Public Schools haven’t put the Catholic School system out of business. Public Police haven’t put Private Detectives out of business. And even these are bad examples because I believe Private Insurance companies would blow the government plans out of the water in good economies, but the government plan would be a stable option in bad economies, like this one.
It’s a matter of cost. The Government will treat their program like they do Medicare/Medicaid/MediCal…they’ll either pay for a portion of the hospitals cost or won’t pay at all.
Hospitals have to recoup that cost from somewhere — they hike up the rest of their prices and have private insurance cover those holes…only to be a realized increase in private insurance premiums.
It’s only a matter of time before private insurance holders stop swimming against the current and take it for "free" — since they’re already paying for it w/ their taxes.
And now the second problem:
Government still undercuts hospitals leaving no hospitals an out to re-coupe their costs…uh-oh, CRISIS CRISIS CRISIS…Government to the rescue w/ a Universal Health Care plan and puts taxpayers on the hook any time the Health Care industry comes to that cross road:
1. Raise Taxes
2. Reduce User Benefits
And we’ll be stuck w/ an expensive and inefficient system like Canada and the UK are trying to deal with.
Here’s a novel idea:
The system isn’t broken. A system is never intended to operate properly if people don’t respect it.
When people don’t pay their bills or sue for malpractice — the system wasn’t designed to absorb those added costs.
Example:
You wouldn’t get pissed at GM for deciding to put sugar-water in your gas tank because you can’t afford gas and end up w/ a non-functioning automobile. The system was designed for gasoline.
The Health Care system was designed to provide a service — if people take that service w/o then compensating them (also known as theft), the system will have problems.
The Financial Sector:
When you buy a house and can’t make the payments — the system doesn’t operate as it’s supposed to.
Capitalism didn’t fail — the unethical people disrupting the system failed…that goes from Government, to the private sector big wigs, right down to the consumer who thought he would get away with it…