Single Payer Health Care Already Works

[sealybobo]

And you are 100% sure this is what's going to happen? what's your theory based on.. besides wishful thinking I mean? For cryin' out loud do you just swallow EVERYTHING the Federal Government tells you without at least giving it a seconds worth of thought? Companies will still have to pay for health care, just like they do now, only instead of putting the money into private sector companies they'll be sending it to the government and passing those costs along to the consumer. It's a zero sum game all this plan does is transfer who gets the money from the productive private sector to the non-productive (in our case counter productive) public sector.


The gub'ment promised that Medicare part D would save money and reduces costs, guess what , the latests estimates from the Social Security Administration show that is now carrying $8 Trillion in longterm unfunded liabilities and growing every year, how many times are you gonna fall for the same lie?

Our current unfunded liabilities ($56.4 Trillion) GUARANTEE that the federal government will need to either raise taxes to draconian levels, cut entitlements drastically or both... will you folks on the left never learn that there isn't an infinite supply of money to plunder from your fellow citizens and their children to pay for your social experiments? It's something we that live in the real world call UNAFFORDABLE, perhaps you should look it up.

In the meantime maybe you should take 30 minutes and watch this video, perhaps it'll open your eyes a bit.....

I.O.U.S.A: The Movie - 30 Minute Version

Single payer won't cost anywhere near what FOR PROFIT is costing us. Fact.

And social security has funding problems now because a lot are using it and not enough are paying in. That'll change when we go single payer for all.

Your fear of Gob'ment stems from back when Reagan and the GOP demonized it. Well you can't run government if you don't believe in it.

Everything wrong today is because of private companies. Big Oil, Big Insurance, Big Banks, Big Defense Contractors, etc.

Time to reign them in.

I love the arguments from both sides. Maybe we should just get rid of all government and all big business since they are both such bad things.

I don't want to get rid of either. Just like I don't want to get rid of church or state. I just want SEPERATION!!!!

We all know corporations own our politicians.

 

[Navy1960]

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3:

“ The Congress shall have power . . . To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes"

First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce.
Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in Interstate Commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities;
Finally, Congress's commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce (i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce).

Commerce Clause - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The reason I posted this is very simple, while we can all agree that the costs of healthcare are high and generally all of us can agree it would be a good thing to bring them down. It appears to me that the Federal Govt. has the power(s) to regulate these companies that provide health insurance from state to state. It also appears the Federal Govt. has done a poor job in doing so , thus leading to the cost issues we face today. I don't believe for the many reasons I have stated here and elsewhere the Fed. Govt. has the constitutional authority, or for that matter is it financially prudent, nor will it be helpful to mandate healthcare provided by the Federal Govt. However, I do believe that through regulation costs can be contained and even an environment can be created to promote competetion that will lead to more companies providing health converage to those, "heres the keyword" that want it.

 

[Freedomlover]

I find it quite astounding that the United States spent fifty years fighting socialism during the Cold War, and billions of dollars doing so. Now we have a large number of people in this country, including our President, who are ready to adopt this failed economic and political system for our nation. Why would anyone want a government bureaucrat to receive information on your health records and procedures? Frankly, it is none of government's business!

In America one of our most prized attributes is our personal privacy. I, for one, abhor the thought that government would be picking winners and losers when socialized medicine goes bankrupt and health care is rationed as it currently is in Canada and the United Kingdom. People in these countries are dying waiting for procedures that we receive in a matter of hours, days or weeks depending on our condition. How can you improve on that?

Freedom is what this is all about. If you choose to give yours up for a government benefit then I suggest you go to Canada or the UK and let me continue living in freedom!

 

[Gunny]

We call it "TriCare". It is administered by Humana and funded by the government for both active duty and retired military.

As a retired Marine, I have it for myself and my wife for about $460.00 a year. It is an HMO and has covered all of my wife's heart problems. It is no different than when I worked for Humana and had a regular Humana HMO plan.

You could call it universal health care for military.

