So the general population doesn’t want privatization, healthcare workers don’t want privatization, who wants privatization? 🤔…
OH YEAH, the already rich people who see it as an investment opportunity.
This is just the final stages of decades of effort. Every capitalist business (ie run by money instead of by skill) is most interested in selling what the business finds easiest to sell.
Nothing is easier to sell than healthcare. Food can be grown in a yard or on a balcony or stolen off the shelf. Shelter, in the extreme, can be found in a tent or under a bridge. But healthcare cannot be stolen or produced at home, it must be purchased. Whether the fake products and services of the “alternative” and “wellness” industry, the products of self-medication like drugs and alcohol, or actual medical care, it cannot be produced at home and theft is basically impossible.
Yeah, the essential and irreplaceable nature of healthcare is one reason for it to be a public service.
Another reason that public healthcare is much better than private is that most healthcare services are “Credence Goods” where the person receiving the care cannot determine the value/quality of the service received.
Example: If someone gets hit by a car and needs surgery, how would they determine the surgery was the best possible surgery? If it was unsuccessful was it due to the lack of skill of the doctor, or was it because the accident was too severe and could not be solved by any living doctor on the planet?
If the value of goods cannot be determined, it is hard to fit it into economic models for competitive markets.
This is on top of the other obvious benefits:
- single payer systems driving down total costs for everyone
- maintaining standards across clinics
- a healthy population is more productive, pays more taxes, drives innovation, etc.
- a healthy person is more likely to contribute money into the economy vs. take money out of the economy (through welfare, disability, etc.) – this is definitely not to say that welfare and disability benefits should be reduced in favour of healthcare, they are both needed. Most people would prefer to actually get treatment and get back on their feet than not get treated and be on EI or welfare until they die young.
Here is an Unlearning Economics video that goes into this more.
Thanks for making me aware of the concept of “Credence Goods.” I will have to do some more reading on that subject.
The thing that confuses me about the other points you make is not the points, but that, in addition to seeming self-evident to me, they are backed by both experience and analysis yet still rejected by people who I think should know better.
Yeah they are all super obvious, but I repeat them all even if I think most people would already know them by now.
Leave no opportunity for intentional deception (ex. Doug Ford) or innocent misunderstanding (people who just don’t follow this stuff).
Yes, I have to get better at making sure I’m not taking shortcuts or making assumptions.
Why do conservatives always insist on breaking things?
They hope they can buy the thing they broke for a discount and then sell it back to us for a premium.
I hope they’ll be joining the OHA protest in September when the legislature reopens. It’s supposed to be rather large.
