NationalHealthService

Quora Answer : As a U.S. conservative, I am open to government insurance exclusively covering medical emergencies and imaging for trauma (with on-call nurses for other issues) in patients who can't afford private medicine. What do liberals think of this plan?

Mar 25, 2018

It's a start.

But to be honest, as other people here are saying, if you're going to do some, but not all, of a universal healthcare system, you'd need to justify why this would be the smart / principled place to draw the line rather than somewhere else.

As others are noting, in many cases you're going to spend less by investing in preventative measures that avoid emergencies, than waiting for emergencies to happen and paying to fix them after the event.

Or maybe it might be better to follow another criteria, such as Charles Callaghan's suggestion of bringing in the over 50s (which takes a lot of the costs from the private system)

Also note that means testing is itself expensive, and creates a lot of bureaucracy in its own right : who evaluates whether someone is eligible? How do you ensure they don't make mistakes? Can they be challenged if they do? How much do you spend arguing about it?

Compare this to taxes. Many people think that a lot of money would be saved if taxes were "simplified" ie. so there were fewer extra options and different categories and tax breaks etc. etc. Why doesn't this also go for means tests?