It's all bullshit, smoke and mirrors that the righties like Ginggrinch and Shelby are saying about socialized medicine. The government already reimburses healthcare providers for Medicare and Medicaid. They both work.

Oh, socialism, where is thy sting?

Now tell the truth. The healthcare is mediocre at best and you're a guinea pig for experimental medicine and procedures, and if you turn either down, the government can refuse to treat you for the specific ailment you turned their treatment down for.

You are SO right. Your post IS all bullshit, smoke and mirrors.

 

[garyd]

Um considering that the plan was originally going to be funded by taxes on the health care benefits of workers, If such plans end how will they be able to fund anything?

2nd Medical costs are driven by three things, lawyers, technology, and access. While removing strictly the lawyers will help it won't be a complete solution. So what else do you wish the government to limit in order to improve and lessen the costs of health care?

 

[Political Junky]

We call it "TriCare". It is administered by Humana and funded by the government for both active duty and retired military.

As a retired Marine, I have it for myself and my wife for about $460.00 a year. It is an HMO and has covered all of my wife's heart problems. It is no different than when I worked for Humana and had a regular Humana HMO plan.

You could call it universal health care for military.

It's all bullshit, smoke and mirrors that the righties like Ginggrinch and Shelby are saying about socialized medicine. The government already reimburses healthcare providers for Medicare and Medicaid. They both work.

Oh, socialism, where is thy sting?

And Medicare works for a fraction of the overhead costs of private plans, which pay $mulit-million salaries for their execuitves ... in one case, over $1billion for one year.

 

[Political Junky]

France's model healthcare system - The Boston Globe

France's model healthcare system
By Paul V. Dutton | August 11, 2007

MANY advocates of a universal healthcare system in the United States look to Canada for their model. While the Canadian healthcare system has much to recommend it, there's another model that has been too long neglected. That is the healthcare system in France.

Although the French system faces many challenges, the World Health Organization rated it the best in the world in 2001 because of its universal coverage, responsive healthcare providers, patient and provider freedoms, and the health and longevity of the country's population. The United States ranked 37.

The French system is also not inexpensive. At $3,500 per capita it is one of the most costly in Europe, yet that is still far less than the $6,100 per person in the United States.

 

[Political Junky]

Our goal should be to remove the profit margin.
Make the health insurance companies all non-profits.

Yeah....That'll really motivate people to go through the decade plus of schooling, internship, residency, and all the other folderol it takes to become doctors....NOT!!

The poster said cut the profit for private insurance, NOT doctors.

 

[auditor0007]

Our goal should be to remove the profit margin.
Make the health insurance companies all non-profits.

Yeah....That'll really motivate people to go through the decade plus of schooling, internship, residency, and all the other folderol it takes to become doctors....NOT!!

The poster said cut the profit for private insurance, NOT doctors.

It's more than the profit, because the profit margin is actually quite small. The biggest problem revolves around the administrative costs on both ends. The cost of administration with insurance companies runs around 25% of total healthcare costs. On the opposite side, doctors and hospitals spend a fortune billing all the different companies using multiple and different forms. On top of that, they have to figure out which plans cover what and then spend time and money arguing with the insurance companies about what is and isn't covered. So it ends up being a double whammy. And last of all, on a separate issue, you have malpractice insurance that is so far out of control it is making everyone's heads spin.

 

[Political Junky]

Actually, the way they want to set it up may not be so bad. Because they are not looking for a complete takeover of the healthcare industry, it will give everyone time to actually see the results. If the results are good, then we may well see more of a move to a one payer system. On the other hand, if it turns out to be a complete disaster, then it will likely be scrapped for something else, although what that something else is would be anyone's guess. The great thing is that we do have the ability to make changes on the fly. Nothing is set in stone.

We've had 44 years of Medicare/Medicaid, and they are unqualified disasters.

The costs are WAY higher than projected -even accounting for inflation- and the quality of care is far below that projected.

Yet, is the assessment of those results seen as indicative of the inefficiency and lack of cost contaiment of bureaucracy??....

NOOOOO!!!

