I understand that theres an argument for removing private insurance companies in favor of thr government can cut costs. It can also increase them.

I'd argue that the primary issue with insurance costs today is the lack of market competition, obscurity of what costs and prices are, and government protections that prevent insurance companies from being legally liable for many of the problems they cause.

Corruption and monopolistic practices is a big deal in healthcare, for example. We'd be better off, in my opinion, by solving that rather than killing an entire private industry and hoping our government can continue to do it better indefinitely.

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onraglanroad a day ago | parent [-]

>theres an argument for removing private insurance companies in favor of thr government

I don't see why you'd need to do that. Just expand medicare to everyone and if people want to also buy private insurance they can.

They'd just need to be more competitive and add significant value, which they don't currently do.

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nradov a day ago | parent [-]

And then more and more providers would opt out of taking Medicare at all, so we would quickly end up back where we started.

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onraglanroad a day ago | parent [-]

No, you just make it compulsory to accept Medicare.

Actually I thought that was already the case.

	▲	nradov a day ago \| parent [-]
		The "just" is doing some heavy lifting there. Clinicians aren't required to participate in Medicare; in fact they have to go through a complex process in order to join. And there's no way that such a mandate could ever pass Congress, or be effectively enforced. Let's focus on reforms that are actually achievable in the real world. https://www.cms.gov/medicare/enrollment-renewal/providers-su...