This is interesting. Swiss voters just rejected going to a single-payer system. I didn't know that Switzerland has a health insurance system very similar to Obamacare.
I still believe that Medicare for all (aka single-payer) is the best solution for this country, since we've already got most of the infrastructure in place to do it. But reading this story got me thinking: Although the Swiss still have a private system, there's a key difference—there's no employer-provided healthcare coverage. Everybody is in the private market, which must greatly expand the risk pool. So, if people in this country are looking for a compromise between Obamacare in its present form and single payer, getting rid of employer-provided insurance (by eliminating the tax break employers get) would be one way to go. That would actually be something I could get behind, provided the private insurers were carefully regulated.
The prevalence of employer-provided health insurance in the US is an unhappy historical accident. During WWII, wages were frozen and so companies started offering health insurance as an inducement. Over the years, this had the effect of divorcing many people from healthcare costs and contributed to rising prices. Of course, a reform of this kind would be a steep political climb. The hysteria and misinformation that accompanied Obamacare would be mild to what would accompany even the suggestion of such a radical change.
On the other hand, I expect employers would love to be free of the healthcare burden. It's too bad the state of political dysfunction in this country is such that even having a sane dialog about a solution like this one is impossible.
I still believe that Medicare for all (aka single-payer) is the best solution for this country, since we've already got most of the infrastructure in place to do it. But reading this story got me thinking: Although the Swiss still have a private system, there's a key difference—there's no employer-provided healthcare coverage. Everybody is in the private market, which must greatly expand the risk pool. So, if people in this country are looking for a compromise between Obamacare in its present form and single payer, getting rid of employer-provided insurance (by eliminating the tax break employers get) would be one way to go. That would actually be something I could get behind, provided the private insurers were carefully regulated.
The prevalence of employer-provided health insurance in the US is an unhappy historical accident. During WWII, wages were frozen and so companies started offering health insurance as an inducement. Over the years, this had the effect of divorcing many people from healthcare costs and contributed to rising prices. Of course, a reform of this kind would be a steep political climb. The hysteria and misinformation that accompanied Obamacare would be mild to what would accompany even the suggestion of such a radical change.
On the other hand, I expect employers would love to be free of the healthcare burden. It's too bad the state of political dysfunction in this country is such that even having a sane dialog about a solution like this one is impossible.
A solution to the Obamacare controversy?
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