Comment by craigmccaskill
3 days ago
The same statistics are similar for Medicaid too but also missing the forest for the trees in that for profit seems to be the main differentiator with the US vs. other parts of the world. There are plenty of models around the world that show this works and it works well.
First it's the government can't do this, then it's the government wouldn't do this because of this reason while ignoring that the US healthcare system is spending more than any other country and missing the mark on outcomes. Every other developed country in the world has figured this out. While not perfect, they're paying less and broadly getting better outcomes.
This is my issue with M4A: it seems clear from the numbers that the problems in our system --- and I think they're grave --- are almost entirely on the provider-side, and Medicare has, if anything, locked us into those cost structures. If anyone's curious why there's a scarcity in physician care hours in the US: Medicare rate limits the number of new doctors allowed into the system every year, through the residency funding system.
Agree that it's not perfect, but I do feel that we could take 60-80% of the money we're currently spending and fix this and any other issues that come up and get in the way of improved outcomes like the rest of the world does.
I don't know why what you're describing happens, but my money would be on some triage that needs to happen due to limited funding since so much of our spending goes into private healthcare solutions.
I really just have two things to say on this subthread:
* Medicare would not have 2% overhead if it served 30-year-olds.
* Medicare is in fact the primary constraint on the supply of doctors in the US system.
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