McMajliw on Health Care

Korea, Singapore, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. These are Nate’s examples of better, “free”, cheaper healthcare.

It’s true, Korea’s system is an excellent universal healthcare scheme. It is essentially a single-payer system.

Singapore, however, is not a single-payer system. It is a hybrid that puts an emphasis on health savings accounts and is currently a darling of American conservative commentators and think-tanks. So, using Singapore to extol the virtues of a proposed NYS-based single-payer plan is bullshit.

Denmark, as most Scandinavian social democracies, has an excellent public health care system, as well. It is also one of the least corrupt countries in the world.

Finally, the UK and her NHS. It is Britain’s pride and joy, which has been weakened to the point of crisis by a decade and a half of Tory rule, marked first by its disastrous austerity programs, followed by the autosanctions of Brexit and a concomitant exodus and resulting shortage of nurses, doctors, and aides. If anything, the Tory gutting of the NHS is a perfect example of the perils of government-run and taxpayer-funded single-payer schemes. (This is before we get into the fact that the UK also allows for a private healthcare market outside the NHS, which Canada, for instance, does not allow).

Weird, isn’t it, that Mr. Binational-let’s-run-trains-in-a-NY-Ontario-Schengen didn’t mention Canadian Medicare?

Anyhow, one of the biggest mistakes that proponents of single-payer plans commit is to call it “free.” It’s not free – it’s paid for through taxes and fees. European countries have higher rates of income taxation and value-added sales taxes help to fund their social services. Sales taxes in some European countries exceed 20%. In Ontario, the HST (used to be GST and PST) is 13%. It’s 15% in the Maritimes and Quebec (which still separates QST and GST).

New Yorkers are taxed quite highly already, and we have full and robust implementation of Obamacare and Medicaid expansion. While universal health coverage is a longstanding platform plank of Democrats, there are many different ways in which this might be accomplished. It is not a stretch for people to be wary of what a Republican-led State Senate or a Republican governor might do to implement austerity on a single-payer state plan if for no other reason but to establish that it doesn’t work.

Heard of Geely? It’s a Chinese care company that owns Volvo and Lynk & Co, which are poised to go all-electric in a few years. BYD is not in the American market, which is why “no one here ever heard of them.” Although they had a presence at the NAIAS a decade ago, BYD is not about to enter the American market, and if it did, it would likely have to build cars here. But, seriously, what’s the point of this particular brain-fart? I mean, people are already on it, guy. You’re reacting to something on Twitter that people in authority are already doing. Go have a Chips Ahoy and go home.