Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Health-care: The Leap of Faith

Well, the far left often paints itself as “atheists”, who don’t “believe” and would never follow a good. IF that is so, they are still pretty good on leaps of faith, like in this petite cartoon.

I can understand, that the far left in the US has not as much experience with government-run programs as I have in Europe, especially when it comes to health-care. But the cartoon is actually pretty much inverse. In a private option, you could imagine the person in need of medical attention dealing DIRECTLY with the doctor, without any intermediate company.

In a public option, you will never have this, because government beaurocracy is NOT cheap, it is even more wasteful than private options. The difference between US high-deductible private health-care plans and f.e. German public option companies is that in Germany more of the money spent goes into the beaurocracy of those companies, while in the US lean management gives a lot more money towards actual medical staff. There are still efficiencies in the US system left, f.e. reduction of prices due to inter-state competition, which is prohibited at the moment.

Also, the US spends more on quality treatment, while European governments reign in spending at the expense of the customer, whenever they can (see GB, Germany etc.).

So, this cartoons actually has the labels wrong or it includes a leap of faith due to the obviously underestimated costs of government management efforts…

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