This is retarded.
1. It isn't for profit healthcare that is the problem, it's THIRD PARTY PAY.
2. I don't use third party pay, ever, for healthcare. I've been insured nonstop for over 30 years, and NEVER ONCE has my insurer paid my doctor.
3. Even when I've had emergencies, I still called around, negotiated a fair cash up front rate, paid cash up front, and billed it to my insurer. My cash up front rate was sometimes below any co-pay negotiated with my insurer, lol.
I just recently had some elective surgery that would have cost me about $2000 on my annual deductible, but I was able to cash pay a negotiated rate of $400 including a follow-up "free". I submitted the $400 to my insurer and they reimbursed me.
Third party insurance exists because YOU VOTERS demanded the HMO Act of the 1970s, which tied health care to employment, and then employers outsourced it to third parties.
Health care is remarkably cheap in the US (cash pay, negotiated) and I don't have to wait months to see a doctor when I call and say I am cash pay. They bump me up fast.
If I knew that, I'd be a tech billionaire inventing them.
The best part of innovations is that they are NOT obvious, but once they are in the world, you can't do without.
the company has, in the pursuit of easy profits, constrained the space in which it innovates.
Quite so. It's been how many years since something really new came out of Cupertino? Granted, Apple is more profitable than ever, but the company clearly shows what the result of placing a supply-chain expert as the CEO does.
The really sad part is that there's nobody ELSE, either. Microsoft hasn't invented anything ever, Facebook and Google are busy selling our personal data to advertisers, and who else is there who can risk a billion on an innovation that may or may not work out?
The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and add ten percent.