In Dr. Sean Flynn’s discussion on healthcare, he stated that the United States spends 18% GDP on healthcare programs. That is a large amount of money wasted when other nations spend usually 10% or less of the GDP on healthcare. Yet even though we spend the most, many people would agree that healthcare is overpriced and not as good as it could be. This pushes many people to consider Bernie Sanders' idea of Universal healthcare where the government pays for all medical expenses. While many countries who implement this system use a lot less GDP for healthcare, Dr. Flynn offers another way to spend even less than that by looking at Singapore's healthcare spending which is less than 5% GDP.
Dr. Flynn argues that Singapore has a 3M system that keeps healthcare costs low and everyone can afford healthcare. The reason healthcare spending is so high is that people who are on medicaid will pay for higher services since it doesn’t affect them anyway. If the government will pay for it then why shouldn’t we go to the ER instead of the local clinic. Singapore's three M system stands for Medisave, Medishield, and Medifund. Medisave is like social security but for healthcare in that money is taken out of a person's income tax-free and stored for future medical expenses. Medishield is where the government controls “insurance” by putting the first $2,000 spent on healthcare solely on the individual, and anything after that the individual will have to pay 10% of. Medifund is when someone has a lot of medical bills and even with Medisave and Medishield they cannot afford it. The government has a trust fund that they distribute to people who cannot afford to pay for their medical bills. These 3 systems make healthcare very competitive so prices are lower, and they make people always financially involved in medical expenses so they look for the best price. This type of system has been somewhat implemented in a few places such as Whole Foods, which tells their employees that the first $1850 of medical care is on them, but after that, the company will %100 provide for it. The catch is that if the employee does not spend all the $1850, then the company will give them the remaining amount. This is why Singapore's system works because right now in the U.S no one is incentivized to save money on healthcare unless they don't have insurance. Yet if most of the population spends less, then prices of healthcare will drop and decrease the amount of healthcare spending. Whole Foods spent 35% less money on healthcare after they implemented this, and if such a system was implemented nationwide, then most government spending on healthcare would drop as prices of healthcare decrease and there is less spending from consumers on healthcare.
This system works even better than Universal healthcare, but no one seems to know about it, and for once the government is not the reason, insurance companies are. Insurance companies want people to spend more on healthcare since they gain a profit for each dollar sent. Dr. Flynn states that if more people knew about this system it would gain popularity, and I agree. Such a massive save in government spending could do many things for both political parties. Climate change can be better addressed, taxes could be decreased, the national debt could be eliminated in 20 to 30 years. 10-15% of the U.S GDP could fund a lot of projects and programs that would help solve many of the issues our government has. While Universal healthcare seems easy and saves a lot, a better alternative exists that wouldn’t decrease the value of our healthcare.