Health Care Spending: Why Is America Soooooooo Stupid?

[eniwetok]

4. Choice is often inefficient...

I find it amusing that the right seems hung up on choice... as if more choices isn't more costly.
It costs more to administer all those ala cart plans, with all their separate coverage and billing procedures... and what good is choice if many of the choices are bad ones... for inferior policies. Canada and other Single Payer nations prove that covering everything and having simplified billing procedures is cheaper in the long run.

But it does raise the question why, if our system is so grotesquely inefficient, why is the GOP intent on preserving it? Why are the only options they propose all ridiclous such as HSAs and selling insurance across state lines?

I suspect this goes back to 1993. The 80% of GOP senators signed on to plans with an individual mandate. Then by 94 they changed to their current positions. I suspect a 1993 policy memo that a national health plan would ruin the GOP "brand" and posed an existential threat to the GOP. Of course they COULD just have signed on...