Comment Re:And this is only sign-up (Score 1) 559
Sure, the sign-up process would be simpler. I'm talking about everything else that happens after that. Imagine the system that needs to be created to administer every aspect of health care for all 350 million Americans. Tracking patient visits, expenses, coverages, drugs, etc. etc. along with all the financial distributions to thousands of hospitals, doctors, clinics, pharmacies, etc.
I imagine you could model something from one of the existing insurance providers systems, but would any of those really scale to 350 million users? Are you going to require all existing medical software providers to integrate into a master government health care system? All of that sounds like it's exponentially more complicated than this sign-up process. If they are having this much difficulty with a process that basically amounts to 1. Read your tax record to determine subsidy eligibility 2. Display a list of available health plans and the cost. 3. Let you pick one and send the data off to the corresponding insurance company, then I have no faith in them developing a system that would manage everyone's health care.
I imagine you could model something from one of the existing insurance providers systems, but would any of those really scale to 350 million users? Are you going to require all existing medical software providers to integrate into a master government health care system? All of that sounds like it's exponentially more complicated than this sign-up process. If they are having this much difficulty with a process that basically amounts to 1. Read your tax record to determine subsidy eligibility 2. Display a list of available health plans and the cost. 3. Let you pick one and send the data off to the corresponding insurance company, then I have no faith in them developing a system that would manage everyone's health care.