anonymous question
Let’s keep it simple. Let’s open the consolidated budget of the Russian Federation for 2017 and look at health care spending. 2.8 trillion rubles. That is 20 thousand rubles per person per year, less than 1.7 thousand per month, and this amount includes all corruption, all kickbacks, embezzlement, and simply inefficient spending. Absolutely pittance, less than the average utility bill.
In a situation where there are no taxes or regulations, by very conservative estimates, wages would increase, say, by only 50%. Suppose that all those who were previously treated under a compulsory health insurance policy purchase voluntary insurance policies exactly in the amount of former government health expenditures, spending approximately 1,700 rubles per person per month, and all those who previously paid out of pocket maintain their habits. The median salary in Russia today, according to a very sloppily conducted survey on Navalny’s blog, is about 15,000 rubles.
What is the result? The median salary under ancap increases by 50% and becomes 22,500 rubles. Let’s say the median worker supports one dependent. He pays 3,400 rubles for two policies, and he has 19,100 rubles left. That is, he is still wealthier than he was before ancap, while also having good paid medicine.
Of course, there are still cases where a poor family faces an expensive-to-treat disease not covered by a standard policy. What does a poor family do now? They go to charitable foundations, and those foundations spam social networks with posts saying “Mashenka has a fucking disaster of a disease, we urgently need a trillion rubles.” Well, that is exactly what they will do under ancap, only the probability of receiving money to treat the disaster will increase by 50%, proportional to the increase in average income (assuming that people continue to donate to charity approximately the same percentage of their income as they do now).
Summary. Fully privatized and deregulated healthcare in the absence of taxes is capable of providing every Russian with medical service better than what they have now, without requiring amounts that would be critical for them.
