Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

[frigidweirdo]

Be careful what you wish for.

I lived under the single payer/single source GOVERNMENT health care in the military. It sucked. Totally incompetent. I lost a significant range of hearing over the years I flew in the AF. It was documented every year by hearing tests. Guess what? On my discharge physical, my hearing was miraculously restored to perfect WITHOUT A HEARING TEST. What happened to the hearing tests in my files showing significant hearing loss? Gone. So much for the integrity of the doctors, nurses and staff when they are unaccountable. So no disability claim.

I could tell you story after story of long waiting lines and misdiagnosed patients that ended up dying. Screwed up prescriptions. Operations that went wrong. And NO ONE HELD ACCOUNTABLE BECAUSE IT'S THE GOVERNMENT. On every base, we had a wood hobby shop and an auto hobby shop. We called going to see the doctor or dentist as going to the medical hobby shop. They practiced on us and didn't give a hoot if they helped us or not.

You want the health care the military gets? You want the health care the VA gets?

You got to be crazy.

I lived under single payer and it was great, I don't go to the hospital much, but I knew people who did.

The problem in the US is that the US govt sucks, and you people don't want to change what sucks to something that would clearly be better, because you want to have this demon to fight against.

/---- If theUS sucks so much why do people risk their lives to get here? Who builds a cardboard raft to sail from Miami to Cuba for the free healthcare?


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Because you're trying to claim that because there are other countries whose govts suck more than the US's, doesn't mean the US's doesn't suck.

/---- Then pick a country that sucks less than the USA and move there and spare us the non stop hate fest. TIA.

Is that your argument? It's not really an argument at all, is it?

If there's a problem with the country, fuck it, just leave.

 

[frigidweirdo]

I don't understand how giving the government that much control over your life is the "moral and right" thing to do.

What kind of person puts that kind of faith in government?

Here's the difference.

If I have a single payer system, I don't need to go out and find health insurance. I don't need to worry that the insurance company will decide I don't have the right type of cancer to be insured, I don't have to worry if I was born with a illness that I'll never be able to afford to treat what I was born with.

Essentially who would want to put their trust in insurance companies?

If I have a US system, I have to go out and find health insurance. Do i go for the one I can afford which won't cover most things? Will I pay more than I can realistically afford? What if I lose my job? Suddenly I'm not covered, which means I have to be more of a slave to my job that would otherwise be so.

You can choose to put your faith in people who have been elected to serve, or you can put your faith in insurance companies who are somewhere down the bottom of the pile with lawyers in the trustworthy stakes.

The people in our government have proven themselves to be corrupt and self-serving.
Insurance is a product. If that product fails to deliver you cancel it and buy a new product. Is it very hard to do.....? it is! But it's easier than firing a corrupt, lazy, incompetent government employee....that task is impossible.
If you think government-run insurance is great, just ask the people on Medicaid, the patients at the V.A. hospitals or our military families. Democrats plan to put everyone on Medicaid and all but the 1% will be dependent on government for medical care. I find that scary.

Yes, the people in government have shown themselves to be corrupt, and the voters have shown themselves to malleable and ignorant and unwilling to do anything about it.

All along I have said that the FIRST thing that the US needs is a change in the way people vote, to get rid of corrupt partisan politics. But then every time I say something like this, most of the people either ignore it or make some claim that everything's fine and this is how it was intended.

So....

All I can do it say what will work, and hope that enough people agree with me. Problem is most people don't seem to care about anything other than getting themselves a slice of the pie.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Ari Fleischer‏Verified account @AriFleischer
The front page of today's London Daily Telegraph. Welcome to what single payer is really like.

Do you know why?

The answer has to do with the Tory Party trying to destroy the NHS. They want a US style system and know that they won't get it until they can "prove" the NHS doesn't work.

The UK spends around 8% of GDP on the NHS, though I'd suspect that this number is dropping as GDP rises after the recession. They'll lie their way through the whole process too.

However, get this, PRIVATE INSURANCE can be had much CHEAPER in the UK than in the US for the same thing, even with the amount most people pay for the NHS through taxes.

 

[debbiedowner]

The vast majority of health care costs are spent in the last few years of life in the U.S. That will change under single payer. My good friend in the U.K. was diagnosed with prostrate cancer years ago. He was just a year over the age where the state would treat it. They told him he'd die of natural causes before the cancer killed him. His treatment was declined.

That's what we'll have to get used to.

Certain types of prostate cancer do spread slowly over the years and other diseases or old age kills you first. A lot of urologists in this country don't treat it either. They watch it.

