> "The likely result will be substantially reduced payments to care providers as well as significant delays in payment, which then likely causes some providers to stop accepting from these systems, thus overloading other providers who may follow and do the same."
> Fed can print money and helicopter it out.
> "Everyone needing medical care is reliant on the healthcare system receiving so much money for its services, but given that U.S. healthcare is tied to employment, a lot more people won't be able to pay their bills, so the providers will then increase rates to those who can pay, and employers will be forced to further shed employees to cover premium hikes. Even in the short term, this will reduce new investment in healthcare, such new facilities, equipment, and even equipment maintenance and repair, so the facilities will perform more poorly. Number of beds available will fall because there will be fewer beds per person."
> Nationalize the healthcare system and move to single payer.
> "There will also be increases in suicide from the increase in unemployment as well as the social isolation
> Drug overdoses rise."
> It will be interesting to track these numbers over time and compare them to the COVID-19 death toll.
The way that the term "helicopter" is used in this comment and elsewhere recently suggests people using it may not be aware of its etymology. I believe it was first used when Milton Friedman used it euphemistically to describe the best way to generate inflation to consumers. It is highly undesirable. I'm pretty sure nobody takes the threat of inflation seriously, because the real issue is how to get out of inflation. The Fed had to increase interest to 20% the last time there were issues with inflation.
Nationalizing health care and single payer are different. Nationalizing something typically refers to having it managed by the Federal Government. Single payer refers to having the National Government pay healthcare providers.
This will not affect the funding issue because the money still has to come from some place, so either it comes from increasing the number of dollars in circulation or taking it from other sectors, resulting in layoffs.
I will be one of the skeptical ones in reports on deaths to COVID-19 because the government is now fully invested in maximizing the numbers to justify the incredible expense. A similar situation exists in current wars, where they claim every male killed over a certain age to be an enemy combatant because they need to justify their actions. They may likely claim that every person who dies with COVID-19 in their blood was a victim of COVID-19 (SARS2, or whatever the correct term is).