Trump Tells Australian PM 'You Have Better Healthcare Than We Do'

[Chris]

Trump Tells Australian PM 'You Have Better Healthcare Than We Do' (Australia Has Universal Healthcare)

Follow link to video in which he says that and Sanders reacts as if it's the first time Trump has said he's for universal healthdare.

Trumps a liberal. Anyone surprised?

[Chris]

He has a history of praising single payer: Trump’s forbidden love: Single-payer health care

...Back in 2000, he advocated for it as both a potential Reform Party presidential candidate and in his book, "The America We Deserve."

"We must have universal health care. Just imagine the improved quality of life for our society as a whole," he wrote, adding: "The Canadian-style, single-payer system in which all payments for medical care are made to a single agency (as opposed to the large number of HMOs and insurance companies with their diverse rules, claim forms and deductibles) … helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans."

Just before the 2016 campaign, Trump appeared on David Letterman's show and held up Scotland's socialized system as the ideal.

"A friend of mine was in Scotland recently. He got very, very sick. They took him by ambulance and he was there for four days. He was really in trouble, and they released him and he said, ‘Where do I pay?’ And they said, ‘There’s no charge,’" Trump said. "Not only that, he said it was like great doctors, great care. I mean, we could have a great system in this country.”

Though that goes on to him reversing his position.

[Captain Obvious]

A lot has changed in 17 years in the healthcare industry. I'm not sure what Trump's motives were at the time, you almost have to think there is an economic opportunity for a guy like him in a universal healthcare scenario.

I'm not sure this is his position now. The Australia comment might just be him bloviating, or not. Not sure but one thing I'm pretty sure is that a universal healthcare system, while it works in some societies like Canada and parts of Europe, I think it would be disastrous here. We are too politically charged and polarized, materialistic and crony capitalist driven. Access to healthcare outside of large urban areas would be crushed, they would be the margin or "cost savings" that is achieved. It's happening now on too large a scale with Medicare and Medicaid who are more than 50% of our coverage now. Give that institution 100% of the market and the Walmartization of healthcare will be achieved.