Pro's and Con's: Single-Payer Healthcare

[Alabama_Indy10]

What are the pro's and con's of single payer healthcare?

[Dr. MB]

I support it, but I don't completely support banning other competitors.

[TPIG]

It leads to skyrocketing demand for healthcare (as people no longer have to pay directly out of pocket) but does nothing to increase the supply of healthcare (and often restricts the supply with regulations and taxes), which leads to shortages and rationing of care.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I support it, but I don't completely support banning other competitors.

That is by definition not a single payer system then.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It leads to skyrocketing demand for healthcare (as people no longer have to pay directly out of pocket) but does nothing to increase the supply of healthcare (and often restricts the supply with regulations and taxes), which leads to shortages and rationing of care.

The only way to keep the costs under control is to bring more supply onto the market, deploy new technology and new developments in medicine. This means removing those regulations that get in the way, and investing things like research, electronic medical records, reforming tort laws and addressing rising tuition for new healthcare professionals.

Denying people care, regulating/taxing supply off the market, and/or rationing will only serve to ensure that demand is curtailed. Whether that occurs through rationing, pricing people out of the market or denying assistance to those who cannot afford it the affects are same. And it seems the extremes in both parties, while supporting entirely different approaches, both would lead to the same outcome.

[publicunofficial]

In case you are genuinely intellectually curious about the idea, I recommend anything Timothy Faust has written/spoken about on single payer. I've never seen anyone else lay out as clear an argument.

[vanguard96]

Con
* If they are unsuccessful then there's very little recourse except through the very flawed political process to change it.
* Once implemented it will be nearly impossible to repeal and replace even if it is failing the collectivists and moralists will continue to appeal for more and more money
* Anti-free market
* I am wondering how the current corrupt AMA and medical lobbyists will wheedle their way into a position of power in the new landscape that protects higher ups and influential types in large consortia but makes it difficult for individual providers who value support to their patients. With single payer it seems that the man / woman in Washington will be the only one that matters.
* Hospital treatment for common ailments is commonplace in Japan for instance - my key point of reference - these snarl the wait rooms people with more serious conditions.
* A single arbiter to determine if something is necessary or not from a financial POV - so we will see cases like the boy in the UK that was pulled off life support.
* Further dependency on the state for even more people

Pro
* Filing with insurance providers is a complicated process. One central location would be simpler.
* Removing medical insurance from being affiliated with your employer - enacted after a Depression era wage freeze by FDR.

The pros can be accomplished without single payer. The cons are very, very bad.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

A primary pro and the chief con are the same thing: they're efficient and utilitarian.  Under a well-managed single-payer system, the cost of everything - medical procedures, salaries, new equipment - is scrutinised systematically in a utilitarian (in the Benthamian sense) manner. This is a cost-efficiency you don't get in systems like America or multi-payer affairs like Germany. The NHS - my point of reference - has its spending priorities down to a science. Which is both good and bad in a way - such is life.

[Young Conservative]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBfC1YG9wIs

[mileslunn]

Pro:

 - Everybody gets access to care free of charge, no bankruptcies over medical fees and the poor don't avoid treatment due to fear of costs.
- Can reduce total costs due to economies of scale.
- Since one doesn't have to buy health insurance it means more disposable income elsewhere.  Yes taxes are higher but taxes unlike health insurance are progressive so rich pay more than the poor and the poor are more likely to spend each extra dollar in the economy

Con:

- Due to rationing leads to long waiting times for non-life threatening treatments
- Less innovation and research.
- Means higher taxes or less spending elsewhere