How to fix America's financial relationship to healthcare
Direct primary care is a good thing, and I greatly appreciate you contributing your experience to this discussion.<p>On the other hand, having grown up with a public health system (in Ireland, whose model is almost identical with the UK&#x27;s NHS), I&#x27;m strongly of the opinion that the necessarily higher rates of income tax are well worth it. Why? Because when you get sick you just go the doctor, and if the doctor&#x27;s clinical opinion is that you need additional care, you go to the hospital. There is no financial decision-making involved, there&#x27;s no additional paperwork to be filled out (not by you anyway), and you don&#x27;t have to have conversations about who&#x27;s in or out of your provider network in the normal course of events. The only focus is on your clinical care and recovery needs. Is it perfect, of course not - but when you develop a medical problem, you get to focus on that rather than having to split your attention between medical, financial, and administrative worries. My experience of the American healthcare system is that while there are many sincere and selfless people working in it, the system itself is badly corrupted and wildly inefficient.<p>One objection I&#x27;ve heard from opponents of single payer healthcare is that if going to the doctor is free or almost so, doctor&#x27;s offices will be filled with hypochondriacs and genuinely needy patients will be crowded out. I have never seen any evidence for this claim, and it doesn&#x27;t match my experience. Most people don&#x27;t like going to the doctor because it makes them nervous, it&#x27;s icky, and they dislike being around other sick people in the waiting room - same as everywhere. Of course there are some hypochondriacs out there, and doctors quickly become skilled at spotting them and running them off. It may be a bit harder in these days of WebMd, but I am disinclined to believe that a tiny number of hypochondriacs are the major obstacle to restructuring and industry comprising 10-15% of our economy.