive the next 250 years. That’s highly questionable.
I digress;
Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his recent interview with David Rubenstein – 92ny.org, that they are preparing a Time Capsule to be opened in 250 years from now (yr. 2275). I cannot begin to believe that it will be relevant to what Earth will be by then – if in fact we survive ourselves. Capitalism, Socialism and Communism societies will have all evolved ~ “The only constant in life is change”. -ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus
Amen
At a time when we have 2 centuries of evidence that Free markets – in ANY form massively outperform ANYTHING else.
The left shills this nonsense about the failure of capitalism.
This is absolute utter nonsense and exists ONLY in the heads of left wing nuts.
While significant portions of the “rise of inequality” claim are nonsense and false.
They are also irrelevant and the fixation of the left on the deadly sin of Envy.
Does it matter if Musk has $3/4T or 10T or $100T
If YOUR standard of living continues to rise rapidly.
In the US and across the world we ALL live far better than every before.
My father’s socioeconomic status was higher than mine.
I have not “done as well”
But I have more wealth – all earned not inherited. I have more and better cars, a bigger nicer house.
Better furniture. I eat better, I live better.
In all ways my life is better than his.
My son and daughter are unlikely to be as successful as I have been, But they will live better than I.
My daughter recently bought her first house. It is 2-3 times as nice as what I could afford at her age.
If you are living well – and even the poor are living far better than 20, 40, 60 years ago.
Then Why the F#$K are you envious of what someone else might have ?
The crime of the left is that it have poisoned the souls of a generation of our children.
Instead of looking at how to make their own future better,
They are so consumed with envy that they seek to destory those who have done well – even if that makes their own lives worse.
John,
That “better house” of your daughter’s will take up a larger fraction of her income than yours did. It is likely to be more poorly built with appliances that fail in shorter amounts of time and may require either expensive proprietary maintenance components or run advertising on unrequired screens.
This may surprise you – people don’t look 100 years in the past to see that things are better now. They look at the guy who can spend a quarter billion dollars to gain access to all the data the government has on every American citizen, spending that is inconsequential to his standard of living.
Maligned or not, the woman who said “Let them eat cake” is where you are right now.
Capitalism is the movement of value from one place to another. To remove oil and coal from the ground and turn it into CO2 and transient energy, for example. The world is rapidly changing from where that level of movement is shifting from the individual with their new horse-drawn plow that allows their farm to better feed themselves to economic plows that gouge the wealth of the individuals to the benefit of the very wealthy.
It is rapidly approaching the case where as you reach for an item on the grocery store shelf, the store tracking checks your financial background and customizes the price just for you. Capitalism doesn’t exist to raise the living standard, it exists to maximize the disparity.
Abject poverty is 100% a relative proposition, one which is continuously redefined by the wealthy to separate themselves from the poor. Poverty is a simple proposition – does wealth accumulate or not. If a person or family has no more in savings or property at the end of each year, they are poor.
There’s a reason the billionaires are building bunkers on distant islands. They know that the scales they have tipped in their favor are approaching the time when those who have been mined for their wealth are going to want it back.
It is not Capitalism that is broken.
The gains accross the globe have all been due to the failure and rejection of socialism
The success of developing countries like China and India are specifically due to moving towards capitalism.
And the challenge they face in the future is that their economies and standard of living will stall or even move backward as the retrench towards socialism.
China’s growth from Maos death to Xi’s ascension has been phenomenal.
But Xi reflects a shift to actual fascism and growth is stalling in China.
China’s future can be bright or dim and that is dependant on whether China continues to embrace freedom.
That has not been the case under Xi and far more people are predicting a dark future for China as a result.
The solution is simple. Tax unhealthy food (read: carbs) and use the money to pay for free healthcare. McDonalds super-size meal with soda: pay big tax. Eat all the salad and sardines you want: tax free.
I am still mad that during Covid going to the grocery store to buy coke and twinkies was considered an essential service. If I have to wear a mask and keep 6 feet apart you should not be allowed to buy coke and twinkies.
Did you not actually read the article or ever study any history? Your “solution” to a failed socialist program is more socialism complete with taxes and regulations. You are clearly of the school of thought that believes “the beatings will continue until morale improves.” Socialism never brings prosperity, only shared misery. There is not a country of any size that has a socialized medical system that actually works.
Jeff MASON — France and Germany are of no size?
I’ve used medical services in both countries, just a few francs in France and free in Germany.
It depends on what the meaning of “works” is. If there are doctors providing services that result in people being healed or otherwise improved of some health condition, then that system works.
Are there 1st world nations with socialized health care where that is true? That there are no doctors? No hospitals? No medications of any kind?
Do you think the mine workers in West Virginia, participating in a capitalist system, dying in mine explosions and collapses, and paid in company scrip that was only spendable in company stores or for company housing, were happy? Were the American slaves participating in a capitalist system against their will happy?
