This topic of healthcare cuts very close to my heart personally, since I come from a family working in healthcare and I also plan to go into this profession. I am glad that the Dr. Flynn mentions the expense of college and education, because personally I feel that this is the origin of the problem with healthcare. I feel like college is so expensive that it sort of forces the higher pay of doctors and healthcare workers because they have debt or need to financially recover. On top of that, insurance and medicare/medicaid sort of inhibit this pay by causing many issues for doctors and healthcare workers and cuts into their profits. Dr. Flynn talks about how in Singapore, healthcare is paid for out of pocket by the people with no 3rd party insurance or government interference. This creates competition and also allows for doctors to have this freedom and individuality to create and set their own charges. I think that this is the best approach to healthcare that can benefit both parties, as doctors can charge what makes them comfortable and not worry about insurance, and the patients can pay what they can and choose who is the best fit for them. One of the questions I thought of during this lecture was that if Singapore doesn't have insurance, then how can they afford healthcare? This opened my eyes to see the up-charging being manipulated in America, as Dr. Flynn stated that it is only $18,000 for open heart surgery. This shocked me, and it also re-illuminates how the prices in America are exponentially increasing and also sort of gouging its citizens dry. This connects with the increased and ever increasing price of college again. College has become so hard for people to afford that many people are stuck paying off their debt and loans for pretty much the rest of their lives. This is crazy to me, as not so long ago there was a time you could pay for all of college by working for a summer or two. This decentralized market Dr. Flynn discusses in his talk would also help alleviate these crazy high prices as working in healthcare there is a low-priced competition and not just a manipulative over-priced system. Another interesting point Dr. Flynn mentioned was when he discussed how in Singapore they take 25% of your wages for its citizens to save. I think this is very interesting and honestly very helpful. I know that I am very terrible at saving money and I am not prepared in cases of medical or any other kind of emergencies. I think that this is a great resource for the government to provide for its citizens and actually care for and hold them accountable in order to support them better. I agree with Dr. Flynn that a decentralized market on healthcare would not only improve the costs of healthcare for both workers and patients, but I feel that it would improve the quality of care as well.
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