Good point. There are arguments on both sides for (in this case) socialized medicine. I freely admit to being of two minds on this issue. On the one hand, I'm an example of tens of millions who would not have health insurance were it not for the ACA and especially, the subsidy. For all practical purposes I get nearly free health care. O…
Good point. There are arguments on both sides for (in this case) socialized medicine. I freely admit to being of two minds on this issue. On the one hand, I'm an example of tens of millions who would not have health insurance were it not for the ACA and especially, the subsidy. For all practical purposes I get nearly free health care. On the other side of the ledger, as you allude, when government pays for something there are always strings attached. That's probably unavoidable. In the case of the USA, this basically started in the 1960s with Medicaid/Medicare. It has only expanded with ACA & co. Often similar complaints can be found about government funding of higher education, with all the inevitable regulation that came along with that. Many generations ago, a university was primarily interested in whether a prospective student had academic ability, as well as the ability to pay tuition. Nowadays, it seems to be more important to make sure that enough Blacks, Hispanics or transgender space aliens, are being admitted.
Major risk: a decrease in the overall quality of the good or service, and for sure, a loss of freedom to (in the present case) for doctors and patients.
I suppose the logical extreme would be a complete takeover of medicine. That's certainly possible, but it'd be on a scale except maybe from a Cuba or a Soviet Union. At some point, a patient would literally be better off avoiding such a system entirely.
Good point. There are arguments on both sides for (in this case) socialized medicine. I freely admit to being of two minds on this issue. On the one hand, I'm an example of tens of millions who would not have health insurance were it not for the ACA and especially, the subsidy. For all practical purposes I get nearly free health care. On the other side of the ledger, as you allude, when government pays for something there are always strings attached. That's probably unavoidable. In the case of the USA, this basically started in the 1960s with Medicaid/Medicare. It has only expanded with ACA & co. Often similar complaints can be found about government funding of higher education, with all the inevitable regulation that came along with that. Many generations ago, a university was primarily interested in whether a prospective student had academic ability, as well as the ability to pay tuition. Nowadays, it seems to be more important to make sure that enough Blacks, Hispanics or transgender space aliens, are being admitted.
Major risk: a decrease in the overall quality of the good or service, and for sure, a loss of freedom to (in the present case) for doctors and patients.
I suppose the logical extreme would be a complete takeover of medicine. That's certainly possible, but it'd be on a scale except maybe from a Cuba or a Soviet Union. At some point, a patient would literally be better off avoiding such a system entirely.