LogFAQs > #902092167

Say we flipped a switch tomorrow so that every taxpayer / dependent gets access to healthcare on the government's dime.

What would happen to the hundreds of thousands of people employed in the health insurance space? What would happen to the millions of people who then get laid off when the economy tanks due to the health insurance space collapsing?

Would the government also regulate how much a hospital or a doctor can charge for service? How will they settle on the right price so that we don't get a deluge of people seeking services but a shortage of doctors/nurses/hospitals?

Who will drive competition in healthcare so that automation becomes a bigger priority? How will universal healthcare survive the increasing obesity (and the increasing medical costs associated with obesity) in America?

And before there's any snide comments about other countries, note the stark differences in 1) population size 2) population fitness 3) immigration and other variables. A bigger and fatter population that walks/exercises less than the people in Norway is more expensive to cover with taxpayer dollars, and the demand for services won't scale linearly - it'll scale much worse than that.

So how do we resolve these logistical issues without tanking the economy? I'm not happy with how deeply ingrained health insurance is as a concept, but we can thank other government intervention long away for why it is that way. So what guarantee do we have that they'll finally get their implementation right this time and that we'll actually have a benefit we can enjoy without it destroying us or bankrupting us as a nation?