We're told that it's the eeeeeviilll and grrrreeeeeedy "free market" that is to blame, and all we need to do is expand the models for those failures to cover everyone.

Socialist democrat plan: Let's do more of the same thing and expect a better result!!

Do you have any information that shows Medicare is in trouble, or are you just using right wing talking points?

 

[Navy1960]

The financial condition of the Social Security and Medicare programs remains challenging. Projected long run program costs are not sustainable under current program parameters.

Trustees Report Summary

Thats straight from the SSA trustee's report.
One of the most common, and least challenged, assertions in the debate over U.S. health
care policy is that Medicare administrative costs are about 2 percent of claims costs,
while private insurance companies’ administrative costs are in the 20 to 25 percent
range.
It is very difficult to do a real apples-to-apples comparison of Medicare’s true costs
with those of the insurance industry. The primary problem is that private sector
insurers must track and divulge their administrative costs, while most of Medicare’s
administrative costs are hidden or completely ignored by the complex and bureaucratic
reporting and tracking systems used by the government.
This study, based in part on a technical paper by Mark Litow of Milliman, Inc., finds
that Medicare’s actual administrative costs are 5.2 percent, when the hidden costs are
included.
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf/CAHI_Medicare_Admin_Final_Publication.pdf

 

[Oddball]

Actually, the way they want to set it up may not be so bad. Because they are not looking for a complete takeover of the healthcare industry, it will give everyone time to actually see the results. If the results are good, then we may well see more of a move to a one payer system. On the other hand, if it turns out to be a complete disaster, then it will likely be scrapped for something else, although what that something else is would be anyone's guess. The great thing is that we do have the ability to make changes on the fly. Nothing is set in stone.

We've had 44 years of Medicare/Medicaid, and they are unqualified disasters.

The costs are WAY higher than projected -even accounting for inflation- and the quality of care is far below that projected.

Yet, is the assessment of those results seen as indicative of the inefficiency and lack of cost contaiment of bureaucracy??....

NOOOOO!!!

We're told that it's the eeeeeviilll and grrrreeeeeedy "free market" that is to blame, and all we need to do is expand the models for those failures to cover everyone.

Socialist democrat plan: Let's do more of the same thing and expect a better result!!

Do you have any information that shows Medicare is in trouble, or are you just using right wing talking points?

I guess the Congressional Budget Office, that tells us that Medicare will be bankrupt inside ten years, is in on the VRWC, huh??

 

[Political Junky]

The financial condition of the Social Security and Medicare programs remains challenging. Projected long run program costs are not sustainable under current program parameters.

Trustees Report Summary

Thats straight from the SSA trustee's report.
One of the most common, and least challenged, assertions in the debate over U.S. health
care policy is that Medicare administrative costs are about 2 percent of claims costs,
while private insurance companies’ administrative costs are in the 20 to 25 percent
range.
It is very difficult to do a real apples-to-apples comparison of Medicare’s true costs
with those of the insurance industry. The primary problem is that private sector
insurers must track and divulge their administrative costs, while most of Medicare’s
administrative costs are hidden or completely ignored by the complex and bureaucratic
reporting and tracking systems used by the government.
This study, based in part on a technical paper by Mark Litow of Milliman, Inc., finds
that Medicare’s actual administrative costs are 5.2 percent, when the hidden costs are
included.
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf/CAHI_Medicare_Admin_Final_Publication.pdf

The summary states that Medicare's problems could be slowed by cutting health care costs. Sounds good to me.
Social Security's problems would begin in 2037. That could be solved by extending the ceiling for FICA taxes. Rich folks pay far less in percentage of income toward Social Security.

 

[Oddball]

The only way that an entity which produces nothing of added value for the general economy, like gubmint, cuts costs is by rationing.

The claim that socialized medical services are going to make anything less costly, when there is NO evidence that gubmint has ever made anything cheaper or of a higher quality, is
as ignorant and/or blatantly disingenuous as you can get.

