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A USHS (for lack of a better name) would need hospitals, roads to connect them, ambulances. That's a lot of money going into construction and the auto industry right there. Once they're built, they need to be filled with beds, medical equipment, a canteen, maybe a newsstand. You would need people to staff them, doctors and nurses, obviously but you also need semi-skilled and unskilled workers (admin staff, IT specialists, orderlies, janitors, groundskeepers, a cook and serving staff, someone to run the newsstand), all of which provide new jobs for the jobless. Reliable jobs that are pretty much recession-proof and pay decent wages. I've known people who were janitors and groundskeepers and suchlike for the NHS and their wages weren't bad. It's not luxury but it's a decent wage you can live off. So a USHS creates a stack of new jobs, the act of setting it up pumps a load of money into the economy and once that money is spent, you have a gleaming new health system to show for it. You don't have to put that kind of money in again (as you might well have to do with banks), you just have to maintain it which is relatively cheap.
In addition to that, the combination of Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance costs the US populace a combined total of around $2.3 trillion annually (figures from Wiki) and still leaves many millions uninsured. Using the NHS model, you can cover the entire US population for around $600 billion a year (using the French model, generally accepted as the world's best, would cost around $900 billion); that's a collosal saving to the US taxpayer and it comes from two sources. The first is simplicity (only one system to deal with); the second is the fact that private insurance spends typically 20-30% of it's outlay on administration. For the NHS, that figure is around 6.5% and the workers are paid a decent wage, unionised and get pensions and benefits.
A lot of right-wingers tell me that the USPS is a failure because it's always broke and a USHS would be the same. I have to wonder if they've missed the point. The object of the postal system isn't to turn a profit, it's to move the mail about quickly for teh mutual convienience of all. The object of a USHS isn't to turn a profit, it's to look after the nation's sick and ideally, to prevent them becoming sick, for the mutual benefit of everyone. Private companies have to make a profit, a USHS administered by well-policed career civil servants doesn't need to make a profit. There's a lot of different ways of funding universal healthcare but since the US is coming to this late, you could easily study the existing systems and mix-and-match parts, absorbing Medicare and Medicaid along the way, until you come up with something special and uniquely American.
Morally, it makes even more sense. Personally, I've always found that making a profit off sick people was morally wrong but more to the point, a USHS can deal with problems before they become problems. I'm not sure if that made sense so here's an example: My last check-up (here, it is recommended but not required that you get a general check-up every six months or so) revealed that I had slightly high blood pressure. Because that was noticed and caught in it's very early stages, I'm able to deal with it with a few minor changes to my diet and lifestyle. If I'd had to pay to visit the doctor, I would have put it off for months or even years, during which it could have become a real problem which I would have needed medication for, thus incurring more costs. As it happens, I'm one of those horribly stubborn men who dislike seeing doctors and it was caught during a routine check-up which I had to do to renew my anti-depressents.
Universal healthcare is cheaper, it gives more bang for your buck and it saves lives. It's not "sexy" in the way that a fighter plane is. It's just quietly working every day to save lives.
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