The Switzerland-ization of health care

A majority of Americans want affordable health care available to all citizens. There are disagreements about how to get there, how much government should/shouldn't be involved. And we are the only wealthy nation that does not have it.

As Paul Krugman puts it this morning in the NYT:

At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

He goes on to show which other nation the Obama plan most closely resembles: it's not Britain, Canada, or France -- but Switzerland. They have universal coverage, but it's not exactly a hotbed of socialism. Their plan uses regulation of private insurance, plus subsidies for those who can't afford it, but the government does not run the health plan.

It's clear we are not yet mature enough as a nation to do the sensible thing and go to a single payer, government sponsored plan for true universal health care. That would involve deciding that the health of our nation is not a business but something the government should provide -- just as we do education, libraries, and police and fire protection.

Why not? Is health care less vital to the well-being of our nation? Has private industry made us the healthiest people in the world? Far from it. Perhaps we do have the best health care possible in the world for those who can afford it. But in all measures of general health (life expectancy, infant mortality, etc.) we rank way down the list.

So Krugman's statement about what stands in the way of universal coverage is true by 10-fold about those same forces preventing us from having single payer coverage.

Why is that better than what's proposed? Because it is the only way to significantly reduce the cost. The administrative savings alone would pay for insurance for the 46 million people who are uninsured.

Ralph