The solution is really simple – Get rid of all the stupidity of people like you telling eveyone else who to fix things.
Actual free markets work.
Obamacare was just another of the “simple solutions” that were forced on us that failed.
The answer is to QUIT trying to force solutions on everyone and let people look for their own.
Eat all the sardines and salad that you want – and if your choice proves right you will live longer than the rest of us and can gloat.
But Where do you get off thinking you can FORCE others to impliment you supposedly Simple solution.
Obamacare hasn’t “failed.” Free markets work when participation is optional; healthcare is rarely optional.
Where do you get off thinking you can FORCE others to implement your supposedly Simple solution? Oh, the stupidity of people like you telling everyone else how to fix things.
You cannot get a post out without misspellings. Perhaps you are simply doing parody.
John,
Where do you get off thinking you can FORCE others to implement your supposedly Simple solution?
Getting rid of all the stupidity of people like you telling everyone else who to fix things is impossible, like getting rid of cockroaches. But you are an example that poor spelling is linked to poor reasoning.
The problem is not that someone should be allowed to buy Coke and Twinkies, but that the government interfered where it shouldn’t have.
The government needs to stop inspecting food and food production facilities and get out of the weights and measures business. If a gas station says it is pumping 1 gallon of gas, it should be up to the consumer to check that themselves. The government needs to get out of regulating health care as well. Anyone who wants to should be allowed to hang a shingle. Let patients decide what drugs they want to take and how much. No more public schools, federal highways, police departments, fire departments, or courts. This is taking jobs away from private companies.
I would never pay those taxes. My kitchen staff harvests a great deal of food from the vast greenhouses and the farming staff manage the livestock and butchering as required.
If you are wondering why we have so many foreign doctors it is because they trained in their socialized medicine countries then moved to America to work and actually make serious life changing money.
Many hope to eventually move home with the money needed to enter the specialties with modern equipment bought in America.
In the near term, they will have to pass the subsidies for ACA or medical costs will soar, more so than they already have.
But let us address the real issue: Just like the teachers union, the government send the subsidies to the insurance companies, the insurance companies raise costs and in order to keep the grift going, the insurance companies give campaign donations to Democrats who vote to keep the grift going.
Give the subsidies directly to the people in the form of Health Savings Accounts, tax deductible, cuts off the insurance companies grift. Allow people to pick and choose their healthcare and the free market will work it out.
“In the near term, they will have to pass the subsidies for ACA or medical costs will soar, more so than they already have.”
You are correct that if they do not pass the subsidies in the SHORT run costs will skyrocket.
But if they do pass the subsidies we will NEVER get past this problem.
If congress does NOTHING to “fix” the problem – prices will spike and soon enough COLLAPSE.
That is how free markets work. It is called the laws of supply and demand.
You can not fix the rising costs caused by subsidies with more subsidies.
In the long run you make it worse.
Nothing in an actual free market rising in costs over the long run. NOTHING.
You can tell how free a market is by looking at long term prices.
“But let us address the real issue: Just like the teachers union, the government send the subsidies to the insurance companies, the insurance companies raise costs and in order to keep the grift going, the insurance companies give campaign donations to Democrats who vote to keep the grift going.”
Mostly correct, and damn near impossible to thwart.
Contra those on the left – Big Businesses HATE free markets. Rent seeking is profitable, and a vicious circle. Businesses win, politicians win, and people lose, and then stupidly demand that government fix the problem – which they do by doing more of what caused the failure in the first place.
“Give the subsidies directly to the people in the form of Health Savings Accounts, tax deductible, cuts off the insurance companies grift.”
That is less bad. Regardless, Insurance prices will be set to consume the entirety fo the subsidy.
Further it does little to stop the rent seeking.
The money still ends up in the pockets of insurance companies.
Allow people to pick and choose their healthcare with their own money and the free market will work it out.
Bezos seized control of WaPo editorial board to make it less communist, so it does not represent the newsroom, only the new Bezos people. This is not the sea change that WaPo needs that can only come by breaking the Newspaper Guild’s control of the newsroom.
I suspect this comment will alienate several commenters here, but I just scanned thru the comments, and I do not see a single one mentioning OUR OWN PERSONAL ROLE and responsibility regarding our health AND health care.
I personally see two big drivers of health care insurance: One is the socialist “equal-healthcare-for-all” scheme, which de-incentivizes personal responsibility for keeping oneself healthy; and Two, (clearly related), is the nonchalant attitude toward our country’s HUGE problem with OBESITY.
“Obesity can lead to several serious health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, certain types of cancer, and sleep apnea. It can also contribute to joint problems and negatively impact mental health, such as increasing the risk of depression.” Mayo Clinic.
(You will note that the above diseases/conditions are the primary drivers of visits to clinics and hospitals, and HUGE drivers of pharmaceutical medications/panaceas.)
