How to nationalize healthcare
So how should we nationalize healthcare, then?
Well one thing I've learned from talking to elderly people is that, unbelievably, Medicare appears to actually work. It does its job. So let's start from there.
I would suggest phasing Medicare in to the general populace. Presently, to be covered by Medicare, you must be 65 years old. Slowly lower that age over time. Each time we lower that age, we will be adding more population to the pool of people we have to care for, medically. So tax increases will be necessary to pay for it. But, we can control how many people we're adding to the pool (and, thus the cost) by lowering that age slowly, bit by bit.
It never goes up again. Just down. Nobody ever *loses* healthcare that way, Some gain it earlier in life than others did. The idea is eventually the age requirement for Medicare would be lowered to 0, at which point we'd have full national healthcare. This approach won't make it any cheaper. It will still cost a lot. And I mean a LOT. But it will make the necessary tax increases happen slowly over time, hopefully so as to not cripple people's wallets.
Also, it would probably have a faster progression toward the lower ages. Lets say you drop the age from 65 to 60. You've added something like 6 million people to the covered population (pulled that number out of my ass). And each one of these people is aged 60 to 64. That costs $X.
Later, let's say you lower it from 60 to 55. That's another 6 million folks, but they're younger and will have fewer healthcare needs. By the time you are lowering it from 35 to 30, the cost will really be low. So maybe you lower it faster. Or maybe you lower it the same 5 years but have a smaller tax increase.
In the final stages, it would probably make some big leap. I don't imagine our society would be comfortable with "Everyone has health care except children". So I'm guessing it would go from 25 or so down to 0 all at once.
In the end, it would cost a lot, and ultimately we would encounter the same problems other nationalized healthcare nations have, which is why I'm against nationalizing at all. But, if we were going to do it, this seems like a good approach.
Unfortunately that will never happen. Not so long as the insurance industry controls so much of our lawmaking. They're hardly likely to stand idly by while the nation adopts a system that will remove all their customers.
-ATW
Well one thing I've learned from talking to elderly people is that, unbelievably, Medicare appears to actually work. It does its job. So let's start from there.
I would suggest phasing Medicare in to the general populace. Presently, to be covered by Medicare, you must be 65 years old. Slowly lower that age over time. Each time we lower that age, we will be adding more population to the pool of people we have to care for, medically. So tax increases will be necessary to pay for it. But, we can control how many people we're adding to the pool (and, thus the cost) by lowering that age slowly, bit by bit.
It never goes up again. Just down. Nobody ever *loses* healthcare that way, Some gain it earlier in life than others did. The idea is eventually the age requirement for Medicare would be lowered to 0, at which point we'd have full national healthcare. This approach won't make it any cheaper. It will still cost a lot. And I mean a LOT. But it will make the necessary tax increases happen slowly over time, hopefully so as to not cripple people's wallets.
Also, it would probably have a faster progression toward the lower ages. Lets say you drop the age from 65 to 60. You've added something like 6 million people to the covered population (pulled that number out of my ass). And each one of these people is aged 60 to 64. That costs $X.
Later, let's say you lower it from 60 to 55. That's another 6 million folks, but they're younger and will have fewer healthcare needs. By the time you are lowering it from 35 to 30, the cost will really be low. So maybe you lower it faster. Or maybe you lower it the same 5 years but have a smaller tax increase.
In the final stages, it would probably make some big leap. I don't imagine our society would be comfortable with "Everyone has health care except children". So I'm guessing it would go from 25 or so down to 0 all at once.
In the end, it would cost a lot, and ultimately we would encounter the same problems other nationalized healthcare nations have, which is why I'm against nationalizing at all. But, if we were going to do it, this seems like a good approach.
Unfortunately that will never happen. Not so long as the insurance industry controls so much of our lawmaking. They're hardly likely to stand idly by while the nation adopts a system that will remove all their customers.
-ATW