The American healthcare system is a broken, corrupt industry.
And this is coming from someone with good health benefits.
Not so much corrupt but it's the way that it is structured that gives an incentive to increase costs that breeds corruption. The government simply cannot "fix" or provide efficient, affordable healthcare. That's because it is a third-party payer. As I mentioned before, any legal transaction should be solely concerned with just the buyer and seller. They both have an incentive to get the best deal. When a third party, suffers none of the consequences of the transaction, gets involved it always goes bad. Think about it:
When anybody purchases anything they are primarily looking at two things: price and quality. The lowest price for the highest quality. Say you want to buy a car, the market is full of choices competing for your dollars and only you can decide which best fits your needs. That's a first-party purchase.
The person paying is the person using.But then you have a situation where way you are buying something for someone else. In that case, you are very concerned about the price but a little more relaxed on the quality. You care about the price because you're paying for it but less so about the quality because you are not going to use it.
Then there's the situation where you are going to use something but you are not the one paying for it. Then you are concerned more about the quality because you are going to use it but not so much about the price because you are not paying for it.
Both of these are examples of second party purchases.
The person paying is NOT the person using.Then we have the situation where you are not the person paying nor are you the person using. Therefore, you are not as concern with either the price or quality. That's a third party purchase.
A purchase made with money that's not yours to buy something that you are not going to use.So, by definition, all government purchases are third party purchases. Thus, there will always be an inherent waste in government spending. Of course, there are things the government has to purchase, like for example, national defense. But the government should only do things that people can't do themselves.
Imagine if everybody were free to buy health care for themselves? Just like they buy their life, home, and car insurance. Now insurance companies and hospitals will be forced to compete for our business. Quality would go up and price would go down. I remember when Laser eye surgery use to cost around $2,500 per eye. Now you can get it as low as $500 with much better quality. Competition creates an incentive to lower cost and improve quality. That's just the way free enterprise competition works every time. Every damn time.
When the government gets involved cost goes up and waste and fraud go up. There is no incentive to decrease price because they are not paying, nor is there an incentive to increase quality because they are not the one using.
