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RE: Left Leaning Liberals and Proponents of Socialism will often offer things like Free Education for All... Medicare/aid for all, etc.
You are assuming that health care costs more in the rest of the first world. It doesn't. It costs less - far less. In many cases, these countries have total per capita health care costs equivalent to just the US government's per capita share of US health costs, which is about half the US total. The reason they have lower costs is that they have designed their systems to largely circumvent the bureaucratic bloat and profit leaching of the private sector, and to negotiate with providers and supplies on equal footing in order to get fair, competitive pricing. These and other advantages don't exist in the absence of government action.
I re-read my post. Where is the part where I assumed health care costs more in other countries? However, that said, your post raises 2 questions: 1. would you be willing to pay more, for a better product? 2. Why has it been historically the case, that people come from these countries (that offer free healthcare) to America, but not the other way around?
Willing, perhaps, depending on the product. Able, not necessarily.
This is not the case currently. People coming to the US from other first world countries for healthcare fall into two groups, rich people getting elective procedures, and people seeking a particular kind of cutting edge treatment that has recently been developed in the US and hasn't yet spread elsewhere. On the other hand, the numbers of people from the US seeking medical treatment in foreign countries has grown so large that it's become an industry. There are foreign hospitals designed from the ground up to cater to people traveling from the US to get essential procedures done. Health tourism destinations include not just developing countries like Mexico and India, but also first world countries like Spain. As I understand it, a foreigner traveling to a country that provides health care for its citizenry specifically to take advantage of it's health care system is charged for the care they receive, and even so it is often still beneficial for them to make the trip.
Ahh, you touched on the magic element in our (former) healthcare system - that is isn't socialized and run by the government. That is the very thing that drives innovation. Those are the innovations that attract people from all over the world. Get government involved and you kill that innovation, less people want the product, and it will forever depend on your tax $$ to support it. That is failure.
if you have found a way to circumvent the Iron Law.
more power to you.
See you are voting for every one of your own comments.
Interesting. Not illegal. Just interesting. And not exactly in line with the intellectual direction of your posts....
Only two ways to limit costs. By competition, or by rules.
"first world countries" that are socialist limit costs through rules.
Very difficult/impossible to sue your doctor -- essentially, you are suing the government. So "defensive medicine" doesn't get practiced.
You have no say over what you get. That is determined by government. Think you want a second opinion? Think you want services in a timely manner? Think you want an option that the system has decided is not "cost effective?" Too bad. You are SOL.
It is very difficult to compare European society to ours. Their public health system is very different. Lots of chemicals are outlawed there that aren't allowed here, so that's vastly less chemical burden in their food. They don't for the most part fluoridate their water, so they don't have all the health complications associated with this. They walk a lot more. They eat less. They eat more local produce. They have more time off. They focus more on life and less on things. These all lead to better health and have nothing to do with universal healthcare.
I see you are still pursuing the "monopoly produces highest quality at the lowest price point" non sequitur. Wonder why that doesn't work on the private side of things......
Once the size of government has been decided upon, then buying the things that the government wants to buy is easy. All that matters is that there's enough real resources available for them to buy without people jacking up the prices for everyone else.
In the case of pensions, the question is whether or not there's enough stuff for retirees to buy.
In the case of education, the question is whether there are enough teachers to provide the education.
In the case of healthcare, the question is whether there are enough medical professionals, medicines, etc. available.
In the case on infrastructure, are there enough engineers, architects, building materials, etc. for the government to spend money on without causing an increase in prices that the private sector would have to pay for the same things.
If the answer is yes, then funding it isn't a problem. If the answer is no, then it might be best not to do it.