There was a time when insurers (for both life and health insurance) required a physical before proffering individual insurance rates.
After numerous discrimination and disparate impact lawsuits, they switched to a one-size-fits-all approach, causing healthy persons’ rates to go up, and unhealthy persons’ rates to drop.
Accordingly, despite being one of the most wealthy and developed nations in the world, the United States ranks 48, repeat, in 48th place, for life expectancy. https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
As long as OTHERs pay for our food and cover our costs when our DIETS and LIFESTYLES are the cause of our health problems, -we have no real incentive to improve. this will continue.
As to the socialist “equal-healthcare-for-all” scheme, another driver of costs: illegal immigration.
Blame it on Trump, says left-wing WBUR/NPR affiliate:
“In Lawrence, a mill community of around 90,000 people on the Merrimack River, where more than 80% of the population is Hispanic or Latino, Kesia Moreta said she’s already seeing people slip out of the state’s health care network because of the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to crack down on illegal immigration. Moreta, who manages a program created under the ACA that helps people sign up for coverage, said clients have been missing meetings out of fear that being enrolled for health insurance will harm their effort to stay in the U.S. legally.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/07/03/massachusetts-health-connector-aca-romneycare-spending-bill
——————————–
C’mon everyone. we can do better than this.
Let’s make REAL New Year’s commitments to get ourselves looking and feeling the best we can!
I SINCERELY WISH THIS FOR ALL OF YOU IN THE COMING YEAR! yours truly, lin.
apologies for length of this post.
Lin,
That is a very accurate analysis. MAHA is not just a fancy campaign slogan but something people really need to take to heart. Eating minimally or non-processed foods, exercise on a regular basis, healthy habits are all things everyone young and old can do.
Howdy Upstate: (I was just writing you an “agree” to your above comment (@11:49) when I saw this from you.)
My parents scared us into behaving ourselves (we were wild little Indians, let me tell you.) by claiming that if we hurt ourselves, we would have to pay for it. We believed them.
Not till we grew up did we learn, when we turned 18, each of us got a check from the insurance company for $2,500-4000 (today’s value @ $10K).
I learned that my parents had bought a combo policy of life and catastrophic insurance for each of us when we were born. For little stuff like measles and penicillin, doctor came to our house and mom just paid him cash or check, -and cherry pie and coffee.) We kids were all born in the city’s hospital and had one doctor who knew us from birth. (He died when I was away at college.)
Wow, those days are gone.
lin
You are correct that life expectancy in the US is lower than the rest of the western world.
In fact the only countries with WORSE life expectancy are in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.
However you failed to note that the countries that have BETTER life expectancy have highly socialized healthcare systems.
Obviously, you are making a strong case for socialized healthcare in the US.
you apparently cannot read or comprehend what is meant by socialized medicine.
I looked at the link lin attached. The TOP THREE countries for life expectancy are ALL Asian — Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea. Their idea of socialized medicine means something like our Medicare–it is based on “taxes and individual contributions.” Recipients pay roughly 30% and governments pay the rest.
What you fail to explain is WHY–when the TOP THREE have systems similar to U.S., they are the top three,
but the U.S is # 48. Tell us why, Anonymous.
Could it be because they eat rice and stir fry bean sprouts and broccoli, and are generally small and slim, while we eat Double Cheeseburgers and french fries and call up Sonobella to suck out our fat?
You fooled yourself into a hole. Now climb out. Good exercise, Anonymous.
I agree.
The healthcare systems in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea are basically the same as the Medicare system here, and they have the highest life expectancy.
This is an excellent argument to make our Medicare available to EVERYONE here in the US.
What a great idea !!!!
I am sure you agree that this would be a wonderful solution to the healthcare problem here in the US.
People contribute to Medicare their whole employed lives. The unemployed and no-income get Medicaid.
So we already have what you describe, essentially.
YOU STILL don’t get it–that it is not socialized medicine but LIFESTYLE that makes the difference–something socialized medicine does not address. The difference between Nos. 1,2,and 3—and No. 48 has to do with DIET and LIFESTYLE, get it?
So how do you explain the UK, with their supposedly awful healthcare, having a longer life expectancy than the US ???
Is that also lifestyle ????
It has to do with lifestyle and social factors. The healthcare system comparison only affects the number minimally.
So you are admitting that the UK, DESPITE national socialized medicine, ranks #37 of all countries in life expectancy? (the U.S. is #48)
Must be some other reason, eh? Must be lifestyle and diet, as was said.
SO, the difference between UK (ranked way down at #37) and the U.S. (even lower at #48) has little or nothing to do with socialized medicine, aNd maybe MORE to do with:
the UK has a white/caucasian population of 77%, and only 3.5% Black and less than one percent Hispanic, but a higher Oriental Asian population.
