I travelled to Brussels a few years ago, and ended up having cocktails with a group of EU diplomats when the discussion of health care came up. The overwhelming consensus was that there is no sustainable long-term solution. Between the fact that sick people have a hard time maintaining financial security and the cost of new technological advances in medicine, health care will always cost more over time. The goal in European countries is to try to slow those increased costs (e.g. study of success rates of new technology before making it a “standard of care”, limiting litigation, etc.).

My new European friends then reminded me of how convoluted American health care is: we pay to have health insurance in case of injury. We also have to pay for bodily injury insurance in our car and homeowners insurance. Our employer carries workman’s compensation insurance in case of an injury at work. Every storefront (gas station, movie theater, grocery store, etc.) has to carry insurance in case of customer injury. We also have to pay for the potential litigation of who will actually have to pay in the case of overlapping insurance coverage. Through health insurance, we pay for both the people who try to recoup the cost of medical care, and we also pay for the people who deny payment of care.

Europeans cannot believe we allow advertising of prescription pharmaceuticals and surgical implants; all Americans ultimately have to pay for that advertising through pharmaceutical costs. In Europe, you go to the doctor or hospital and they take care of the injury; no insurance questions, no overlapping coverage’s, little chance of litigation. They just take care of you. Medication needs of patients are discussed with doctors, not through commercials during the news hour.

Paul Ryan wants people able to keep the same health insurance when they change jobs. Republican leadership wants to eliminate the requirement that employers pay for the cost of insurance. It literally is a job killer. Republicans proposed “high risk” pools, covered by the government. Ironically, all of these proposals could be done by creating a single-payer option.

Yes, if we pay for Medicare for all, we would have higher taxes, but think of the savings in other areas. Our homeowners and car insurance would become cheaper, because they would not have to pay for bodily injury insurance. The price of gas, food, entertainment would drop because they would not have to pay for bodily injury insurance for their customers. Employers would see a drastic cost reduction in workman’s comp insurance. Small business would thrive, because they would not have the burden of paying high-cost health insurance for their employees.

There are working templates for public health care. Austria pays roughly half the cost per person, and their citizens are very satisfied with health care. Australia has public and private insurance options; public health care takes care of terminal care and health emergencies, private insurance pays for less urgent medical problems. In both cases, there is a safety net for all citizenry and it costs less per person than our over-litigated, complicated health care. We need to stop talking about “death care” and the abstract evils of socialized medicine and look rationally at how to control costs. If other countries have better outcomes, have higher satisfaction, and pay much less for their health care, it is about time we look at those options. If we do nothing, inevitably the rich will stay healthy and the sick will remain poor.

William Ambrose lives in Westminster.