Position on Healthcare

[Never Made it to Graceland]

I have now experienced the American, Swedish, and German healthcare systems for both general and specialized care (rheumatology, specifically). I can't really express a preference between Germany or Sweden, since both have had their ups and downs (obviously both are better than whatever we have right now in the U.S.), but I have found specialist care to be much better in Germany compared to Sweden so far. General care was about the same. Not sure how much of this is related to the financing versus cultural mentality of how specialist care should be.

Anyways, for the U.S., I think people are just fundamentally too individualistic and suspicious of the government to go for a full UK-Sweden-Italy-style healthcare system, and even a Canada/Australia-style system might be a stretch.

Harry Truman actually did propose a health insurance system that would have functioned somewhat similarly to the continental European model of insurance funds paid for by a 4.5% payroll tax back in 1946: https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/harry-trumans-radical-health-care-plan

Every wage-earning American would receive comprehensive insurance. Patients could choose their doctors. Physicians would not become government employees, but the government would set reimbursement rates, which would incentivize them to practice in rural and low-income areas. Preventive care would be emphasized. And here’s a big one: money from the funds collected to pay for the system would also be used to replace income lost by individuals when ill or injured.

But this wasn’t all.

Truman appealed to Congress to enact legislation to expand medical schools and provide financial aid to low-income medical students. Next, the federal government should help fund the construction of new hospitals and clinics “in communities where they are needed.” He continued: “We should improve the public health preventive and disease control services, which are now inadequate in most areas and totally lacking in many.”

For every insured person and his family, the. medical care and hospitalization fund would pay for unlimited doctors’ care including specialists, for hospitalization up to 30 days, X rays, and laboratory tests. Dental care, nursing, medicines and drugs would not be paid for. Patients would be free to choose their physicians from among those participating in the program, whether engaged in individual or group practice. Standards of competence for specialists and hospitals would be established by the Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service. Any licensed physician could participate in the program as a general practitioner.

The national fund would pay physicians for the services rendered to patients covered by the system through any of several methods-fee-for-service, capitation, part-time or full-time salaries, or by a combination of these methods. The physicians of each area would choose by majority vote the method of payment to be adopted in that area. Hospitals would be paid up to $6 per day for each day of care they furnished.

Honestly such a damn shame that this didn't happen.

You can thank the Conservative Coalition, some of whom Truman himself helped keep in power, for that.