‘Yes, British adults generally have better cardiovascular health than American adults in midlife, with lower rates of obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. ”
AND “Research suggests that Brits tend to prioritize healthy eating and often choose grocery items that promote a healthy diet, while Americans face challenges in maintaining healthy eating habits despite valuing it. AND “Additionally, Brits are generally more active, with walking being a common mode of transportation, contributing to their overall health advantage.” mintel.com
SO it has little to do with socialized medicine and more to do with DIET and LIFESTYLE
The WSJ did a story about 50 years ago about Edinburgh and how everyone was dying at 39 from eating pasties. It’s surprising to hear how much healthier they all are now.
^^^this sounds like loser georgie, arguing his vapid and meaningless points into oblivion.
“So how do you explain the UK, with their supposedly awful healthcare, having a longer life expectancy than the US ???”
You have a fantastic ability to evade every fact that does not support your desire. Such as the U.S. factors that *cause* lower life expectancy: crime, heart disease, accidents, drug overdose.
The Nature v. Nurture debate has gone on for centuries and often it’s difficult to tease out the effects. Genotype is a factor just as are diet and lifestyle. The U.S. is more of a melting pot than most countries. And the larger the population, the more regression to the mean.
“This is an excellent argument to make . . .”
Yours is not an argument. It is the fallacy of cherry-picking.
There are four factors that cause Americans to have a lower life expectancy: crime, heart disease, drug overdose, accidents.
Lin
Absolutely americans make unhealthy choices.
But I am OK with that – so long as they are Freely choosing.
Yes our life expectance is lower because of our life choices – but not very much lower.
All the top 48 countries are bunched together with nearly the same life expectance.
Further even the $hithole countries are rapidly converging in the same life expectance.
Why ? Because almost no medical advance in the past 70 years has increased life expectance.
We have improved quality of life. We have improved quality of care, we have improved luxury of care.
Another posted pointed out that he had his problem dealt with affordably in Guatemala.
I suspect that is correct. I suspect the outcome was about the same.
But he did not get the same luxury healthcare than americans do.
Again – that should be a choice. I noted the incredible care my mother got as she was dying.
That care made ZERO difference with respect to when she died.
But it radically altered her quality of life and that of our family during her last year.
That is a good thing – but it is also not something we should give away or free.
We do not give away lamborghini Huricans for free either.
Everything including healthcare is self regulated by supply and demand.
If you want people to pay more for healthcare – you have to increase the value of the healthcare you deliver, and those who want that must choose to spend what they have on healthcare rather than say Lamborghini Huricans.
We have infinite choices – and a very high standard of living to be able to afford those choices.
But we do not have infinite resources – so we MUST pick and choose what we will spend our resources on.
That is what regulates prices. Not government
It’s doubtful the Repubs can even legislate on such a complex issue. They like to oversimplify, and cluster around accusatory-partisan slogans (“Obamacare failed”). The Dems sloganeering is framed positively “(health care is a right!”) — though equally meaningless and inactionable.
Who is going to muster the honesty and adult-responsibility-taking needed to admit the following
:
• borrowing for health care consumption now is unsustainable; borrowing from future taxpayers is off the table
• everyone dies; extending geriatric lives is a bottomless pit of wasted public funds; end-of-life expenses must not be shouldered by taxpayers; it is a family-centered, private economic decision
• too many Americans are living unhealthy lifestyles; the new design must contain strong incentives for healthy lifestyle choices (“I decided I couldn’t afford to be an overweight slug”)
• doctors, nurses and other HC professionals have free choice whether to be in that profession; there must never be any coercion to contribute to the profession, and there must remain strong incentives to serve in it
• health care insurers (i.e., those only involved in finance) have no guaranteed profit — and they must be effectively policed by commissioners to prevent and punish claim denial, non-payment or under-payment scams; if interstate sale of insurance is allowed, the first question is “Who will have unquestioned authority to police the insurance companies?”
• the best health care insurance is self-insurance (family savings, HSAs)
• illegal immigration should be deterred by limiting services to emergency stabilization
• NIH/CDC/FDA should invest heavily in PSAs that educate the public about taking responsibility for their health, and publicly criticize food and beverage companies who won’t align with the health interests of their clients; example: addictive food-designs, beverage-designs, inhalant-designs should be pulled from the market
pbinca accuses the Republicans of being just like her: It’s doubtful the Repubs can even legislate on such a complex issue. They like to oversimplify, and cluster around accusatory-partisan slogans…
pbinca has only the tactic and failings she describes here to justify her regular attacks on this blog on the Second Amendment rights of Americans. Rights which like, pbinca’s right to elective birth control abortions in Kalifornia, are actually covered in the Bill of Rights.
She spins lies and false equivalency to make HER versions of what little the Second Amendment should cover legitimate. All because of her grossly oversimplifed solution to violent crime. Complete with accusatory partisan slogans accusing those who don’t see it that way of “not caring about the children”.
