Subject: Re: healthcare
About 20% of Americans have the equivalent of universal healthcare (People over 65. Does MAGA want to make these people go on private insurance? I have not heard that they do want to cancel Medicare. Therefore, the discussion is about the extent that universal health care should be implemented. For 20% of the people - all sides seem to agree. 100% of the population, no agreement. Perhaps we could get to 25%(people over 55) of the population??

Imagine how the economy would boom with people starting companies and not having to worry about health insurance. I know, a silly left wing idea to encourage start=ups.

My browser chose to crash and erase a much longer reply, so I'll summarize what I was going to say:

1. Health insurance /= health care. As a society we seem to believe we should pay nothing for health care.
2. Health care cost optimization is the problem to solve, not health insurance cost.
3. Patients should be expected to pay for small stuff out of pocket. $20 bucks for having somebody Ace wrap your sprained ankle isn't too much to ask.
4. The supply of health care needs to be dramatically increased by encouraging more front-line triaging to be done by nurse practitioners and Physician's assistants, who are more than adequately trained to diagnose rest and chicken soup for a sniffle.
5. Leave full-blown MDs and doctor's offices more free to triage, diagnose and treat more complex cases.
6. The supply model of (4) would be paired with published pricing for commonly available treatments, allowing for price equilibriums to take hold. As has been shown by a few hospitals now, advertising prices at places helps patients understanding pricing a lot better: https://oklahomahospitalpricef...

...for starters.

At some point, people have to own their own health. This notion of 100% of health care is paid for by somebody else doesn't lead to math that works.