Hello Robo,
Originally Posted by
Robo
America’s healthcare during my boyhood and early adulthood, (late 30's, 40's and early 50's) was never a political issue. It’s documented that Harry Truman once tried to introduce a federal government healthcare plan and I think he was laughed out of the Oval Office. I don’t remember healthcare being an issue until the feds got involved with Medicare in like the 60's sometime I think. From my experience America’s healthcare has been going downhill ever since. Seems the more the feds mess with it the more costly and more people , not fewer people can’t get healthcare except by emergency room care.
I remember when doctors and hospitals had low cost and no cost clinics the doctors donated time to and the hospitals donated facilities and equipment and private charities donated money and other services to the poor and folks of meager means.
I remember when almost every employer could easily afford health insurance for their employees and plans where whole families could go to the doctor and or the hospitals and pay next to nothing for care. Most plans even offered dental and visual coverage.
I think America should get the feds out of the healthcare and health insurance business and encourage the people and the states to go back to the good old days in American healthcare.
I disagree. Two big things have changed since the 30's - 50's:
1.) Food has become unhealthy. There didn't used to be so much processed food. With the advent of TV, a large percentage of the population has become addicted to unhealthy food. Health care costs so much partly because we become so sick!
2.) Diagnosis and treatment has progressed, but the advancements are very expensive. X-Ray machines were a pretty new then. And very pricey. Normalized use of X-Ray machines for medical purposes did not occur until WWII. They, and subsequent use of medical imaging techniques such as CAT Scan, and MRI have become increasingly expensive. Those things simply were not regularly available in the the 30's and early 40's. And we paid a costly price for learning how to use them. Doctors didn't know any better when it became routine to X-Ray pregnant mothers. After many deformities, the danger was realized, and the practice was ceased.
Health care could be very inexpensive if we went back to the less effective level of care prior to modern medicine. But few advocate for that. People appreciate the advancements.
Since nobody who urgently needs care has the effective ability to shop around for price, there is no typical free market competition in medical care. For that reason, capitalism is not a good model to use for health care. We should adopt a totally socialist approach where we, the people, own all the facilities and hire all the workers. Health care service should be akin to military service, with all the personnel thought of as serving the nation. Big pharma and big insurance are ripping us off.
I would compromise to a position of Single Payer for insurance, but we still have to be free to negotiate as a volume buyer with pharma industries.
I like the Medicare-For-All idea.
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