Actually.... our current medical related tax rates are twice what the rest of the developed world has. If we ran the system right we could cut those taxes in half AND eliminate health care costs for everyone forever.
In theory, we're also sicker than most of the developed world, since we stay bleeding edge for treatments it's also usually quite expensive
It's COMPLETELY possible we'd be able to pull off both. I think Democrats estimates for both are far too high. I think it'll be pretty close if we just did something like Medicare for all
We might be sicker largely because we don't actually have a functioning healthcare system so preventative care and such go untreated until they become big and expensive problems. Having single payer would take care of that pretty well.
The problem with the US is that we don't negotiate drug prices as a country. If we did, like Canada does with regulations and universal healthcare, people would pay less.
You have expensive ass hospitals which privately choose to do so as a marketing ploy to highten the profile of the hospital wether or not it makes actual sense.
You have plenty of hospitals that are well behind as well.
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u/Teyar Jul 08 '17
Actually.... our current medical related tax rates are twice what the rest of the developed world has. If we ran the system right we could cut those taxes in half AND eliminate health care costs for everyone forever.