How single payer helps Republicans change the subject

[ehrnst]

23. Actually, it's a series of regulations that limits and directs the market in many ways

and expands publicly funded healthcare to many more people. It includes caps on lifetime payments for consumers, bans on pre-existing condition refusals, eliminates co-pays on checkups and meds like contraceptives - all of which would be different if determined by the market.

You could also say that Medicare is market oriented in that it uses private payers manage payments for prescription, dental eyeglasses and hearing aids.

30% of Canadian health care is paid for via private mechanisms - long term care, dental, vision, and prescription are not covered by the national plan, so you could say it's "market oriented" for those services.

I think you also forget that if the market crashes - then so does taxable income, which is the funding mechanism for single payer so it would not be immune to market forces.

See also: Medicaid, which is countercyclical in that when the economy puts less income into it, say, during a recession, the demand goes up. And then service providers are stretched, and delivery quantity slows.