This is the point where pbinca swiftly disappears back into the wormwood that is Kalifornia, until her next reappearance, hoping not to be noticed.
It’s doubtful the Repubs can even legislate on such a complex issue. ”
Of course not – no one can.
Here is the economics of a “simple pencil” – it is far far more complex than any government could possibly manage to regulate.
Worse still the economics changes dynamically all the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3W2v7LN-88&t=6s
Health care is a billion times more complex than a pencil. Republicaegulate it, democrats can not regulate it.
Quite literally the USSR failed because no part of an economy is simple enough for govenrment to control.
That said – “oversimplifying” is actually the BEST course of action – short of getting government out completely.
Why ? Because humans need nice clean easy to understand fundimental rules to operate.
Do you know any human that has even read the entire Code of Federal Regulations ?
Human behavior is NOT dictated by laws and regulations.
It is dictated by a small number of fundimental principles.
The good news is that much of the time our laws ARE based on those “oversimplified” principles.
Regardless, if you want Healthcare to work better – the Consumer needs to be in control through their choices.
That means they have to be informed. There is no way any consumer can know everything they need to know about healthcare decisions – as a result they MUST rely on “Oversimplified” basics. That said we MUST not hide information from consumers.
Price is a HUGE issue. Please tell me anyone that KNOWS what the cost of most any service in healthcare they seek will cost ?
You know the price of gas, you know the price of eggs, you know the price of cars, of homes.
One of the big failures of Socialism is that it has no functional price model – this is called “the economic calculation problem” – it is why socialism will ALWAYS fail, and why healthcare (and education) are a complete disaster.
Prices are absolutely critical information. They guide nearly every decision in our lives.
But in one of the most important areas of our lives we make choices with almost no regard for price.
As a result people do not make healthcare decisions based on price and we have EXACTLY the same mess that caused the failure of the USSR and left China under Mao in abject poverty.
In the US we implimented Medicare in 1965 – prior to that the elderly had to make decisions regarding their healthcare based on prices, and the cost of healthcare was relatively low. Medicare divorced the elderly from making healthcare choices based on price and as a result healthcare consumption skyrocketed and the laws of supply and demand dictated that the cost would skyrocket – which it did. Medicare is responsible for the entirely of medical cost increases since 1965.
Left wing nuts here like to tout the healthcare in the EU.
But outside of the UK there is no national health service that provides free care to all comers.
What is common in the EU – that we now disasterously have in the US is a mandate that you have some from of health insurance.
A universal mandate. That is absolutely totally completely stupid. We do not make everyone buy a car because most of us need a car.
Again prices are how humans make decisions
We no longer live int he garden of eden where everything is provided for us.
As Genesis says – we earn our daily bread by the sweat of our brow.
It is the fact that what we want and need can only be provided by working that is why most humans work.
From each according to their ability to each according to their need sounds fine, but it does not work.
It is self interest that drives people to work, to labor even to create, to invest, to produce.
The success of our efforts determines what we have to spend. What we have produced constrains our choices.
It is how we decide whether to go to dinner and a movie, or pay for health insurance.
It is also that impetus to produce that drives rising standard of living.
From each according to their ability to each according to their need always ends in poverty.
In most of Europe you are required to have health insurance and that health insurance provides for Private healthcare.
Except for the mandate much like the US. But most countries also have demand control provisions.
In Switzerland as an example – people are required to pay 1/3 of the cost of all medical care up to the equivalant of $5000,
That avoids the moral hazzard associated with Medicare – that drives prices up relentless.
I would further note that Medicare did absolutely nothing to actually improve life expectancy in those over 65.
Insurance companies have been searching for 75 years for evidence that health insurance effects healthcare outcomes.
In study after study they have found ZERO evidence of better health outcomes for people who were insured than those who were not.
Just as buying fire insurance does not prevent fires and buying flood insurance does not prevent floods.
The value of insurance is PURELY financial – it has ZERO impact on health.
“• borrowing for health care consumption now is unsustainable; borrowing from future taxpayers is off the table”
I am incredibly fiscally conservative – but this is actually false.
The US govenrment should not run Deficits normally – pretty much ever outside of war, but not because deficits are unsustainable but because ALL government spending negatively impacts the economy.
The FACT is that Government debt CAN grow infinitely – so long as the growth in debt is slower than the growth of GDP.
That is what is unsustainable.
It is however unwise economically to borrow money for expenses today – whether you are a govenrment or an individual.
You borrow money to buy things that are long term assets – cars, homes – not food.
That does not mean that we do not sometimes borrow for immediate expenses,
just that it is rarely wise.
“• everyone dies; extending geriatric lives is a bottomless pit of wasted public funds; end-of-life expenses must not be shouldered by taxpayers; it is a family-centered, private economic decision”
Strike the words geriatric and end-of-life and you are completely correct.
