WHO HEALTH REPORT Japan health systems ranked best (???)

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Thu Jun 22 14:48:22 PDT 2000


. . . The power of the insurance companies lies partly, it seems to me, in the "too big to fail" category. Could any of the economists on the list comment on what the repercussions would be if the insurance companies lost at one blow all their health-insurance business -- as they would if we won national health service. Carrol

When an industry gets hammered the effects are magnified by the fact that they are concentrated in particular areas and communities. There was a lot of talk about this re: the defense build-down, but in the event the problems do not seem to have been enormous. Some people ended up in lower-paying jobs, but that has been happening more generally.

The Gov would need more employees to administer a public system, so some of the insurance people could go there. The present employment situation is unusual, but insofar as it obtained in your scenario, the displaced workers would be easily absorbed elsewhere.

mbs



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