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[–] Yukonman ago 

Unfortunately the system would collapse under that policy. Health insurance (private or government).

Under socialized healthcare the young healthy people subsidize the less healthy older population. Without the pool of money from the young the system would be prohibitively expensive. Tax rates at the 40year mark would go up a lot to pay for it. If you raised taxes on everyone and only gave healthcare to the older ones your making everyone pay for people who aren't using it (same cost as making it available to everyone).

Let's do the math (not adjusting for inflation)

The average American makes $3.5 million in his life. 1/3 people need major medical treatment at some point in their working career. Let's say at 40 for the sake of argument. With the treatment they could go on working at a normal rate, under the government system 100% have healthcare coverage and only 80% have it under privatized system. Of those treated 50% recover. Half make 3.5 million: half make 1.75 million

Goverment healthcare system on the economy:
500 million people. 75 million people get sick and recover to go on and be productive.

Private: 60 million recover

Difference is 15 million people extra get sick and recover due to healthcare coverage being free.

Extra $1.5 million per person for 15 million people = $22.5 trillion extra to the economy over 40 years.

Obviously the numbers are more complex then that with way more variables but with everything considered social healthcare is way better in the long run

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[–] sakuramboo ago 

The only problem I see is that this doesn't address the problem of the price still being too high. We will still see 300 dollars for gauze and 2500 for a single supply of some drug. Just because it's paid for by taxes doesn't prevent the prices skyrocketing. Which would increase taxes year after year for no other reason than healthcare just wanting more money.

Otherwise, makes complete sense.

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[–] Yukonman ago 

Your forgetting about Monopsony buying power. When there is only 1 buyer. That results in a market that buyer can set the price. Under private system with many buyers the suppliers can set the price.

We can see the direct result of this for an example in drug prices in Canada compared to the USA. Prescription drug prices are normally much lower here. Doctors and nurses in canada work for lower wages too.

That being said there are downsides to public healthcare, under this system there's no real price on the value of the services. So you'll see an under providing of some services and an over provision of other services. In canada MRI machines are in shortage and the number of people in regency rooms with non-emergency conditions is high.

It's not perfect but it's overall better in the long run than run then private healthcare. Cheaper and more benifitial to the entire economy but more wasteful.

There's an entire field of economics devoted to healthcare economics who know this way better than me. I'm a financial economist sorry if I'm not 100% correct but from what I've read that seams to be the consensus so far.