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Medicare for All Would Be $40 Trillion Cheaper Than Our Shitty For-Profit System | Common Dreams
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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Has there ever existed a time when anyone with any actual economic merit thought that private was less costly than public?
I don't remember exactly when the projections flipped, but yes. Something like 20-25 years ago, the public option was projected to cost more. Then it became about the same, and now it's projected to be less.
Weird cause 25 years ago it was still free in the entire industrialized world minus the usa
No it wasn't. It was free to the end user. Or do you think every medical person donated their time and every medicine producer volunteered their time?
What a ridiculous reply.
Free to the end user, that's a rediculous thing to say as well. So if I go get treatment I can stop paying taxes for the rest of my life... Sheesh, sounds great.
Free to end user/free at point of use is exactly how these systems are described by the countries themselves that use them
Only if you have the memory of a goldfish. The context of this conversation was about whether or not private sector medical care in the United States was cheaper or more expensive than public sector medical care.
Neither one of those is free. Things cost money.
It's not that you don't have a point, it's not that you're not correct in some contexts because you are. The problem is what you're saying has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation in any way whatsoever.
Have fun in life, lol
Lol, I bet everything I own you're american
Can't keep up with the context of the conversation because neither one of you people understands what the hell we're talking about. Go have your own conversation about stuff. I bet you'll find. I probably agree with 90% of whatever you believe. But none of it has to do with the conversation we're having here
In the interest of pretending you're coming at this in good faith, it should have been very obvious to you in context that I of course meant free at point of use. You suddenly pivoting to assuming I meant healthcare in the developed world was LITERALLY FREE involving thousands of volunteer doctors and drug manufacturers is so obviously absurd that for you to genuinely make that statement means you are either woefully ignorant and uninformed or deliberately making a strawman argument.
You don't seem woefully ignorant to me so I assumed the latter.
My point was, 25 years ago it was still the case that the US was spending more money JUST IN TAXES than Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Australia, NZ, or anyone else that was providing universal coverage. Before even talking about private costs in the USA.
Therefore to me the idea that such a system could possibly be considered cheaper, by any economic reckoning or fuckery whatsoever, doesn't really stand to reason.
As a reminder, 25 years ago was 2001, not like, 1982
Good faith? This all stems from my top level comment, which I will remind was:
What part of that makes you think I was ever talking about the cost at the point of service?
And I'm thoroughly aware of the timeframe I was talking about. I'm 51 years old. I became an adult in 1993. I am aware of politics from at least that time (more vaguely aware as a child, but quite aware as an adult).
So I don't know where the hell you got the conversation wrong, but it ain't me. :P
All that aside, a quick thanks for keeping going with it. I have a feeling we're getting close to figuring out where things went wrong. lol. I feel like I haven't made mistakes so far here, but depends on what you reply with, I suppose. It sounds like I was talking the actual total cost, period, for healthcare in the US (because that was the debate and the point I was talking about), not where it costs and who it costs, and it sounds like you were on another page. lol. But we'll see if that makes sense.
lets just start with the fact that I dont think there is any evidence and you certainly havent provided any evidence to support the assertion that private healthcare was cheaper to provide than public healthcare in america 25 years ago.
Maybe that is true, but it stands at odds with the fact that public healthcare everywhere else in the world was still a lot cheaper than the US system was 25 years ago
Let's start with the fact that I was there. It was in the news. I don't think that's anything I need to prove.
I remember when it made news that it became projected to cost less. I was pleased because it made the debate easier.
Believe it or not or look it up yourself.
You say "the news" and "the projection" as if there is some single font of knowledge somewhere dispensing this information. Whatever projections talking heads on the news in corporate America are saying doesn't actually mean much. Ok, some think tank somewhere said in the 90s that you crossed some magic threshold, I don't think that actually carries very much weight here.
If your arguing that happened to you, you're right I can't argue that.
If your arguing that your memory of a second hand account of probably one think tanks report on who knows what constitutes a valid argument that there was a time when private medicine was more cost effective than public; it does not