Finally, someone has the intellectual honesty to advocate the end of Medicare

Reader comment on: The Private Option

Submitted by benjamin (United States), Nov 19, 2009 22:12

I get so bothered by these Republicans who decry the hand of government in healthcare, and in the next breath scare seniors into thinking their single payer healthcare program, Medicare, may suffer some kind of cut. Although Epstein, doesn't outright say it, he does come darn close to advocating the end of Medicare. Why will this not happen? BECAUSE IT IS POPULAR. Why does anyone think that a universal single payer system for everyone would not be as popular as medicare? The government does some things better than the "free market," and healthcare is clearly one of them. It is a public good that is universally needed, separating it in fundamental ways from many other "products," including the examples he cites.

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The Future of Capitalism replies:

Food and shelter are also public goods that are universally needed but the government doesn't do them better than the private sector, witness the long waiting lists for ugly apartments and the empty supermarket shelves under Communism. Medicare is popular because government pays but the service isn't actually provided in most cases by government doctors and hospitals but instead by doctors operating their own practices as small businesses or by hospitals that are non-profits independent of the government but deriving much of their revenue from them.

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