We Need to Design Health Care Reform That Puts Patients Before Profits
The U.S. spends $3.5 trillion annually on healthcare. <i>Worldwide</i> profits for the 112 publicly traded healthcare industry companies amount to $50 billion per quarter: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thefiscaltimes.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;11&#x2F;12&#x2F;Chart-Day-Big-Pharmas-Profits" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thefiscaltimes.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;11&#x2F;12&#x2F;Chart-Day-Big-Phar...</a>. Even if all those profits are allocated to the U.S., that&#x27;s about 5.7% of healthcare spending. (And completely consistent with most other industries.)<p>Hyper-focusing on profits is misguided. Many countries with costs much lower than ours have for-profit hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, etc. Public operation of the health system would surely eliminate the profit, but why do we have reason to believe it will reduce the other $3.3 billion? We can point to European countries that have much lower costs overall, but those countries seem to provide many public services at much lower cost than we do (education, transit, etc.). Canada&#x27;s government expenditures (excluding defense for both countries), is somehow slightly lower than the U.S., even though Canada offers universal healthcare.<p>The public rhetoric frustrates me as someone who favors universal healthcare. Demonizing corporations and rich people is red meat for partisans, but it’s not a solution. How do we pay for this system? How do we cut costs? Making healthcare into a public service in the US risks turning into the same thing we have with education, transit, and infrastructure. We spend tons of money, often more than European countries, and get very little in return. And the only solutions folks offer are to dismantle the public system (on the right), or to demand even more funding (on the left).