This is a great article discussing the potential long term health of Eurpean healthcare.
It is not written by a healthcare professional, but an economist. It seems high cost of new generational drugs, expectation of free healthcare, and an overall aging of a population who will have even less ability to pay into the system, but have a greater need for healthcare, points to a system of slowed or even negative financial sustainability.
In essence Europeans are not having enough children to sustain the system in the future. Birth rates are projected to decline continually over 30 years 2020 to 2050. During this time, health expenditures will increase while revenues generated into the system will not.
It is as we have always saidâŚthe weight of healthcare, small and decreasing populations, and subsequent smaller revenues will collapse European Healthcare unless they make drastic changes now. But it may be too late?
The Heritage Foundation lol. Supporting everyone getting healthcare is a moral position and isnât something we need the approval of a bunch of dorky right wing economists.
That because a source is old or from a source you donât like it simply is wrong. When the article I cited is completely valid today as much of its extrapolations were correct. Thatâs my point.
(emphasis mine)
Itâs a very long article. I have not finished reading it yet, but it does not appear to ask or answer moral questions. It is not written by theologians. It is written by economists and poli-sci PhDs from Europe and the US. (presumably honest people, but hand-picked by Heritage).
The article looks therefore (not at morality, but) at the sustainability of European healthcare models, much the way economic models are used to look at the sustainability of energy practices commercial fishing practices etcâŚ
If my first perusal is correct, the article finds that (western) Europeâs healthcare systems vary in such areas as
mandate vs single payer,
the govât owned vs a mix of hospitals
one-size fits all vs. selection of coverages involved
young-and-poor pay more just because they are young
etc. etcâŚ
And finds
they are all paygo systems, and absolutely unsustainable given demographic realities.
the cost of new meds and treatments is huge, and growing faster than the underlying economies/tax bases, and thus unsustainable,
healthcare being âfreeâ the demand curve is nearly vertical, thus inordinately expensive,
etc. etcâŚ
Regardless of whether the US returns to free market healthcare, allows choice in coverage, opts to move from employer-provided to single-payer etc⌠these are questions libs and cons BOTH need to look at.
If cod fish stocks or oil reserves or a healthcare system is unsustainable, we should change it, but that change can take many forms (switch to salmon, govât ownership of all fishing boats, tax the rich and give free codfish to the poor, or eat more soylent green.)
It does NOT mean we should replace it with the first idea that comes down the pike.
I honestly think our old system works best with certain modifications.
Free (freer?) markets work by trial-and-error. What does not work gets quickly weeded out.
Socialized systems work by trail-and-expansion. What does not work gets politicized, expanded, subsidized and âcost-shiftedâ until an alternative becomes trendy and popular, like disco replacing 60âs rock anthems only whatever is trendy is the one and only music the central arts commissariat will allow you listen to until the next trend.
For almost half a century, before during and after Hillarycare was suggested as the correct model, the American Association of Family Practitioners (family MDs), has stated and restated that using insurance-type payments for routine rashes sniffles and sneezes is a terrible way of doing things.
They have long said the US probably needs a welfare-type fix for catastrophic care and ER care, but the fix for routine turn-your-head and cough should be largely changing to cash for services.
Indoor plumbing is important, but we pay cash for plumbers.
Yup same with the cost of food and housing (cheap in China and Tajikistan, expensive here).
Compared to Europe our doctors are paid much more.
However if we stick to the topic and discuss it, rather than strafe through re-re-re-repeating worn out old preconceived rhetoric, we might have a productive conversation for a change.
Interestingly, in this case, we find out that at least one group of European and American scholars say the European systems are, like oil and Atlantic Codfish, unsustainable.
Demographics, the cost of new medicines and medical procedures and a vertical demand curve make them unsustainable.
In Europe they live l forever right?
Actually Canadian males are dying in huge numbers because their top-down command-and-control one-size-fits all medical scheme forgot to provide adequate cancer screenings. (Ooops!)
But hey the free market should never have any input right. Medical care us best decided by anti-corporate ideologues with no experience in medicine right?
Back to topic: The European models so many people recommend for the US are unsustainable.
Demographics and sustainability:
Perhaps old people whose houses are paid off, who are done paying to raise their kids should pay their own cost instead of shifting costs to healthy young people who have maxed out their credit cards and can barely keep their cars running to get to work.