 

[Cellblock2429]

Work shouldn't dictated whether you live or die...

period

/---- And gravity shouldn't dictate if I walk or float - but ALAS.

 

[dblack]

Essentially who would want to put their trust in insurance companies?

Whoever wants to. Certainly no one should be forced to by law. Everyone should be free to decide, for themselves, how to finance their healthcare.

 

[dblack]

Work shouldn't dictated whether you live or die...

period

Agreed. Get rid of the tax and regulatory policies propping up employer-provided health insurance and that problem goes away.

 

[there4eyeM]

What is all the 'defense' money for if the society it defends isn't humane?

 

[dblack]

What is all the 'defense' money for if the society it defends isn't humane?

What does it mean, for you, for a society to be humane? Is it humane to force people to buy insurance from the same corporations that fucked up the health care market in the first place? Is it humane to force them to invest their health care dollars in a government program? A program run by utterly corrupt stoolies of the same corporations?

 

[Cellblock2429]

Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money
By ROBERT H. FRANK at the NY Times

Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

"SNIP............

Sometimes described as Medicare for all, single-payer is a system in which a public agency handles health care financing while the delivery of care remains largely in private hands.

Discussions of the California measure have stalled, however, in the wake of preliminary estimates pegging the cost of the program as greater than the entire state government budget. Similar cost concerns derailed single-payer proposals in Colorado and Vermont.

Voters need to understand that this cost objection is specious. That’s because, as experience in many countries has demonstrated, the total cost of providing health coverage under the single-payer approach is actually substantially lower than under the current system in the United States. It is a bedrock economic principle that if we can find a way to do something more efficiently, it’s possible for everyone to come out ahead.

By analogy, suppose that your state’s government took over road maintenance from the county governments within it, in the process reducing total maintenance costs by 30 percent. Your state taxes would obviously have to go up under this arrangement.

But if roads would be as well maintained as before, would that be a reason to oppose the move? Clearly not, since the resulting cost savings would reduce your county taxes by more than your state taxes went up. Likewise, it makes no sense to oppose single-payer on the grounds that it would require additional tax revenue. In each case, the resulting gains in efficiency would leave you with greater effective purchasing power than before.

And it saves lives..It is the moral and right thing to do.

/---- Odd that the only times Libs are concerned with saving money is cutting defense and rationing healthcare.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Essentially who would want to put their trust in insurance companies?

Whoever wants to. Certainly no one should be forced to by law. Everyone should be free to decide, for themselves, how to finance their healthcare.

And in countries like the UK this is so.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

It's hardly free, is it? People pay for this out of taxes.

Some of us would....

 

[dblack]

Essentially who would want to put their trust in insurance companies?

Whoever wants to. Certainly no one should be forced to by law. Everyone should be free to decide, for themselves, how to finance their healthcare.

And in countries like the UK this is so.

That's not my understanding. NHS is funded via taxation, isn't it?

 

[frigidweirdo]

Essentially who would want to put their trust in insurance companies?

Whoever wants to. Certainly no one should be forced to by law. Everyone should be free to decide, for themselves, how to finance their healthcare.

And in countries like the UK this is so.

That's not my understanding. NHS is funded via taxation, isn't it?

Yes it is. You have to pay your taxes like you pay for your taxes in the US. However if you get private insurance in the UK, it'll be cheaper than it is in the US because the NHS is there.

 

[dblack]

Essentially who would want to put their trust in insurance companies?

Whoever wants to. Certainly no one should be forced to by law. Everyone should be free to decide, for themselves, how to finance their healthcare.

And in countries like the UK this is so.

That's not my understanding. NHS is funded via taxation, isn't it?

Yes it is. You have to pay your taxes like you pay for your taxes in the US. However if you get private insurance in the UK, it'll be cheaper than it is in the US because the NHS is there.

So, you agree that your claim above wasn't true? Under "Universal Healthcare", people are forced to pay for their health care via government. They are not free to finance their health care however they like.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Essentially who would want to put their trust in insurance companies?

Whoever wants to. Certainly no one should be forced to by law. Everyone should be free to decide, for themselves, how to finance their healthcare.

And in countries like the UK this is so.

That's not my understanding. NHS is funded via taxation, isn't it?

Yes it is. You have to pay your taxes like you pay for your taxes in the US. However if you get private insurance in the UK, it'll be cheaper than it is in the US because the NHS is there.

So, you agree that your claim above wasn't true? Under "Universal Healthcare", people are forced to pay for their health care via government. They are not free to finance their health care however they like.

