Quote:
Originally Posted by synth_floyd
The healthcare debate always moves in the direction of greater coverage and the final stop in the "how do we get the most coverage?" discussion is socialized medicine. I think it's inevitable at some point but whether that is 5, 10, 20 or whatever years is still an open question.
A major catalyst would be if the provision of health care by the private sector became less profitable, such that there is a large flight of capital out of the sector. Normally you wouldn't expect this to happen, but the impact of the tidal wave of changing demographics that is hitting the US will have unpredictable outcomes. The number of older people in the US is increasing fast and old people consume a lot of health care resources. If the cost of all that old age health care exceeds their ability to pay for it plus a profit for the private sector providers, then that might be enough to tilt the vast majority of the industry to the public sector.