Big Spending

The number one complaint I hear from people is that the public option is too expensive.

Let me show you what too expensive is:

In the past few months, we have seen the other side churn their messages about the failures of “big government,” driving the fear of a “government take-over,” of “government-run health care.” Democrats have managed to produce little clear messaging, despite being blessed with the most comical set of data in the world’s history:

Total spending on health care, per person, 2007:
United States: $7290
United Kingdom: $2992
Average of OECD developed nations: $2964
Japan: $2581

That's right, we already, right now, spend almost three times as much on health care as other developed countries with single payer plans and that's per capita. And we still have a system where people are denied health care because they can't afford it. Assume that the per capita number now is $7500. It's probably more than that, but multiply that by 300 million Americans, and that's $2.25 trillion that we spend every year as a country on our "free market" health care system. That number is going up at roughly 10% per year. By 2020 that number is expected to be roughly $4.5 trillion if nothing changes.

And Republicans want nothing to change. Here's the question I have for people: Where in God's name do you think this money goes? Other countries can create single payer systems for half the cost per capita. We spend twice as much money. Where does it go?

Here's a hint: What industry does America have that countries with single payer health care do not?

The answer? Health insurance companies.

Americans hate big government in healthcare because the plans are supposedly inefficient and too costly? We already pay more for health care than any other country on earth. Why? To make health insurance companies rich? That's efficient, free-market care? If we took those guys out of the picture, what do you think America could do for health care?

But the Republicans are out there screaming that everything's fine and that Obamacare will kill thousands. Our system is already killing people, leaving them to die or bankrupting them, thousands each year. We need something better.

But we'll never get it.