Re: “New York Times” posted by Watchdog
Or maybe it’s because of the most significant change of all over the decades you describe — government intervention and the socialization of medicine. Like everything else the government gets involved with, prices escalate drastically and the level of service declines. But then, the wealthy editor of Newslanc, who lobbies continuously for more government intervention in all aspects of American life, doesn’t really care about the growing costs of government services and the subjugation of the citizenry, as he is able to obtain services without regard to cost for himself and his family.
EDITOR: On the contrary, it is because of concern for those who cannot afford adequate medical care that we have long advocated a single payer system in general and some variant of Medicare.
The problem lies with our aberrant system of funding health care through employers and paid for through insurance companies.
This generates layers upon layers of redundancy in record keeping; controversy among patients, insurers and providers; and causes health care to consume half again as much of our Gross Domestic Product as any other system in the world, including the highest rated France.
In place of employer funding, many nations finance health care through a Value Added tax. This also enables them to export more goods because it lowers their cost by the amount of current employee contribution.
In turn, the USA places in the mid-teens for quality of care, next to Cuba.
So our efforts are to expand access and reduce cost of health care to the individual as well as the nation.
