[Bond]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

I've been reading some of the arguments in another thread. The biggest negative I see is the supposed cost of switching to a public option for health care.

But as I stated before...America spends over $500 more per person on health care than other countries with a public option. Administrative costs for our health care are exorbitantly high compared to universal care systems.

I've already addressed the high-cost issue of health care in a previous thread. The exorbenate cost of our health services is, in fact, due to excessive government intervention. Please see my below quoted post:

" 1. Government intervention has historically raised health care costs, and will continue to do so if the government's role is increased (did you know that the government created today's insurance/HMO/PPO companies?).

Allow me to first use a few relevant and important statistical charts:



This chart depicts health care expenditures as percent of GDP and per capita. As you can see health care expenditures have nearly tripled as a percent of GDP since the 1960s, as well as the cost per capita of health care. This begs the question: what has lead to this enormous increase in the cost of health care?



This chart depicts average annual CPI change (%) by component. Once again we see the rise in medical care significantly outpacing the change of all other items. And, again, this begs the question, why?

For the answer to this question, I harkon back to my original point, that the rapid (and recent) rise in health care costs is primarily due to the advent of insurance/HMO/PPO companies, which were mandated by, and heavily regulated, by the government. In fact, the health insurance industry is perhaps the most heavily regulated industry in our country.

For an exact explanation of what HMO/PPO companies are and how they function, I would recommend outside sources, as I don’t want to go into too much detail concerning them. Suffice to say, they are a middle man, between you and your doctor. Middle men naturally raise the price of any good, as they have raised the price of health care.

Let’s consult one more chart, which depicts who is paying for health care costs:



Here again we see a stark contrast from the 1960s to present day. During the 1960s, the majority of health care was paid by out-of-pocket, and a small fraction was paid by the federal government. Present day, only a small fraction is paid by out-of-pocket, and payments by the federal government have quadrupled. I would, again, correlate this back to the rise of the HMO/PPO, as mandated by the federal government.

(These charts are derived from numbers provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)"


Also, this essay by Dr. Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute briefly summarizes the government's role in driving up the cost of health care: http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?pa...s_iv_ctrl=2401

Another argument is that the government has traditionally messed up health care. What sort of reasoning is that? If other governments can do it, so can we.

Have you recently looked at France's marginal income tax rate? It is drastically higher than ours. That is why they are able to afford and subsidize their hybrid healthcare system. The French tax at least 40% of ones earnings if they earn above the equivalent of 95,000 dollars per year (Source: http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2005doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00002E0A/$FILE/JT00187984.PDF).