you may have an MS but can you write a post so one can clearly understand who the post is directed to and exactly what issue the author krugman is addressing which is opposite to some previous poster who must have a name.
it doesn't have to be that way. health insurance might have to be made mandatory but that doesn't mean health care has to be nationalized. however it is a slippery slope
Good point! What's worse, is someone driving to a hospital in a lexus and pulling out there medical card!
All this talk about healthcare, I can count the number of times I have been to the doctor in the past 10 years on one hand. I imagine there are many more just like me. In fact, everyone should self insure, and only carry some type of catastraphe insurance IMO!
LOL You have an MS in NOTHING Economics is about as soft a science as daytrading...lol...read that somewhere here. I have a BS in Economics and Finance, the economics part is pretty worthless. It always gets mixed up with politics and law.
Free markets are obsessed with profits and only profits. Healthcare exists for sick people, there are no profits in sick people, there may be profits in healthy people but as soon as they get sick the profits are all gone. Free markets therefore will not solve this problem in the future, much like they have not solved it so far.
southamerica forgets that while it may not cost companies directly, it will cost everyone indirectly via higher taxes, including companies. is he arguing that european companies are more competitive?... even as germany is discussing cutting back uncompetitive worker benefits?
"Free markets are obsessed with profits and only profits. Healthcare exists for sick people, there are no profits in sick people, there may be profits in healthy people but as soon as they get sick the profits are all gone. Free markets therefore will not solve this problem in the future, much like they have not solved it so far." I disagree, there is plenty of money in medicine, IF the patient can pay the bill. You also act as though all sick people can be cured- the most costly people in the health care system right now are people that should by all rights be dead. Free markets will not solve the problem that some americans insist on heroic treatments for everyone- there will never be enough money. Weird combination of left and right values. The left wants health care for illegals, the right wants every 6 month premie crack baby saved (one of gods children).
I could not agree more. The rich and the middle class pay for the government employees and the poor. If everybody paid there fair share it would be a start.
The companies are already paying health taxes, they are called Health Insurance premiums and they are about $10,000 a year per employee. About half of that amount is a total bureuacratic waste, executive compensations, advertisement, paperwork, lawyers, lobbyists etc. If Universal Healthcare is to be implemented the companies need not pay for private insurance any longer, they will immediately save $10,000 a year per employee plus very substantial administarative cost (HR, forms, etc). They will likely pay more in taxes (depending on how the Universal Healthcare is implemented) but with huge health insurance premium savings will still undoubtedlyl come out on top. The difference is that with properly implemented Universal Healthcare the money will be used to provide healthcare for americans instead of lining pockets of HMO executives and their lobbiests. The objective of healthcare is (or should be) to cure the sick, it's not to cure the rich. The concept of medical progress means saving lives and health of people who could not be saved just a dozen years ago. Of course keeping people like Terri Shiavo on life support for years is an absurd waste of financial resources but it has nothing to do with Univeral Healthcare.