LeveragedBuyout
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- May 16, 2014
- Messages
- 1,958
- Reaction score
- 60
- Country
- Location
I didn't even consider this at all as a possibility. That is an interesting option but how much resistance would there be for that in the UK?
To be honest, I produced that option off the cuff, and have not read of anyone else proposing it. I don't know how the British would receive such an idea, but superficially, it checks the boxes: free trade without the immigration or slush-fund payments. And it helps that we already share a common language, common-law legal system, and a generally laissez-faire view of markets and the role of government. On the other hand, the overlap between the Euroskeptics and the anti-American mob is quite large, as I understand it. We'll see, it's early days, yet.
Why are you against the Obamacare ?
Even the most conservative parts of France support the national health service and we have difficulties understanding why a lot of people in the US see that an obligatory health insurance scheme for all could be a bad thing ?
Feel free to enlighten me !
-
Anyway, the situation of the NHS was very critical under the EU,I guess it would become even worse now.
Our healthcare system is terrible in the US, with far higher costs and far worse outcomes. I admit that openly. But Obamacare is not the correct solution, because it puts us on the spectrum of socialized medicine. As you pointed out, the core component is obligatory health insurance. That level of state intervention is alien to America's founding values (as are many other atrocities against the Constitution imposed by Democrats and Republicans alike), but to have the government determine which hospitals one can visit, which doctors one can see, what medicines one is allowed to take--it's a bridge too far. These are literally life or death matters, and best left to the individual to decide. I am a pragmatist, and I believe that there should be a social safety net for those unable to afford health care, but there is a difference between the poor and deadbeats who don't pay until they have an emergency that needs to be addressed. Obamacare doesn't help the former: healthcare premiums have skyrocketed since the implementation of Obamacare, and the deductible, or the amount that patients must pay before insurance begins to cover costs, is now in the thousands of dollars, which is crippling to the middle class, let alone the poor. Obamacare primarily benefits deadbeats.
The NHS, specifically, is an abomination, with terrible service, long wait times, and a fatal dependence on cheap foreign labor to enable it to function. Hardly a model for the world, and in dire need of restructuring. Unfortunately, due to the cult-like worship of the NHS in Britain, no one is allowed to touch it unless a crisis emerges. ("Ring-fenced" finances = no accountability). The Brexit could catalyze such a crisis, which would be helpful to the British healthcare system in the long run, and thus I see this outcome as desirable.
I am unfamiliar with the French system, but I would be open to emulating it if it's more market-based than the NHS.