Healthcare of ANY kind is not a cost that should be shouldered by tax payers.
What is the difference between buying a few more years for an elderly person and buying a bit more from someone young ?
The purpose of healthcare for EVERYONE is the same – to live longer and live better.
That is NOT a legimate cost that can be forced on taxpayers.
“• too many Americans are living unhealthy lifestyles; the new design must contain strong incentives for healthy lifestyle choices (“I decided I couldn’t afford to be an overweight slug”)”
That is precisely what the free market does. You make your own free choices and you pay for them.
“• doctors, nurses and other HC professionals have free choice whether to be in that profession; there must never be any coercion to contribute to the profession, and there must remain strong incentives to serve in it”
What problem are you trying to solve ?
I am not aware of people being forced into healthcare.
Regardless again this is what free markets do.
“• health care insurers (i.e., those only involved in finance) have no guaranteed profit”
Absolutely no one in a free market is ever guaranteed a profit.
“and they must be effectively policed by commissioners to prevent and punish claim denial, non-payment or under-payment scams; ”
Absolutely totally completely impossible to accomplish.
You are seeking to prevent “rent seeking” and there is only one way to do that – disempower govenrment. Remove it from that portion of the economy.
As Lord Acton wrote – “Power corrupts” That is inevitable. Again all leftist ideologies fail – because they keep pretending that miraculously the right people can be given power and it will all work.
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
Even within the legitimate domain fo Government you will ALWAYS have to be constantly on guard for rent seeking.
“if interstate sale of insurance is allowed, the first question is “Who will have unquestioned authority to police the insurance companies?””
The free market does an excellent job of policing itself.
Who would think we need policing of the interstate sale of toilets ?
As a rule the freer a market is and the larger it is the better it works ON ITS OWN.
“• the best health care insurance is self-insurance (family savings, HSAs)”
There is nothing wrong with self insurance. But it is not inherently the “best”
Nor is the goal “the best” – first what is “best” is not the same for each person.
If you are a young adult in good health going without insurance is a gamble – but it is a wise one 99.999% of the time.
What I HOPE you are addressing is that we can not have “moral hazard” in healthcare. That is what happens when those consuming a service are NOT the ones paying for it. The result is over consumption and the laws of supply and demand then dictate that prices will rise.
“• illegal immigration should be deterred by limiting services to emergency stabilization”
So above you oppose the creation of moral hazard and now you want to create massive moral hazzard.
If you provide healthcare to ANY group without cost or limit – you will attract people in that group like Flies.
“• NIH/CDC/FDA should invest heavily in PSAs that educate the public about taking responsibility for their health, and publicly criticize food and beverage companies who won’t align with the health interests of their clients; example: addictive food-designs, beverage-designs, inhalant-designs should be pulled from the market”
Nope. First will not work – again Rent seeking is a very real thing – if you give govenrment power – some special interest – pretty much always the one with the most money will rent that power. The only way to avoid this is to deny govenrment that power.
Government should do NO PSA’s that are not directly tied to the legitimate tasks of govenrment.
We have a completely bogus food pyramid because of Government rent seeking.
Restore actual free markets and you will actually get the market participants to do your “PSA”s for you.
How many times have you heard comercials where the add says something like 4 out of 5 dentists recomend Crest ?
Allow the free market to make whatever claims it wishes – when those claims prove fraudulent and harmful – we have perfectly good torts law to punish false claims.
I would note that Torts does NOT require massive regulation.
It is a very simple system – if your actions directly cause real harm to others, you are obligated to make them whole. When you knew of the harm and acted anyway you are subject to punative damages, or even criminal charges.
You do not need hundreds of thousands of pages of laws and regulations – just some simple law that has been part of common law for centuries.
Every 20 years, I keep hearing the VA is finally fixed, and 20 years later, it’s always broken, again.
I remember 30 years ago, when a liberal pundit on PBS’s Frontline glibly prophesied that Canadian-style socialized medicine was a miracle that would solve all of America’s healthcare problems. All liberals are false prophets. Today, desperate Canadians cross the border and pay out of their life savings to get healthcare in the U.S. that is simply is no longer available in Canada.
Unfortunately, the false prophets will be back if the GOP doesn’t come up with a comprehensive program for our looming healthcare challenges. We still have a little time that the socialized systems lost a long time ago.
The NHS is one of the world’s largest employers, right up there with the Chinese army and US military.
NHS has been described as the third largest employer at times and sometimes fifth largest when you unreasonably include McDonald’s franchises and Walmart.
Impressive for what is basically a small country, closer to Lichtenstein than China.
But they frequently claim their treatment centers are understaffed and the NHS actually appears to be deficient in numbers of people actually treating patients. I suppose the rest are leeches of some sort, bureaucrats and regulators.
