Why are low-income patients so frequently discriminated against under national health insurance?
Because such insurance is almost always a middle-class phenomenon. Prior to its introduction, every country had some government-funded program to meet the health care needs of the poor. The middle-class working population not only paid for its own health care, but also paid taxes to fund health care for the poor. Single-payer health insurance extends the free ride to those who pay taxes to support it. Such systems respond to the political demands of the middle-class population, and they serve the interests of this population. Why do single-payer health insurance schemes skimp on expensive services to the seriously ill, while providing so many inexpensive services to those who are only marginally ill? Because the latter services benefit millions of people (read: millions of voters), while acute and intensive care services concentrate large amounts of money on a handful of patients (read: small number of voters). Democratic political pressures in this case dictate the redistribution of r
