In California, Proposition 8, which would have required for profit dialysis providers to limit their profits to 115% of the costs of direct patient care, was defeated. Interest groups spent over $100 million campaigning against the proposed initiative. It is a defeat for patients' rights groups and those who believe that health care spending needs to be controlled.
Obviously, the dialysis companies were against a measure that would limit their profits. But the question is, as it always is in politics, what are the wider implications of the continuance of policies that allow for-profit healthcare providers to charge whatever they want to private insurance companies, often in monopolistic or oligopolistic structures? Right now, more than 75% of all dialysis clinics are operated by two companies, each of which make billions in revenues off of little more than 60,000 patients. What if two auto companies dominated 75% of the US car market? That would be a cause for concern. Right now, dialysis companies are reimbursed by Medicare at $40,000/year/patient. But these same companies charge patients on private insurance almost 4 times the Medicare rate, at $150,000/year/patient.
President Trump himself has said that drug prices paid by Medicare should be set at prices that other countries pay for these drugs. Obviously the drug companies are against his proposed policy, which would lower their profits, just as the dialysis companies were against Prop 8. But what's more important, the profits of a few companies or the benefits of consumers, patients, and the average person? Trump says it's the latter in this case. Why can't his position be generalized to the entire health system?
The effect of this proposition, which failed, would have forced dialysis providers to charge a more reasonable rate. How can someone who supports President Trump's ideas about limiting what drug companies can charge to global market rates oppose this proposition?
And if you think about it, this proposition in an argument for single payer healthcare as a whole. If dialysis companies are charging 4x to private insurers as they are charging Medicare patients, someone is paying for this. Who's paying? People who have private insurance policies in the form of continuously rising premiums. It was estimated that the healthcare costs for one dialysis patient are so high that it takes 38 people without dialysis paying their premiums to offset the dialysis patient.
Now if dialysis were the only procedure that was being charged at much higher rates than the Medicare rate, then we wouldn't have much of a problem. But this is clearly not the case. Private insurers are charged more for almost all procedures. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that these high rates are at least partly responsible for higher health insurance costs in the private market. And since everyone has to have health insurance, and paying out of pocket is so exorbitantly expensive, paying more in health insurance is tantamount to being taxed more than we would in a single payer system, in effect being taxed by a private corporation (Republican opponents of Obamacare made this argument, that Obamacare was a tax, and I agree). So the argument that single-payer would increase costs is deceptive. Direct taxes would increase, but total costs would decrease since everything would be charged at the Medicare rate. Lower rates for individual procedures, in the aggregate, amount to a lower "premium." In the end, the taxpayer would pay less, since the higher taxes would be more than offset by not having to pay to a private company.
Prop 8 might have failed today, but Americans still agree that healthcare is the issue they consider the most important. Immigration is a close second, and given how important immigration is to so many people (including myself), goes to show how important healthcare is as an issue.
Privately operated healthcare providers and clinics are ripping us off, charging multiples of the Medicare rate to private insurance companies, which in turn pass of these costs to the consumer in the form of sky-high premiums.
Drug companies are ripping us off, charging us multiples of what other countries pay. Insurance companies then pass of these greater costs to the consumer in the form of higher premiums compared to what other countries pay. Trump wants to put a stop to this, and rightly so.
If you support Trump's initiative to regulate drug prices, you can't logically oppose Prop 8's initiative to regulate dialysis companies. These aren't isolated issues. And by extension, single payer would be a solution to both problems.
Democrats won the House this election. Healthcare is still the most important issue of our time, as agreed upon by the plurality of Americans. The Democratic House victory is, therefore, a mandate for health reform.
Obviously, the dialysis companies were against a measure that would limit their profits. But the question is, as it always is in politics, what are the wider implications of the continuance of policies that allow for-profit healthcare providers to charge whatever they want to private insurance companies, often in monopolistic or oligopolistic structures? Right now, more than 75% of all dialysis clinics are operated by two companies, each of which make billions in revenues off of little more than 60,000 patients. What if two auto companies dominated 75% of the US car market? That would be a cause for concern. Right now, dialysis companies are reimbursed by Medicare at $40,000/year/patient. But these same companies charge patients on private insurance almost 4 times the Medicare rate, at $150,000/year/patient.
President Trump himself has said that drug prices paid by Medicare should be set at prices that other countries pay for these drugs. Obviously the drug companies are against his proposed policy, which would lower their profits, just as the dialysis companies were against Prop 8. But what's more important, the profits of a few companies or the benefits of consumers, patients, and the average person? Trump says it's the latter in this case. Why can't his position be generalized to the entire health system?
The effect of this proposition, which failed, would have forced dialysis providers to charge a more reasonable rate. How can someone who supports President Trump's ideas about limiting what drug companies can charge to global market rates oppose this proposition?
And if you think about it, this proposition in an argument for single payer healthcare as a whole. If dialysis companies are charging 4x to private insurers as they are charging Medicare patients, someone is paying for this. Who's paying? People who have private insurance policies in the form of continuously rising premiums. It was estimated that the healthcare costs for one dialysis patient are so high that it takes 38 people without dialysis paying their premiums to offset the dialysis patient.
Now if dialysis were the only procedure that was being charged at much higher rates than the Medicare rate, then we wouldn't have much of a problem. But this is clearly not the case. Private insurers are charged more for almost all procedures. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that these high rates are at least partly responsible for higher health insurance costs in the private market. And since everyone has to have health insurance, and paying out of pocket is so exorbitantly expensive, paying more in health insurance is tantamount to being taxed more than we would in a single payer system, in effect being taxed by a private corporation (Republican opponents of Obamacare made this argument, that Obamacare was a tax, and I agree). So the argument that single-payer would increase costs is deceptive. Direct taxes would increase, but total costs would decrease since everything would be charged at the Medicare rate. Lower rates for individual procedures, in the aggregate, amount to a lower "premium." In the end, the taxpayer would pay less, since the higher taxes would be more than offset by not having to pay to a private company.
Prop 8 might have failed today, but Americans still agree that healthcare is the issue they consider the most important. Immigration is a close second, and given how important immigration is to so many people (including myself), goes to show how important healthcare is as an issue.
Privately operated healthcare providers and clinics are ripping us off, charging multiples of the Medicare rate to private insurance companies, which in turn pass of these costs to the consumer in the form of sky-high premiums.
Drug companies are ripping us off, charging us multiples of what other countries pay. Insurance companies then pass of these greater costs to the consumer in the form of higher premiums compared to what other countries pay. Trump wants to put a stop to this, and rightly so.
If you support Trump's initiative to regulate drug prices, you can't logically oppose Prop 8's initiative to regulate dialysis companies. These aren't isolated issues. And by extension, single payer would be a solution to both problems.
Democrats won the House this election. Healthcare is still the most important issue of our time, as agreed upon by the plurality of Americans. The Democratic House victory is, therefore, a mandate for health reform.
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