‘Medicare for All’ would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study

[S.J.]

So why did everyone who was instrumental in passing Obamacare exempt themselves from it?

Some people have been voting against their own best interests for their whole lives. They are willfully ignorant fools.

You're really trying to say they were ignorant for exempting themselves? They were smart enough to create this great system but too dumb to use it themselves? You must be joking.

 

[JoeB131]

But when the pay outs get lower and thy will more will not accept it
Or it will lead to less people becoming Doctors because the income won't be there anymore

Or maybe we'll get people becoming Doctors because they want to help people, instead of buying a big boat and a mansion.

What a concept!!!

 

[Greenbeard]

So why did everyone who was instrumental in passing Obamacare exempt themselves from it?

Some people have been voting against their own best interests for their whole lives. They are willfully ignorant fools.

You're really trying to say they were ignorant for exempting themselves? They were smart enough to create this great system but too dumb to use it themselves? You must be joking.

More than 12,000 congressional staffers have enrolled in health plans through Obamacare

Starting this year, new rules require federal lawmakers and their staffers to enroll in health-care plans through the small-business exchange on the city’s new insurance marketplace, known as DC Health Link. So far, 12,359 representatives and staff members, including those who work in district offices across the country and those working on Capitol Hill, have purchased plans, according to numbers obtained by The Washington Post from city health officials.

 

[Mac1958]

I wonder how many people actually know how Medicare works.

 

[HUGGY]

So why did everyone who was instrumental in passing Obamacare exempt themselves from it?

Some people have been voting against their own best interests for their whole lives. They are willfully ignorant fools.

You're really trying to say they were ignorant for exempting themselves? They were smart enough to create this great system but too dumb to use it themselves? You must be joking.

UUHHHhhh... Ya sort of. No I'm not joking. I've watched the political representatives emerge in certain states from afar for many decades and I am amazed with the bamboozlement that goes on.

The death grip that the pharms and the health care advocates have on their "share" of medical coverages has been challenged for good reason. The costs these so called providers have unleashed on the public over the last couple of decades have been obscene. This should not be a nationally driven political policy issue at all. It should be a pocket book issue. The problem is that citizens united has ganged up on good sense to the benefit of the stock holders again and rejected the needs of the common man an woman.

Contrary to the bullshit promoted to ensure the survival of the least effective and highest cost health care in certain areas the actual on the ground systems implemented by "Obamacare" are much more effective at reducing the rising costs. I call THAT voting against your own best interests. There is just no better way to explain it.

 

[Publius1787]

‘Medicare for All’ would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study

Economist says Canadian-style, single-payer health plan would reap huge savings from reduced paperwork and from negotiated drug prices, enough to pay for quality coverage for all – at less cost to families and businesses



Upgrading the nation’s Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all ages would yield more than a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation, enough to pay for high-quality, comprehensive health benefits for all residents of the United States at a lower cost to most individuals, families and businesses.


That’s the chief finding of a new fiscal study by Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There would even be money left over to help pay down the national debt, he said.


Friedman says his analysis shows that a nonprofit single-payer system based on the principles of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and co-sponsored by 45 other lawmakers, would save an estimated $592 billion in 2014. That would be more than enough to cover all 44 million people the government estimates will be uninsured in that year and to upgrade benefits for everyone else.


“No other plan can achieve this magnitude of savings on health care,” Friedman said.


His findings were released this morning [Wednesday, July 31, 11 a.m. EDT] at a congressional briefing in the Cannon House Office Building hosted by Public Citizen and Physicians for a National Health Program, followed by a 1 p.m. news conference with Rep. Conyers and others in observance of Medicare’s 48th anniversary at the House Triangle near the Capitol steps. A copy of Friedman’s full report, with tables and charts, is available here.


Friedman said the savings would come from slashing the administrative waste associated with today’s private health insurance industry ($476 billion) and using the new, public system’s bargaining muscle to negotiate pharmaceutical drug prices down to European levels ($116 billion).


“These savings would be more than enough to fund $343 billion in improvements to our health system, including the achievement of truly universal coverage, improved benefits, and the elimination of premiums, co-payments and deductibles, which are major barriers to people seeking care,” he said.




*snip*

I'm sure it would save billions. When the quality of care goes down costs generally go down. But then again, they said Obamacare would save us billions and cost no more than 900B $$. What's that estimate up to now?

 

[Arianrhod]

When the quality of care goes down costs generally go down.

On what basis do you assume quality of care will go down?

 

[Publius1787]

When the quality of care goes down costs generally go down.

On what basis do you assume quality of care will go down?

