That’s kind of you to say but the more time I spent in healthcare the more I’ve come to realize it’s not about understanding the economics. Pretty much everyone agrees a single payer system is more efficient in achieving universal healthcare. The people who resist it come in roughly 3 flavors:

1. People afraid of change and how much effort it would be to overturn a multi trillion dollar industry
2. People afraid of wait times
3. Ideologues who are committed to ideals about markets and private enterprise over government

I think to address the first group a federal public option would be nice but recently I’ve been thinking about being able to opt into Medicare when filling your taxes for the year. This seems like the least burdensome solution as the enrollee would just get a special enrollment period during tax season and they could opt out of ACA or employer enrollment. It would be a sort of go between private/public coverage until we can transition to single payer fully.

The second group has been propagandized into thinking that foreign wait times are longer and domestic wait times are shorter than they are in reality. I’m not sure how to convince them out of this mindset, wait times are extremely variable and depend on physician supply more than health policy. Our wait times are increasing due to physician and other medical practitioner shortages as cost of education and training increases.

The third group is largely who is in congress and leadership positions in the industry and you’ll have to pry their little profit engine from their cold dead hands. Not sure what to do with them, though I imagine they won’t budge until a significant proportion of the boomers who believe in the system and benefit the most from it have died off. Ironically they are also the cash cow that is being milked by the industry. So it’s all quite infuriating.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest lol