Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Wednesday, April 04, 2018

These Stories Will Fill The Air This Year and Republicans Should Be Afraid

Make them pay for what they have done.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The experiment called the ACA will die eventually regardless of a Demo or Repub administration as the system is unsustainable. The best model for a healthcare system in the American hemisphere is, interestingly enough, in Costa Rica. The country provides universal healthcare to its citizens and all legal residents and expats.
Costa Rica has a private healthcare system that is available at a fraction of the cost we pay in the U.S.
So How does it work so well in Costa Rica? Well, first off, 90% of the country's doctors are employed by the public sector. No second Lexus in a doctor's driveway but doctors still get along nicely financially with a flat fee. All workers are covered by a single government insurance policy paid for by a flat tax on their wages (similar to our FICA but a lot more fair). Prescription drugs are purchased from all over the world and not controlled by insurance companies like in the U.S. so costs are kept way down. Quality of care is on par with the U.S. if not better for many ailments. As wonderful as it sounds, it obviously would not work in the U.S. as the corporate medical and insurance companies would not allow it as they would be cut out of their cash cow. I think that our whole damn healthcare system will have to collapse first to force a new equitable and fair healthcare system to emerge.

Dale Carrico said...

I don't agree that the experiment of the ACA "will die" -- although that is a palpable and terrible possibility given current Trump Republican efforts. I cannot contemplate that kind of outcome with the chirpy assumption of a vantage above the fray from which I pretend to be observing world-historical forces cranking out confirmation of all my own cherished political assumptions anymore. That's why I am such a shitty blogger nowadays. You know, the ACA has survived ongoing efforts at sabotage better than I expected it would, and a good thing to, though that can change any time. I don't agree that just burning down our present healthcare system would facilitate or expedite the emergence of a better alternative. There are no absolute beginnings and ends in history, and the times that approach such outcomes are ugly beyond conception. I hope the Democrats regain power and that once in power they will strengthen the ACA, increase benefits, uplift nurses, subsidize family leave and home care, enable bargaining to lower prescription drug costs, expand medicaid and offer medicare buy-in as a public option, all in the comparatively near-term on the road to an implementation of a universal healthcare system. Such a system might be single payer, it might have for-profit supplements, it might involve public-private partnerships -- there are many options and the exigencies will be shaped by the realities of stakeholder politics quite apart from how you or I might imagine an ideal system would look (similar though our ideal visions might or might not be) were we to implement it ab initio via benevolent dictatorial fiat or what have you.