Well, yes; I knew that. I was asking rhetorically.
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Showing not just how b0rked it is, but when it started going wahooni-shaped.
*World Bank data.
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Someone with more historical knowledge than I might remeber this better, but it seems there was a change in law in… late 70s, early 80s?.. prior to which health insurance was required to be technically nonprofit. After the change, premiums and companies exploded. Possibly what is reflected in your chart?
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I accept that this is a non-trivial point; other countries that have switched to valid healthcare systems certainly didn’t have existing private insurance industries on anything like the same scale. But if you want conservative-friendly reasons not to care:
- We’re talking almost exclusively about clerical jobs, which will easily transfer to non-healthcare office work in the same town, even where there isn’t a direct route into new medicare-admin jobs
- As it’s 2020, and no one stays in an office job for more than 5 years anyway, it would be a true xmas miracle if this transition happened fast enough that the displaced jobs couldn’t be absorbed through natural churn
- (It’s not the state’s role to support these people with handouts lol)
- The overnight disappearance of (for example) shorthand jobs didn’t cause mass unemployment; this is one kind of problem the market has proven surprisingly good at dealing with
- If every health insurance employee were on the streets tomorrow, but US health costs became like European health costs, the economic benefit would dwarf the loss in both breadth and depth
– and that’s without even mentioning the much stronger humane arguments.
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I don’t know enough about US healthcare policy to speculate the why I’m afraid, but it does look like something happened in the early 90’s.
Funny thing - I checked the Australia data line and there does seem to be a sharp rise in longevity with no sharp increase in costs in the late 70’s, following the introduction of universal healthcare in 1975. Not drawing too much in the way of conclusions though - it tracks roughly with the rest of the non-US world.
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You still have more professional hockey players per capita!
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All this is true, but the underlying truth is that it’s a bullshit argument to start with. Do we seriously believe they care about employees? Like they wouldn’t get canned in a split second if it could save a fraction of a penny? They care about the cash cow that transfers money from the undeserving poors to their own stinking pockets. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Yeah, and they all head South to actually make some money.
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Newt Gingrich’s sham “Contract with America”?
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You’ll always have hockey. Sure, US teams keep winning the Stanley Cup, but only with majority Canadian players.
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Not for much longer. Hockey is a game for the rich only.
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One thought: Make a bunch!
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I mean, US Steel being a bad employer wouldn’t be a reason to vote for putting mill towns out of work. So it does bear mentioning that decimating the insurance industry would not be anything like that.
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My bad - was the 1980’s. Here is some analysis with a few suggestions.
“ The effectiveness of focusing on low-income populations is evident from large expansions of public health insurance for pregnant women and children in the 1980s. There were large reductions in child mortality associated with these expansions. “Those reductions were much larger for poor children than for richer children,” Ms. Currie said.
A report by RAND shows that in 1980 the United States spent 11 percent of its G.D.P. on social programs, excluding health care, while members of the European Union spent an average of about 15 percent. In 2011 the gap had widened to 16 percent versus 22 percent.
Although this is a modest divergence over time, Mr. Anderson says it could be significant nonetheless. “Social underfunding probably has more long-term implications than underinvestment in medical care,” he said. For example, “if the underspending is on early childhood education — one of the key socioeconomic determinants of health — then there are long-term implications.”
Slow income growth could also play a role because poorer health is associated with lower incomes. “It’s notable that, apart from the richest of Americans, income growth stagnated starting in the late 1970s,” Mr. Cutler said.”
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Right-- this isn’t about doctors, it’s about insurance companies.
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If you don’t list Cleveland, OH and Rochester, MN on the top of that list, I doubt the veracity of your “insider” knowledge. The Mayo Clinic draws the international wealthy for healthcare at a higher rate than hospitals in NYC. And the 5th floor of The Cleveland Clinic is a Four Seasons luxury hotel specifically catering to the global elite. We’re talking oligarchs and heads-of-state.
Besides @anon61221983’s joy at seeing that industry go extinct: 1. There’s not even a need for 50% of that “market.” The Scandinavian plans that Sanders has modeled his M4A proposal off of only allows supplemental health insurance for things that are not covered by single-payer. 2. The health insurance workers will still be needed for their expertise in coding and billing. It will be interesting to see whether that is maintained in private companies or absorbed into the US government.
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THIS IS APPALLING
PATIENTS SHOULD GO BANKRUPT, NOT INSURANCE COMPANIES
ONLY POOR PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS
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The healthcare situation in the US is much worse than what a comparison of other first world countries reveals. Compared to ALL the countries in the world, it’s positively heartless.
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We invented (the sport that most closely resembles) contemporary American Football.
FIGHT ME.
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