Free healthcare creates economic productivity

The argument

Workers with health insurance miss almost five workdays a year less than their uninsured counterparts. Spread out across the entire economy, this makes a substantial difference to GDP. The US economy loses between US$65 billion and US$130 billion annually in sick days and premature deaths incurred by a for-profit health system. When workers are provided with free health insurance, they are more likely to see a doctor and obtain preventative medicine. Workers who are less inclined to get sick are more productive in their work environments. Therefore, free healthcare makes sense from a macroeconomic perspective.

Context

From a macroeconomic perspective, free healthcare makes financial and fiscal sense. Free access to healthcare means more people visit the doctor and engage in preventative medicine. This means fewer days of work missed and increased economic productivity.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Providing free healthcare will overwhelm hospitals and medical staff--more people will want to visit hospitals, thereby creating long waiting lines. Hospital patients might spend hours or even days waiting for their turn, which will decrease the number of days they go to work. In the long run, therefore, free healthcare will prove detrimental to overall economic productivity.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The comparison is between insured and uninsured workers rather than between systems, so it shows the value of coverage rather than of free provision, and the two groups may differ in occupation, income and baseline health in ways that account for the missing days. [Rejecting P3] Take-up can outrun capacity: if free provision lengthens waiting times, patients may lose more working days waiting for treatment than preventative care saves, which would reverse rather than deliver the productivity gain claimed.