> Single payer systems result in inflation of costs and creates individual incentive to pursue inefficient options. If my healthcare costs are amortized through payment from primarily other people instead of myself, I don't care how much money anything costs.
I think this can be somewhat mitigated thorough co-pays. It's been shown that even if you make a doctor's visit cost a few dollars/euros then people will treat it as something of value.
Also there's nothing that says a single-payer system has to cover everything the patient wants carte-blanche. In Germany, which is a hybrid system where a vast majority of people are on the public plan, the state insurance is somewhat judicious about what is covered, and it's possible to get elective treatment out-of-pocket. I think this is a reasonable incentive structure.
> Moreover, it incentives risky behavior (smoking, getting HIV, etc) because I personally will not have to bear the financial burden of those choices. The only way to get around this would to to institute caps on lifetime medical credit. And if that happened, people would be screaming about "death panels" and such.
I have a lot of problems with this reasoning. First of all, I think it is probably a tiny minority of people who only value their health because of the threat of financial ruin. I think there's a strong intrinsic incentive to avoid things like HIV and lung cancer.
Second, not all health issues are the result of bad choices. I have relatives who are or have been affected by conditions like MS, dementia and cancer through no discernible fault of their own. This argument seems to imply that it's more important to punish callous smokers and people who have unsafe sex than it is to care for innocent people who are the victim of circumstance.
I think this can be somewhat mitigated thorough co-pays. It's been shown that even if you make a doctor's visit cost a few dollars/euros then people will treat it as something of value.
Also there's nothing that says a single-payer system has to cover everything the patient wants carte-blanche. In Germany, which is a hybrid system where a vast majority of people are on the public plan, the state insurance is somewhat judicious about what is covered, and it's possible to get elective treatment out-of-pocket. I think this is a reasonable incentive structure.
> Moreover, it incentives risky behavior (smoking, getting HIV, etc) because I personally will not have to bear the financial burden of those choices. The only way to get around this would to to institute caps on lifetime medical credit. And if that happened, people would be screaming about "death panels" and such.
I have a lot of problems with this reasoning. First of all, I think it is probably a tiny minority of people who only value their health because of the threat of financial ruin. I think there's a strong intrinsic incentive to avoid things like HIV and lung cancer.
Second, not all health issues are the result of bad choices. I have relatives who are or have been affected by conditions like MS, dementia and cancer through no discernible fault of their own. This argument seems to imply that it's more important to punish callous smokers and people who have unsafe sex than it is to care for innocent people who are the victim of circumstance.