Common Arguments in Health Care Financing

When we say that the cost of health care in the United States is the highest in the world for the least over all benefit, we are including both private and public funding. **When we debate the cost of universal health care, WE MUST ALWAYS USE THE SUM OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC FUNDING, to place the emphasis on the savings that result from that system.** Then, increased public funding is offset by decreased private funding, and TAX PAYERS SEE THEY ARE GETTING A BARGAIN.

Opponents of a public system have said for years that a government operated system could not be cost effective, because the private sector is inherently more efficient. But now that the numbers are being added up, and public financing is seen to be more efficient, they are charging "unfair competition". So which way do they want to spin their argument?

The private sector long ago proved itself inefficient at providing good health care to the American public, and there is no sound economic reason to protect private profiteering in health care. So many efficiencies would result from a single payer system that building it would be like cleaning out an old barn that's been filled with junk and old hay, and setting up a proper work shop or office.

All of the savings that would result would be a terrific stimulus to the economy, and all of the people put out of jobs at the insurance companies would find plenty of new opportunities, as businesses would prosper, without the burden of health care insurance, and with workers arriving to work healthy.

In our present system, profit competes with health. While the wealthiest Americans get excellent care, other Americans have no care or inadequate care, because insurance companies place profits ahead of health. HEALTH MUST WIN OVER PROFITS.

Conservatives like to dichotomize the public and the government, making the government an evil. But for us, the government IS us, the government is our means of organizing a universal system, it is how we build that system that will take care of us. We must assert our right to use government, the institutional incarnation of community, to serve our interests, to serve the interests of the people of the United States.