With regard to healthcare, I believe that people have the right to not die from a sickness, and it is not sustainable for a society to have a large percentage of the population go bankrupt every time they have a large medical expense. Furthermore, forcing people to decide on treatments due to cost is both unconducive to desirable outcomes and morally wrong, making it essential that citizens have some means of affordable access to healthcare.
When corporations have been forced to establish a blanket healthcare fund for affected parties as part of a settlement, the amount allocated to the fund is determined by the cost associated with critical conditions resulting directly from the wrongdoing by the corporation. However, when the beneficiaries are of a population that has not had widely available access to routine healthcare, initial health assessments expose a multitude of underlying conditions, quickly exceeding the cost estimates and depleting the fund. Medicare-for-all and other free healthcare options like those championed by Sanders are disingenuous in their cost estimates because they do not consider such ballooning costs. In order for such healthcare plans to be sustainable, care would have to be limited to only necessary expenditures, thus eliminating much preventative care, which in turn will result in more unfavorable health outcomes and exacerbate already expensive costs.
Since citizens need access to affordable healthcare that does not overburden the healthcare system, an alternate to socialized medicine is required. With preventative care is so critical to favorable outcomes, thereby reducing overall health costs, there is a profit motive for private organizations to deliver both affordable and quality healthcare, especially to the most underserved communities.
To maximize the societal benefit and mitigate extraneous costs in a private healthcare system, there must be near full participation by the population. This means both cost sharing to compensate for more expensive treatments. The most efficient and equitable method of cost sharing is private insurance. If the healthcare system is to rely on private insurance, then there must be some mechanism to allow for all citizens to afford it. the simplest solution would be to dissolve Medicare/Medicaid and instead subsidize the cost to insurance companies for offering coverage to the population. With the dramatically increased participation in the insurance pool, as well as the elimination of administrative costs associated with Medicare/Medicaid and the decidedly cheaper overall cost from a private healthcare system, the total investment in subsidies would be quite smaller than the current spending on Medicare/Medicaid.
