In a Universal healtcare system, there is a monetary incentive for the autorities to make laws and regulations to prevent disease - prevention is a lot cheaper than fixing things after the damage is done.
In a pure for profit healthcare system there is no such incentive for the autorities - in some ways, there might even be the opposite incentive, depending on the levels of Corruption and how much more profit the Healthcare sector can make if people are more sick: after all, when a country spends twice as much as a percentage of the GDP in Healthcare, that means there’s a lot more money to be made in Healthcare, and private interests have an incentive to buy politicians and regulators to help them profit as much as possible.
Beyond this there is also the whole “doing what’s best for our people” incentive, which is the US is so weak that it doesn’t even apply to some obviously bad things (for example, easy availability of guns, which is definitelly bad for people’s health) much less to more subtle pathways to damage people’s health such as unhealthy food.
Universal healthcare also allows the state to have enormous negotiation power. Some European countries co-operate to get even better prices on pharmaceuticals, just imagine the state placing on the table that best offer will give you access to a market 340 million people, gouging nada.
In a Universal healtcare system, there is a monetary incentive for the autorities to make laws and regulations to prevent disease - prevention is a lot cheaper than fixing things after the damage is done.
In a pure for profit healthcare system there is no such incentive for the autorities - in some ways, there might even be the opposite incentive, depending on the levels of Corruption and how much more profit the Healthcare sector can make if people are more sick: after all, when a country spends twice as much as a percentage of the GDP in Healthcare, that means there’s a lot more money to be made in Healthcare, and private interests have an incentive to buy politicians and regulators to help them profit as much as possible.
Beyond this there is also the whole “doing what’s best for our people” incentive, which is the US is so weak that it doesn’t even apply to some obviously bad things (for example, easy availability of guns, which is definitelly bad for people’s health) much less to more subtle pathways to damage people’s health such as unhealthy food.
Universal healthcare also allows the state to have enormous negotiation power. Some European countries co-operate to get even better prices on pharmaceuticals, just imagine the state placing on the table that best offer will give you access to a market 340 million people, gouging nada.
Excellent points!