Healthcare is an essential service, like providing electricity and water. It has a captive market. Everyone needs it and so it sells itself. There’s no need for clever marketing. With most products, we ultimately ask “Can I afford to buy this?” With essential products we ask, “Can I afford not to buy this?”
Essential products are the most attractive of all for capitalists because any idiot can make money selling them. And this is exactly the case with healthcare insurance in the US.
Of course, the wealthy who make so much money from the US healthcare system insist that they promote private insurance because that is best for the American people. By not offering a government funded national health service, unlike every other Western and high-income nation, the wealthy claim Americans enjoy a free choice to select the healthcare provider they believe will offer them and their families the best care.
It’s a nonsense argument, of course. Research shows that the two most important things that influence the choice of healthcare provider is low cost and a local hospital in network.
In countries with government funded healthcare, every hospital is in network and costs are kept lower for everyone. Because the system is designed to prioritize the care of patients, rather than profit for senior managers and stockholders.
But the wealthy will tell you that government funded healthcare in other Western nations doesn’t have enough money and the American private system is much better funded. And they’re absolutely right. The US spends more per person on healthcare than any other nation and the government healthcare systems in most Western nations are under-funded.
Yet, unless you’re super-wealthy, you’re better off with under-funded government supplied healthcare. In a comparison of healthcare in the US and nine peer Western nations, the US was placed a distant last for most healthcare outcomes, despite spending much more money per person.
Though much of the extra money spent in the US goes to cover the cost of drugs that are sold much more cheaply in other Western nations. Just one way the system milks its users to generate huge profits for its wealthy owners.
So, why’s private healthcare better for Americans?
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