Originally Posted By: Derid
The socialist country in question functions economically like a large corporation. Sweden functions economically in regards to health care more as a company of 10 million employees that operate under a comprehensive health plan.


I don't disagree with your assessment. They only way to contain health-care costs is to a) ration b) massively redistribute them. This is exactly what US should be doing.



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There are lots of reasons the costs are high here. Partly it being that the USA is the primary market for first line new drugs, that does play a part. New and experimental treatments are EXPENSIVE - to a degree that helps skew overall expenditure.


If you compare US health care to automotive market, the only cars that available are fully-loaded brand new Cadillacs. This works great if you could afford one, but if you are in the market for economy beater market does not serve you well.


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There are certainly also structural problems with the way our insurance system works and the way govt regulates it that add unnecessarily to costs


Rotten-to-the-core comes to mind. I don't think market-driven system where individual consumers do not have an option of refusing product could exist. How many people would refuse life-saving treatment, regardless of how expensive this treatment is and regardless of how little it extends their life expectancy? If you are doing research on costs, look into end-of-life treatments and effects of redistributing these costs within insurance pool.

This underlying egoistical human nature is why health-care costs will keep going up until decision making is out of hands of individual consumers. Socializing is one way of doing it, perhaps you can think of another?


Last edited by sinij; 11/23/11 03:46 PM.
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