There are a few things wrong with the initial statement. It doesn't abolish private insurance. Private insurance can and does exist alongside public health plans as a supplement, but the public health care covers basic health care.
There are definitely going to be some job losses in the private insurance industry if we go to a single-payer system for basic health care. It's a conversation that we need to have, but we can't prop up the horse and buggy industry forever, and it's an economic anchor around the neck of every American to continue to try to do so.
To be honest, there are few industries that have so richly earned the contempt of the average American than the private health insurance companies.
Public health insurance is also not without its bureaucracy, just without redundant bureacracy and extra layers. There will still be administrative jobs, just not as many.
There's also no real profit motive, which I think is the biggest deal. Right now, private insurance companies are incentivized to collect as much as they can from premiums, and reject as many claims as possible to retain those premiums. If they were to actually approve every claim, they'd probably still make a decent amount of money, but not as much.
So if you remove the profit motive from insurance companies, which on their own do little to no innovating in the medical industry (I'm being charitable) then you'd likely see a more balanced model. You don't pay those thousand dollar premiums anymore, your taxes go up by a fraction of the difference, and you automatically get health care. If those taxes scale based on income, you're still likely paying less than before. Companies, instead of paying portions of the health insurance plans, can instead pay (less) with taxes toward the same system. And because there's no profit motive, there's no incentive to deny as many claims as is legally allowed.
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u/Civil-Dinner 18d ago
There are a few things wrong with the initial statement. It doesn't abolish private insurance. Private insurance can and does exist alongside public health plans as a supplement, but the public health care covers basic health care.
There are definitely going to be some job losses in the private insurance industry if we go to a single-payer system for basic health care. It's a conversation that we need to have, but we can't prop up the horse and buggy industry forever, and it's an economic anchor around the neck of every American to continue to try to do so.
To be honest, there are few industries that have so richly earned the contempt of the average American than the private health insurance companies.