¿Socialism in the United States?
By Carlos Alberto Montaner
The adoption of a universal health system like the one in France or Spain seems inevitable in the United States. The clear majority prefers it according to the last measurements. Americans pay 19 cents of every dollar they generate in health care (twice the average of developed countries) and have to pay up to three times the value of medicines. That’s intolerable.
With the bad experience of “veterans hospitals,” the least bad solution is the Swiss model. In that country the state forces all citizens to have a health insurance policy from birth until they die. In some way this obligation contradicts liberal principles, but there are other instances in which the state “obliges” citizens. It does so when you demand taxes, when you enroll young people in compulsory military service or when you require a driver’s license.
For the small Swiss market there are dozens of companies competing in price and quality and it is up to people to choose the company that offers them more guarantees. The Swiss law defines the care that the policy must cover. As in every society, there are people who lack the resources to pay for health insurance, but at that point the Community intervenes and pays the bill. It is not the Swiss confederation that takes over. It is the neighbours, the real neighbors, those who face those expenses. That reduces abuse considerably.
The cost of college education is more dubious. While what is paid for health is a lost fund, the bill for college education is an investment in the person’s own destiny and it is immoral to force others to improve the economic performance of adults who will enjoy a competitive advantage.
My granddaughter Gabriela, for example, will leave the law school of a large university with a debt of $250.000 dollars, but probably have the offer of a good firm willing to pay you $150.000 the first year. It would be unfair for the whole society to run with its study expenses. Simultaneously, I know that he does not lose a minute and studies intensely, like all his companions. If the race did not end, the debt would continue to gravitate over it. Where and when education costs, students are more judicious and demanding. Elementary, Dr. Watson.
Posted in Montaner’s Blog-Saturday 6 April 2019-
*Las opiniones aquí publicadas son responsabilidad absoluta de su autor*
*@CarlosAMontaner. El último libro de CAM es una revisión de Las raíces torcidas de América Latina, publicada por Planeta, y accesible en papel o digital en Amazon.
