Universal Healthcare

I had a conversation with a senior hospital administrator the other day, and the subject of universal healthcare came up.  I mentioned that the United States is the only country in the developed world that doesn’t offer this to its citizens.

He made it clear that this will never happen in in America, because our population is too large.  I had two responses:

1) Large numbers are actually good for insurers, whether they’re private or public.  Sure, in a population of 330 million there are more sick people than there are in the populations of medium-sized European countries like Germany, France, and the Netherlands, but there are more healthy people too.

2) Civilized nations don’t have people suffering and dying from treatable disease–even if somehow there are expenses associated with preventing this from happening.   The idea that people who fought for this country are now dying in the streets because they can’t afford healthcare is utterly disgusting.

The guy really had no replies–even to my second point.  Yikes.