Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

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(Looking at this from an American centric point-of-view):

The Czar of health-care in the US today is a brain-worm addled, drug-addicted, vaccine-denying, conspiracy mongering, incompetent jackass. And the overall current administration has shown itself to be hostile to basically anyone who isn't a cis-gendered, white, heterosexual, Christian male.

How many of us really trust these people to make good decisions regarding our health-care? A position that they (or their delegates) would find themselves in if we "nationalize health care".

I think this is a classic example of an idea that sounds good on paper, but doesn't survive contact with reality.

In the UK, it's operated as trusts separate from day to day government. In Canada it's provincially administered. In Australia, Medicare is a national, tax-funded system with independent statutory authorities overseeing parts of it. Germany, France, Japan have social insurance systems.

I would imagine individual states would manage their own health services, with the federal government acting as more of a coordinating and standard setting body. At least that's how it works in UK, Spain etc.

There's probably no federal agency less related to the issue of nationalized healthcare than the DHHS.

You know CMS is under HHS, right?

Even so, the issues I am referring to go all the way to the top (POTUS) and descend down through everybody in the reporting chain to various degrees. And even for people who are Trump supporters, just ask yourself the question "What happens if the ONE PERSON I HATE MOST gets elected POTUS in a world where I depend on the federal government for health care?"

I know in years past we all though the US government was somewhat immune for really radical swings in direction and what-not, but I think now we have an existence proof that really sudden and radical changes can happen.

You mean like Jeremy Hunt in the UK?

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