The test case for such a universal healthcare plan should be the VA. If the government cannot manage the VA then they have no right even thinking about what the op is proposing.

 

[Skull Pilot]

But when the pay outs get lower and thy will more will not accept it
Or it will lead to less people becoming Doctors because the income won't be there anymore

Or maybe we'll get people becoming Doctors because they want to help people, instead of buying a big boat and a mansion.

What a concept!!!

Yeah spend all that time in med school to make minimum wage

 

[Arianrhod]

When the quality of care goes down costs generally go down.

On what basis do you assume quality of care will go down?

The test case for such a universal healthcare plan should be the VA. If the government cannot manage the VA then they have no right even thinking about what the op is proposing.

Valid, to a point, because if you ask veterans, you'll find that the VA experience varies from state to state, so it depends on who's in charge of the individual hospital, then the region, etc.

Hire good people and you get good service. Hire people on the basis of political clout, and you get corruption.

Of course, you can say that about private hospitals - or any human institution - as well.

 

[Flopper]

The VA is both a medical provider and an insurer. That's a lot different not than Medicare and private medical providers.

So is Kaiser.

Nope, not the same thing. With Medicare all healthcare is delivered by private healthcare providers of the patients choosing.

Until no doctors will accept it and then the government will be forced to either drop it or take it over a la the VA

There is no national shortage of doctors accepting Medicare as of 2015. 95.3% of all doctors accept Medicare patients, 83.7% are accepting new patients, and nearly 100% of all general hospitals accept Medicare.
Since 2000, the number of doctors accepting Medicare has increased by 1.2%. There are no large private insurance networks that provide as large a choice of doctors as Medicare does.

Most doctors that do not accept Medicare are those that that provide limited or no coverage for the procedures they perform such as cosmetic surgeons, and Psychiatrists.

Medicare Patients’ Access to Physicians: A Synthesis of the Evidence
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db195.pdf

But when the pay outs get lower and thy will more will not accept it
Or it will lead to less people becoming Doctors because the income won't be there anymore

The fact is most doctors can not maintain their practice without Medicare patients since they account for nearly 40% of their income.

I showed in a previous post in this thread, that a doctor working 5 days a week doing only office visits with just Medicare patient with an overhead of 50% would make $126,000/yr. However, a large part of a doctor's income comes medical procedures, in patient and out patient surgeries, and consults. According to the Medscape 2015 Medical Physician Compensation Report, the average compensation of primary care physicians in the US is $195,000 and specialists,$284,000 I don't see young people today walking away from these salaries since financial compensation is not the primary reason people become doctors.

 

[Publius1787]

When the quality of care goes down costs generally go down.

On what basis do you assume quality of care will go down?

The test case for such a universal healthcare plan should be the VA. If the government cannot manage the VA then they have no right even thinking about what the op is proposing.

Valid, to a point, because if you ask veterans, you'll find that the VA experience varies from state to state, so it depends on who's in charge of the individual hospital, then the region, etc.

Hire good people and you get good service. Hire people on the basis of political clout, and you get corruption.

Of course, you can say that about private hospitals - or any human institution - as well.

No Doctor works for the VA when he can get a job elsewhere. They have the worst doctors in the United States. The VA is the last stop shop for Docs to go when they can't get a job anywhere else. I could give you a mountain of VA horror stories. The VA is typically good until you really need it. But when you really NEED it, it comes up short every time.

 

[Skull Pilot]

So is Kaiser.

Nope, not the same thing. With Medicare all healthcare is delivered by private healthcare providers of the patients choosing.

Until no doctors will accept it and then the government will be forced to either drop it or take it over a la the VA

There is no national shortage of doctors accepting Medicare as of 2015. 95.3% of all doctors accept Medicare patients, 83.7% are accepting new patients, and nearly 100% of all general hospitals accept Medicare.
Since 2000, the number of doctors accepting Medicare has increased by 1.2%. There are no large private insurance networks that provide as large a choice of doctors as Medicare does.

Most doctors that do not accept Medicare are those that that provide limited or no coverage for the procedures they perform such as cosmetic surgeons, and Psychiatrists.

Medicare Patients’ Access to Physicians: A Synthesis of the Evidence
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db195.pdf

But when the pay outs get lower and thy will more will not accept it
Or it will lead to less people becoming Doctors because the income won't be there anymore

The fact is most doctors can not maintain their practice without Medicare patients since they account for nearly 40% of their income.

I showed in a previous post in this thread, that a doctor working 5 days a week doing only office visits with just Medicare patient with an overhead of 50% would make $126,000/yr. However, a large part of a doctor's income comes medical procedures, in patient and out patient surgeries, and consults. According to the Medscape 2015 Medical Physician Compensation Report, the average compensation of primary care physicians in the US is $195,000 and specialists,$284,000 I don't see young people today walking away from these salaries since financial compensation is not the primary reason people become doctors.