Recently the NHS was using “The Liverpool Protocol” which basically hastened death by studied neglect. It was a scandal when the secret neglect hit the news and it was abolished though one wonders if only the name was abolished and the bureaucratic murder was continued.
Canadian socialist healthcare is a nightmare as well. Though in one respect it is more efficient than the NHS. Instead of killing you with passive neglect they give you a lethal injection, sort of what the Germans used to do and what some American states do if you torture and murder someone.
Ironically, UK and Canada are too virtuous to execute a sadistic homicidal criminal in the way reserved for their peaceful, tax paying, but sick, citizens.
A few steps more in this direction and UK and Canadian doctors will be wearing SS uniforms, figuratively if not actually.
You shouldn’t be more afraid of your doctor than your disease.
Read “The Nazi Doctors” by Robert Jay Lifton. Medicine by bureaucrat is unhealthy.
Young said: Canadian socialist healthcare is a nightmare as well… Instead of killing you with passive neglect they give you a lethal injection
Jack Kevorkian was not a Canadian, and he died after pushing and introducing government legislation legalizing assisted suicide five years before the Canada’s Trudeau replaced the conservative Prime Minister and started pushing medically assisted suicide up in Canada similar to what we already had in the USA.
Death tourism by Canadians visiting the USA to have a doctor painlessly kill them was a Canadian thing for decades, similar to hip replacements for many years. Now Canada’s Liberals have decided they can do this better than we can.
We’ve had states allowing government assisted suicide for decades. Canada: relatively new i.e. three or four years.
Oregon was the first US state to pass laws permitting physician assisted suicide. They did so THIRTY YEARS before Trudeau did that very Canadian thing of copying the USA, in this instance on medically assisted suicide. (Just as he also copied Obama/Democrats Woke, DEI, Wuhan Flu response, etc. in other areas.)
Currently 13 US states still have physician assisted suicide legislation, and another seven deep blue states are putting forward legislation to attempt to pass right now. Canada’s form of government doesn’t allow individual provinces to have their own unique criminal laws. laws on government assisted suicide, etc.
Ironically, many Americans feel better about our current circumstances by pointing at other countries and claiming “We don’t do that!” or instead claiming “They invented it, and then spread it here!”
Might make some of us feel better, but does nothing about resolving the issue in front of us. Canada’s medical system has gone to shyte and you would be hard pressed to prove ours is any better in the way it has also gone to shyte since Obamacare.
Anon- All good points you made. I think Canadian use of medical killing exceeds anything in the US.
A report by the Fraser Institute determined that more than 200,000 Canadians came to the US for medical care that presumably was available in Canada. Almost no Americans go to Canada for care.
Also you may recall that a prominent liberal member of parliament and big booster of the Canadian healthcare system came to LA for treatment when she had cancer.
The Supreme Court in Canada held that care in Quebec was so delayed that it amounted to a violation of basic human tights.
Apparently the city of Pittsburg has more MRI machines than all of Canada. Not good to be in Canada if you need a quick cauda equina diagnosis.
Socialist medicine has better marketing than actual care…except when the care is killing; then they excel.
There is a gigantic difference between govenrment deciding whether you should live or die and YOU deciding whether you wish to live or die.
WOW, what a hornet’s nest this article stirred up! Let’s keep the discourse civil folks.
What will it take to recognize that our health care system, ACA, is a total failure! And you’re worried about a civil discourse. Let’s just keep spending more money, I.e. subsidies. Oh by the way the Federal government is running $2 trillion annual deficits. We’re broke
Democrats see no connection between bankruptcy and spending.
. Who said DEI, CRT didn’t work! 😂
🎄
So-called Republicans like NY’s Rep Lawler will, it is hoped, read this and belatedly understand the health care idiocy they have been promoting.
One interesting fact, if you will. Much was talked about “bending the cost curve” in healthcare when the ACA was being talked up. In fact, the cost curve already was flattening for Medicare enrollees. In inflation-adjusted numbers, the annual per enrollee cost was $15,838. In 2024, the spend was $17,786, which is a 12% increase over 18 years.
No doubt there are details to argue within the numbers, but what stands out is a huge part of the spiral upward of spending is the aging of the population and the enormous increase in Medicare enrollees.
reminder if Democrats WIN again…they will import another 20 million illegals!
Where do you come up with such stupid garbage?
In what way is it garbage? While the 20 million number may not be exact (maybe it was closer to 10 or 15 million), the Dems admitted it was a strategic move for more voters. And there is little reason to believe the strategy has changed.
Where do you come up with such stupid garbage?
Where do you get such stunningly intellectual rebuttals to somebody pointing out 20+ million criminal Illegal Aliens is one part of the health care problem? Just like the rational that we need more foreign Illegal Alien criminals because we don’t have enough American criminals here – we need more foreign Illegal Aliens needing health care because we don’t have enough Americans needing health care?