 

[Navy1960]

According to Dr. Richard G. Fessler, a Chicago neurosurgeon who travels the world to perform state of the art surgery for patients who do not have access to what Americans currently enjoy, "When it comes to quality healthcare, the United States Health Care is second to none!" Ask the tens of thousands of patients who travel internationally to the US every year for their health care. As an example of the quality of health care delivered in the US, Americans have a higher survival rate than any other country on earth for 13 out of 16 of the most common cancers. Perhaps that is why Belinda Stronach, former liberal member of the Canadian Parliament and Cabinet member (one of the health care systems touted as “superior” to the US) abandoned the Canadian Health Care system to undergo her cancer treatment in California.1

Health and Sharing - Advisory Board Update Articles

In summary, therefore, the WHO ranking system has minimal objectivity in its “ranking” of world health. It more accurately can be described as a ranking system inherently biased to reward the uniformity of “government” delivered (i.e. “socialized&#8221 health care, independent of the care actually delivered. In that regard the relatively low ranking of the US in the WHO system can be viewed as a “positive” testament to at least some residual “free market” influence (also read “personal freedom&#8221 in the American Health Care system. The American health care consumer needs to understand what the WHO ranking does and does not say about American health. Don’t be fooled by “big government” politicians and the liberal media who are attempting to use this statistic to push for socialized medicine in the United States. It says essentially nothing about the delivery of health care or the quality of that delivery in the US. It does say that, so far, the American health care consumer has at least some personal freedom to seek the best health care available, and is not yet relegated to the “one size fits all” philosophy of government sponsored health care systems.


"Americans assume that if it's in Europe, which France is, that it's socialized medicine," he says. "The French don't consider their system socialized. In fact, they detest socialized medicine. For the French, that's the British, that's the Canadians. It's not the French system."

France, like the United States, relies on both private insurance and government insurance. Also, just like in America, people generally get their insurance through their employer.

In France, everyone has health care. However, unlike in Britain and Canada, there are no waiting lists to get elective surgery or see a specialist, Dutton says.

He says the French want pretty much the same thing as Americans: choice and more choice.

Health Care Lessons From France : NPR

When someone goes to see a doctor, the national insurance program pays 70 percent of the bill. Most of the other 30 percent gets picked up by supplemental private insurance, which almost everyone has. It's affordable, and much of it gets paid for by a person's employer.

Again, this is a cost related issue in this country, and costs can be regulated very easily by promoting competetion and regulating where needed without massive Gotv. intrusion.

 

[Political Junky]

The only way that an entity which produces nothing of added value for the general economy, like gubmint, cuts costs is by rationing.

The claim that socialized medical services are going to make anything less costly, when there is NO evidence that gubmint has ever made anything cheaper or of a higher quality, is
as ignorant and/or blatantly disingenuous as you can get.

Our health care is rationed now. If you can't afford it or if a bureaucrat at your insurance company decides it's "experimental".

 

[Full-Auto]

The only way that an entity which produces nothing of added value for the general economy, like gubmint, cuts costs is by rationing.

The claim that socialized medical services are going to make anything less costly, when there is NO evidence that gubmint has ever made anything cheaper or of a higher quality, is
as ignorant and/or blatantly disingenuous as you can get.

Our health care is rationed now. If you can't afford it or if a bureaucrat at your insurance company decides it's "experimental".

A valid point. It would carry more weight if the insurance companies had not been manipualated into paying for everything under the sun. Instead of what the orginal intent of insurance was. Think in terms of your auto policy and the differences become crystal.

I laugh at people that ask why it costs so much. Why drugs are cheaper out of country.


Instead we are hoping for spare change. Democrats have already thrown the seniors under the bus. Is there any doubt we are next?

 

[Oddball]

Our health care is rationed now. If you can't afford it or if a bureaucrat at your insurance company decides it's "experimental".

None of which means that the treatment is unavailable, just that you can't schlepp the responsibility of paying for the given procedure off onto a third party.

Rationing means, as a matter of course, that the given procedure is unavailable at all.

Not even a good effort at trying to redefine the word.