Nothing Wrong With Regional administration
I read this last night. My wife and I debated national health care.
Google "universal health care" The third or fourth hit had a web site which suggested
a) states managing this is better than federal goverment
b) medicare program pays 3% to adminstration fees, private insurance through employers pays 20-30% to administative fees (and profit to insurance companies). It is cheaper to centralize the administration. This savings alone would keep costs under control.
c) the US has the most advanced health care system in the world, yet has higher infant mortality than other industrialized countries, and spends more per person than these countries, yet the average person gets less coverage for the dollars spent.
Only one candidate (a democrat, not one of top 3) is in favor of a national (universal) health care program. Most of the other candidates want regionalized or state led programs with tax credits and tax incentives for employers and individuals not contributing to system right now.
Ok, this is my first time quoting; hope I did it right.
I think you're likely right about the administrative costs. In Canada, although Federally funded, provinces manage their local healh plans, and reciprocity ensures that a citizen of any province is insured anywhere in the country. I recall a Canadian health care system employee saying that a few dozen people handled the health care bureaucracy for the whole nation. The magnitude of the U.S. insurance bureaucracy is ovewhelming in comparison.
The other day I read where a Federal employee opposed national health care, though he had "free health for life". Actually, to borrow from the conservative mantra, it's not free, it's just that someon else pays for it.
It's ironic to hear someone getting "free" health care on the taxpayer's nickel wanting to deny the same benefit to the very people paying for it. Strange to hear a lecture on Capitalism from someone receiving a Socialist benefit.
Of course it has to be voted on. This isn't a question of anyone forcing a decision on anyone else. Rather it's a case of pointing out how other nations have handled an issue that currently confronts another nation.
There was opposition to National health care when it was first implemented in Canada as well, around 1969. But, after almost 40 years, there is no serious political opposition to it. In my travels in Canada, I've met hundreds of people who are glad they have it, and one who thought it was an undue intrusion of Federal authority into the economy.
Upon visiting Australia, some curious people asked how Americans paid for health care if they weren't insured. I replied that they paid out of pocket as with anything else. They could hardly believe it; and looked at me as though I was describing something out of the middle ages. I suppose people just get used to what they are raised with.
Here's a link on life expectancy. Not too bad. We're only slightly behind Cuba, and decidedly ahead of Albania! Hooray!
List of countries by life expectancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia