Single Payer: Now More Than Ever

I’m glad that Josh Marshall and Matt Yglesias knocked Joe Klein around for his embarrassing Press The Meat performance on Sunday. As they point out, not only is what Klein saying pretty much meaningless gibberish (“information age”, “third way”–aren’t those just annoying buzzwords that reactionary wankers use to sound smart?), but to the extent it has any content it works against his argument. To combine this with Dave’s post yesterday, the increasing instability of employment makes the virtues of single-payer healthcare clear. The value of having guaranteed basic healthcare that is not tied to employment and guarantees that one cannot be bankrupted by unforeseen medical catastrophe cannot be overstated in the current economic context.

But what about the costs? I think I’m going to try to draw attention to this Nathan Newman post at least once a month. Here is the unequivocal truth: Single payer produces better outcomes for lessmoney than the American system. We could use the money we’re already spending to get gold-plated French universal healthcare and individuals and businesses would have bucketloads of money left over for other purposes. And don’t be fooled by random anecdotes about wealthy Canadians going to the U.S. to jump waiting lines. Although, as Nathan points out, the government doesn’t spend enough money on it, it’s still fairer and better than the American system.

Unless you’re a libertarian or a typical brute-class-interest Republican who believes that healthcare should be evaluated by the quality of care received by the very wealthiest members of society, the empirical case is open-and-shut. The American system is the worst all of all worlds, and trying to tinker around the edges of the existing framework is pointless. There’s simply no reason for anybody who cares about empirical evidence and is not opposed to any state intervention in providing healthcare to defend anything like the existing system. It is more bureaucratic, allows less consumer choice, and is less efficient than a good single-payer system; the evidence on this is unambiguous. Trying to preserve a half-assed system that inevitably creates incentives for uninsured people to use extremely expensive and relatively ineffective health care people is never going to be able to control costs or provide decent universal coverage. While single-payer may not be politically viable right now, on the merits it’s vastly better than the current American system, and the increasing instability of employment makes that even more clear.