one more potentially devastating impact of the Bush bailout
The Bush presidency has been a disaster in economic/political terms.
Here's a doozy I haven't heard anyone mention: all of this talk about $700 billion may be softening up the public to accept some federal version of socialized medicine.
Imagine if the supposed price tag on that comes in at $400 billion. It will be a lot easier to sell that-- after insisting that we could drop $700 billion on welfare for the rich and a bail-out for bankers.
posted by Eric Schansberg @ 4:44 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
If memory serves, the Canadian single-payer system is a smaller fraction of their economy, then our system is of our economy. So it's not clear to me that a socialized system would be more expensive; we would pay higher taxes instead of health insurance.
But I can see a circumstance where the aftermath of the $700 billion bailout would lead to nationalized health care: If as a result we experience a Great Depression-scale economic disaster, and there are many tens of millions more Americans who have lost their coverage, the political pressure to expand health care would be immense. We would have another New Deal, with health care joining jobs programs on the agenda.
Your point about the connection between nationalized health and a profound economic downturn is well-taken...most of the govt intervention we have today was either started or has its roots in FDR's 1930s reforms.
One problem with that scenario is that we would be less able to afford it. The other problem is that a Great-Depression scenario (at least of that length and depth) is still extraordinarily unlikely.
In any case, the point I was making is that holding economy constant, nationalized health care has just become more likely.
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