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Comment by sykh | Hacker News Reader

Every health care system rations care since no current system has enough resources to care for everyone without some form of waiting. The U.S. health care system rations care in the most immoral way of the advanced nations. A person should not profit by denying care to someone else.

As a nation we should try optimizing for a more moral, just system. As I see it that would be something like Medicare for all but I'm open to suggestions/solutions.

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There is no silver bullet in health care. The field is too large for any one single solution to cover everyone (3 Trillion USD per year is spent on health care). There needs to be a lot of innovation in a lot of different areas in order to solve the problem.

I started a company with my brother that is attempting to drastically lower costs for primary care. (https://scalpel.com) We build software that allows physicians to set up their own direct primary care clinics. Our beta clinic in South Carolina charges $49 / month for unlimited visits and charges people at cost for things like labs and procedures. So instead of dealing with a labyrinthine medical system people are just working directly with a doctor. We really only care about making money off our memberships which we charge what we believe is a reasonable amount.

I think there's plenty of room for innovation but we should start from the principal that everyone gets full access to medical treatment regardless of their ability to pay.

We technically have this in the United States (for emergencies). It is illegal for someone to be denied emergency services regardless of ability to pay.[0] No government system guarantees "full access" to medical treatment there is some form of rationing everywhere.

https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/EMT...

Emergency rooms are required to stabilize a patient, not treat them or cure them. This is not universal care and it not giving everyone access to the medical system. One does not got the ER for things like cancer screenings.

From the link you provided:

Hospitals are then required to provide stabilizing treatment for patients with EMCs.

Access is a function of cost. If medical care is affordable for people near the poverty line then we will be able to solve the access problem entirely. (this is my goal) Governments, charities, and businesses will pick up the slack as they already do.

Okay, maybe I should have said "access to medical treatment shouldn't be decided by ability to pay".

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