My answer of course is that no one should profit from the illness of injury of another. If you agree, these consequences should result.
A. Single Payer Universal Health Care Provider
The majority of the American public, physicians, and nurses want it. It would eliminate insurance companies from the business. Without their sales, administrative costs, and profits, cost would be reduced. Most importantly it would care for all American citizens.
B. Pharmaceutical companies would be nationalized.
This would reduce costs by elimination of their huge marketing expenses and enormous profits. These companies argue that profits are required to finance R&D and the development of new drugs. This is nonsense. R&D is an expense financed from revenue not profit. Besides, a great deal of pharmaceutical R&D is already financed by government.
C. “For profit” HMO’s, PPO’s hospitals, and nursing homes would likewise be nationalized.
D. Alternative means of financing the above would need to be developed.
But the current insurance costs of both business and individuals as well as current Government subsidy costs to various groups would be eliminated. I do not propose a solution but all of the industrialized nations with whom we compete have done so and, with respect to B. and C., prices should be high enough to pay for their nationalization over time.
Criticism of this proposal can only be that it is socialistic and not in keeping with free market capitalism as established in our representative democracy.
If this proposal marks me as a socialist, so be it.
