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142 points helloworld | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.222s | source
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seibelj ◴[] No.12306806[source]
Can anyone succinctly explain the benefits of having a market for private health insurance companies, rather than a single provider of health insurance (government, aka "public option")? Can a capitalist case be made for their existence? Does the lack of a large private insurance market in countries with government-provided health insurance cause lots of inefficiencies and waste?
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1. tn13 ◴[] No.12308931[source]
Competition is very important. Government provides free education. Is there a case for private educational institutes ? Surely yes there is. Catholic schools, schools focused on gifted children, schools focused on differently-able children etc. that diversity is important in all spheres of life.

Also, please note that when you use words like "government provided insurance" the word insurance can mean something totally different under government just the way we have learned that government's definitions of "traitor", "whistleblower", "sex offender" are different from what common sense might tell us.

If only government provides insurance government also ends up deciding what health services we can use or not use. For example Liberals might say "sex change surgery" is essential procedure and force tax-payers pay for it. Conservatives on other hand might say any health issues occurring because of anal sex will not be covered.

I think one big problem is that American's who support single payer system fail to see that "healthcare" is a lose term and under the "single payer" that definition might change to suite the payer instead of consumers.

I really like this news item : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0e3-EvpDwM