The United States is 37th in the world for healthcare and Soldotna Mayor Nels Anderson says that’s where the country belongs…
Anderson said governments are currently paying for 2/3rds of the country’s healthcare costs, but we still have the lowest lifespan of any similarly developed country. He believes that’s because of poor access to healthcare…
Mayor Anderson: “Basically, we all love the free enterprise system, if you want to buy a sewing machine or a washing machine or something like that, competition helps us to drive down costs and improve quality. In healthcare, competition actually drives up costs and drives down quality. In fact, our system is not and will never be under its current system, one that even engenders any competition. Prices are set basically at random by those who want to set them and there’s no incentive at all to either bring them down or lower them in any fashion.”
The Soldotna Mayor and OB/GYN said a single-payer system would save hundreds of millions of dollars, whether that payer is the government or someone else…
Mayor Anderson: “If you want to call it socialized medicine and have the government pay for it, fine, if you want to set up a group in each state that is separate from the government that organizes and distributes out the dollars for healthcare and that’s separate from the government, so be it. The bottom line is you need one single payer to take care of it.”
Anderson said the majority of his office’s time is currently tied up trying to get payment from individuals and insurance companies.