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Comment by thescriptkiddie | Hacker News Reader

Healthcare is not a finite or tangible resource, it is a service provided by medical professionals. It isn't possible to run out of healthcare. It is possible to have a healthcare shortage, but as long as there is money to pay for running hospitals and training doctors, that won't happen. You might think that the amount of money it would take is impossibly large, but other nations provide free healthcare to 100% of their population for less money per person than we spend in the US already. If you disagree with the fundamental idea of taking money (taxes) from some people to pay for services used by others, than you may actually disagree with the entire concept of government.

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Medical professionals and hospital rooms are absolutely finite resources. You can certainly build more, either by incentivizing their construction (capitalism) or have the state build them as part of some 5 year plan. Medical professionals are somewhat harder...we get them now by paying them handsomely...you could continue to do that, or conscript people into service. I'm not sure I'd want my heart surgeon to be a draftee..but ok.

How about donor organs? is there some infinite source of hearts and livers out there I'm unaware of?

Once you accept the fact that a given resource is rivalrous, you have to come up with some way to distribute it. Currently, that mechanism is money. If you get rid of that, then you have to replace it with _something_..whether it be algorithms, favor-economies, or central planning.

Now if you want to argue that insurance companies distort the market, then I probably agree with you (though I think there is room for interesting discussion here...). Certainly I think a single-payer solution is preferable to the current status quo, which mandates that individuals purchase insurance from private companies.

> Medical professionals are somewhat harder...we get them now by paying them handsomely...you could continue to do that, or conscript people into service. I'm not sure I'd want my heart surgeon to be a draftee..but ok.

You can also increase the supply by opening up medical schools and giving more students the chance to attempt to become doctors without needing 10s of thousands of dollars.

> Healthcare is not a finite or tangible resource, it is a service provided by medical professionals.

Medical professionals and equipment are finite, tangible resources. No matter how capitalist or socialist your health care system, you are subject to limits on how much time, energy, and money you devote to health care.

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