No at all.

People pay taxes. You pay taxes in the US.
In fact, did you know that the US Federal Govt pays MORE per capita than the UK govt does for healthcare?

Yeah, so, in the US you pay your taxes, and then you HAVE TO get insurance to be able to get into the system, unless you're one of those people who doesn't need it, and then you might get sub-quality healthcare. In the UK you pay your takes then you DON'T HAVE TO get insurance to be able to get into the system.

Do you see the difference? In the UK you'll pay LESS in taxes to the govt to pay for healthcare spending, and you receive healthcare no matter what.
In the UK you pay MORE in taxes to the govt to pay for healthcare and potentially you get nothing.

In the UK you can choose to get private healthcare, in the US you don't get to choose.

 

[dblack]

Whoever wants to. Certainly no one should be forced to by law. Everyone should be free to decide, for themselves, how to finance their healthcare.

And in countries like the UK this is so.

That's not my understanding. NHS is funded via taxation, isn't it?

Yes it is. You have to pay your taxes like you pay for your taxes in the US. However if you get private insurance in the UK, it'll be cheaper than it is in the US because the NHS is there.

So, you agree that your claim above wasn't true? Under "Universal Healthcare", people are forced to pay for their health care via government. They are not free to finance their health care however they like.

No at all.

People pay taxes. You pay taxes in the US.

The taxes required for "universal health care" are no longer in your pocket to buy alternatives. The money you'd ordinarily use to finance your own healthcare will be reduced by whatever government takes. Unless you are pretty well-off, most people will be stuck, dependent on government for health care. Which is the entire point of this whole charade.

 

[frigidweirdo]

And in countries like the UK this is so.

That's not my understanding. NHS is funded via taxation, isn't it?

Yes it is. You have to pay your taxes like you pay for your taxes in the US. However if you get private insurance in the UK, it'll be cheaper than it is in the US because the NHS is there.

So, you agree that your claim above wasn't true? Under "Universal Healthcare", people are forced to pay for their health care via government. They are not free to finance their health care however they like.

No at all.

People pay taxes. You pay taxes in the US.

The taxes required for "universal health care" are no longer in your pocket to buy alternatives. The money you'd ordinarily use to finance your own healthcare will be reduced by whatever government takes. Unless you are pretty well-off, most people will be stuck, dependent on government for health care. Which is the entire point of this whole charade.

And the taxes required for non universal healthcare are no longer in YOUR pocket to buy alternatives.

Did I not make it clear?

The US spends $956 billion a year on healthcare.

UK Health Care Spending in 2018 - Charts

The UK spends 146.4 billion pounds which is $188 billion a year.

325 million people are $956 billion a year is $2,941 per person
65 million people at $188 billion a year is $2,892 per person

So, in the US you pay your taxes, and don't get healthcare if you're not the right person. In the UK you pay and you get healthcare.

In the US you HAVE TO get insurance, in the UK you can choose to get health insurance.

The difference? The US is more expensive and less choice. Go figure.

 

[Cellblock2429]

Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money
By ROBERT H. FRANK at the NY Times

Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

"SNIP............

Sometimes described as Medicare for all, single-payer is a system in which a public agency handles health care financing while the delivery of care remains largely in private hands.

Discussions of the California measure have stalled, however, in the wake of preliminary estimates pegging the cost of the program as greater than the entire state government budget. Similar cost concerns derailed single-payer proposals in Colorado and Vermont.

Voters need to understand that this cost objection is specious. That’s because, as experience in many countries has demonstrated, the total cost of providing health coverage under the single-payer approach is actually substantially lower than under the current system in the United States. It is a bedrock economic principle that if we can find a way to do something more efficiently, it’s possible for everyone to come out ahead.

By analogy, suppose that your state’s government took over road maintenance from the county governments within it, in the process reducing total maintenance costs by 30 percent. Your state taxes would obviously have to go up under this arrangement.

But if roads would be as well maintained as before, would that be a reason to oppose the move? Clearly not, since the resulting cost savings would reduce your county taxes by more than your state taxes went up. Likewise, it makes no sense to oppose single-payer on the grounds that it would require additional tax revenue. In each case, the resulting gains in efficiency would leave you with greater effective purchasing power than before.

And it saves lives..It is the moral and right thing to do.

/----- By single payer libs mean the Tax Payer via massive tax hikes and rationed care. They always forget to mention that tidbit.


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[Yousaidwhat]

Work shouldn't dictated whether you live or die...

period

Neither should a Politician.