Hybrid Healthcare (and other entities): why it's a problem
“In America we appear to be suffering from this “hybrid” disease, not just in health care but in every major industry. We have systems that mix the worst incentives of public and private to avoid making any real choice as to what kind of system we want to have. This has led to embarrassingly high costs that with the advent of the financial crisis are unsustainable.
This “hybrid disease” has infected major US industries such as telecommunications and financial services. Look at our financial system and disaster we’ve just experienced there and see the parallels in health care…
America right now is facing it’s greatest fiscal challenge. If we make a choice and bring our costs even down to levels of the Swiss system at 11% of GDP we would save almost $840 billion a year. That’s $840 billion that can be spent on tax cuts, health care subsidies for low income earners, infrastructure or energy independence. This challenge is politically difficult but the rewards of fixing this gaping fiscal hole are huge as well. Time for us to make a choice in either a public system or a private one—the hybrid choice of “we’ll take both” is killing us fiscally and literally. We need to make this choice, not just in health care but in many of our most important industries and return to America’s practical roots.”