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is the intended psychological manipulation by a low-IQ perpetrator of those they hope to victimize through intentionally misleading that person or group. This involves the perpetrator lying, denying events, and other methods used in the hope their intended victims doubt their perceptions of reality, memories, and feel overly emotional or irrational.
The main five methods of gaslighting that may be used alone or in conjunction with others are: lying, blame shifting, countering, trivializing and withholding.
The facts and realities of the previous democrat occupation leave no doubt as to the validity of guyventner’s comment. In short, that’s exactly what the democrat agenda is.
The medical “system” (I hesitate to call patients and doctors” a system) worked better in the 1950s. People were expected to work and doctors adjusted their prices to account for differences in income. Insurance, government, and dependency were factors in upsetting this workable practice.
edwardmahl
What an astoundingly stupid comment !!!!
The medical system did not “work better” in the 1950’s.
There were no CT scanners, no MRI scanners, no sophisticated diagnostic testing as we have today, virtually no antibiotics or vaccines, very limited medications. None of the highly sophisticated cancer treatments or engineered biological medications that are advertised endlessly on television. Doctors simply relied on physical examinations and guessing at a diagnosis. Polio and other infectious diseases were rampant, with no available treatments. Back then if you got sick, you simply died. The role of doctors was to hold your hand and make you feel better as you died.
Anonymous low-IQ troll: what an astoundingly stupid comment!! Edward did not deny medical *technology* has improved since the 1950s, his critique was directed at the medical *system* – which, if you had any ability to read and comprehend English, you would have known. So GFY stupid Democrat commie low-IQ troll.
Yet another astoundingly stupid comment !!!!
The medical “SYSTEM”, as you correctly observe, has changed dramatically since the 1950’s.
Back then, as edwardmahl notes, people simply paid their doctor who “adjusted his prices to account for differences in income”. The doctor could afford to do that because he didn’t actually “DO ANYTHING” other than tell you what was wrong and hold your hand as you died. There were no other costs incurred for CT scans, MRI scans and other “technology” as you put it.
But NOW, we do have all the “technology” that was unheard of in the 1950’s.
And that “technology” has substantial costs that are incurred by multiple other players who didn’t even exist in the 1950’s.
Back then you simply paid a small fee to a single family doctor, who didn’t actually do anything other than make you feel better as you died.
NOW, there are multiple specialists involved in making a diagnosis.
NOW, there are multiple tests that can be done to make a diagnosis.
NOW, there a host of very expensive treatments available that were unheard of in the 1950’s
So yes, you are correct, “TECHNOLOGY” has changed the medical “SYSTEM” and that has to be PAID for.
In the current “SYSTEM” as you put it, you have to deal with not just a single family doctor, but a whole host of specialists, hospital facilities, testing technicians, and expensive treatments.
edwardmahl stupidly tries to criticize the current “SYSTEM” by making an absurd and irrelevant point that we should get back to the “good old days” when all you had to do was deal with a single doctor.
He seems to think that it should be possible to deal with all the other NEW players in the “SYSTEM” the same way.
Both you and edwardmahl are out of your minds, living in a bizarre fantasy world.
Yet another astoundingly stupid comment !!!!
Yet another astoundingly stupid deflection – gaslighting instead of projecting this time. Oh yes – newer medical technology requires providing free health care to 20+ criminal Illegal Aliens. It also mandates a requirement for unnecessary uses of that new diagnostic technology to practice “defensive medicine” against the current excessive tort system and it’s slip and fall lawyers that preys on the health care system and its insurance providers.
Want a reminder of the entire list while you deflect and defend with “technology advances”?
In the bizarre fantasy world where the Obamacare Marxist Useful Idiots moved to (who believed they were actually going to save $2500 a year despite all these new technologies he’s babbling about)… it’s just the new technologies that explain the abject failure of Obamacare and its astronomical costs.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is the intended psychological manipulation by a low-IQ perpetrator of those they hope to victimize through intentionally misleading that person or group. This involves the perpetrator lying, denying events, and other methods used in the hope their intended victims doubt their perceptions of reality, memories, and feel overly emotional or irrational.
The main five methods of gaslighting that may be used alone or in conjunction with others are: lying, blame shifting, countering, trivializing and withholding.
edwardmahl What an astoundingly stupid comment !!!!
Building a strawman indirectly related to the post in order to desperately project with an astoundingly stupid comment.
Projection:
Channeling one’s actions onto others typically refers to the psychological concept of projection, where an emotionally disturbed individual unconsciously or deliberately attributes their own thoughts, feelings, and anti-social or criminal behaviors onto someone else. This is an internal defense mechanism which allows that mentally ill person to avoid confronting their own behavior and guilt by seeing it instead as as the thoughts and actions of another person who they despise and hate.