And they need the other 60% to make up for being underpaid by medicare

no one goes to med school with the goal of making 50K a year so money is a huge reason

 

[Flopper]

When the quality of care goes down costs generally go down.

On what basis do you assume quality of care will go down?

The test case for such a universal healthcare plan should be the VA. If the government cannot manage the VA then they have no right even thinking about what the op is proposing.

Comparing Medicare and the VA is not a fair comparison. Medicare is only a payer. Unlike the VA it doesn't delivery any medical care. That's a huge difference.

 

[Publius1787]

When the quality of care goes down costs generally go down.

On what basis do you assume quality of care will go down?

The test case for such a universal healthcare plan should be the VA. If the government cannot manage the VA then they have no right even thinking about what the op is proposing.

Comparing Medicare and the VA is not a fair comparison. Medicare is only a payer. Unlike the VA it doesn't delivery any medical care. That's a huge difference.

I suppose you're right, but still, if the government cannot operate the VA then they shouldn't even think about a universal system. A universal system = government money/government rules. I.E. regulation by default.

 

[Flopper]

When the quality of care goes down costs generally go down.

On what basis do you assume quality of care will go down?

The test case for such a universal healthcare plan should be the VA. If the government cannot manage the VA then they have no right even thinking about what the op is proposing.

Comparing Medicare and the VA is not a fair comparison. Medicare is only a payer. Unlike the VA it doesn't delivery any medical care. That's a huge difference.

I suppose you're right, but still, if the government cannot operate the VA then they shouldn't even think about a universal system. A universal system = government money/government rules. I.E. regulation by default.

There's a big difference in universal healthcare where all medical care is delivered by the government and single payer which only provides financial coverage.

Half of the medical bills in the country are now paid by the government. There would be significant savings in putting all claim processing of both Medicaid and the VA under Medicare and over time putting all private insurance under Medicare. Private insurance would then become secondary to Medicare.

 

[Publius1787]

When the quality of care goes down costs generally go down.

On what basis do you assume quality of care will go down?

The test case for such a universal healthcare plan should be the VA. If the government cannot manage the VA then they have no right even thinking about what the op is proposing.

Comparing Medicare and the VA is not a fair comparison. Medicare is only a payer. Unlike the VA it doesn't delivery any medical care. That's a huge difference.

I suppose you're right, but still, if the government cannot operate the VA then they shouldn't even think about a universal system. A universal system = government money/government rules. I.E. regulation by default.

There's a big difference in universal healthcare where all medical care is delivered by the government and single payer which only provides financial coverage.

Half of the medical bills in the country are now paid by the government. There would be significant savings in putting all claim processing of both Medicaid and the VA under Medicare and over time putting all private insurance under Medicare. Private insurance would then become secondary to Medicare.

Once again, they claimed savings both for the government and the patient with Obamacare. Color me skeptical.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

When the quality of care goes down costs generally go down.

On what basis do you assume quality of care will go down?

The test case for such a universal healthcare plan should be the VA. If the government cannot manage the VA then they have no right even thinking about what the op is proposing.

Comparing Medicare and the VA is not a fair comparison. Medicare is only a payer. Unlike the VA it doesn't delivery any medical care. That's a huge difference.

I suppose you're right, but still, if the government cannot operate the VA then they shouldn't even think about a universal system. A universal system = government money/government rules. I.E. regulation by default.

There's a big difference in universal healthcare where all medical care is delivered by the government and single payer which only provides financial coverage.

Half of the medical bills in the country are now paid by the government. There would be significant savings in putting all claim processing of both Medicaid and the VA under Medicare and over time putting all private insurance under Medicare. Private insurance would then become secondary to Medicare.

Yes...government is efficient.

ROTFLMAO.....

Which isn't the same as saying I deny the existence of large inefficiencies.

That only shows you we don't have a market based system. Such inefficiencies would have been wiped out a long time ago.

 

[WillowTree]

‘Medicare for All’ would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study

Someday, sooner, we can all hope, rather than later, America will find the sanity and courage to implement a single payer system.

Maybe. As soon as everyone is paying taxes. The freebie pot is running on empty.

 

[Slyhunter]

But when the pay outs get lower and thy will more will not accept it
Or it will lead to less people becoming Doctors because the income won't be there anymore

Or maybe we'll get people becoming Doctors because they want to help people, instead of buying a big boat and a mansion.

What a concept!!!

You're living in fantasy land.