re: How much would single payer cost?

quote:

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hard to monetize the loss of healthcare innovation and R&D. Other countries like to point out their socialized healthcare vs. the US's system, but they would prefer not to discuss how the US is clearly the world's leader in health innovation.

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Bingo.

I’ve pointed this out in a few threads over the years, but the US system - directly and indirectly - is responsible for the vast majority of health care advances. IIRC the numbers are something in the neighborhood of 70% of all new surgical techniques, over 90% of all new drug formularies, two-thirds of all new life saving and life improving drugs, etc.

The rest of the world gets to ride our coattails. This gives us two options:

-either we (the US) continue to pay our higher cost thereby continuing to make advancements that improve all mankind and continue our (the US) enjoyed high quality of care, OR
-we stop our trailblazing only to “save” a few dollars, we (US) along with the entire world suffer from the lack of advancements, and finally we (US) have to become accustomed to a lower quality of care.

Personally? I’ll take option one and be happy. I don’t even care if the rest of the world even says “thank you.”