Slate exposes the "Medicare for All" lie being pushed by Democrats

[SavannahMann]

I'd love to meet the person who turns down Medicare in favor of buying a plan from Aetna or United,

Hi. Pleased to meet you.

My wife has double insurance. Both mine from work, and Medicare. When we schedule a procedure she needs, the insurance is a headache, they’ll only approve it for a single day. The Medicare hoops are far more difficult to navigate. When she needed a Wheelchair to get around, the Insurance Company sent one out within a week of the Doctor writing the order. Medicare contacted us a year later to see if we were ready to receive the item. A year. A fucking year later.

I could go into details of the headaches of dealing with Medicare, basically they are secondary, and anything not covered by the Primary, my work insurance, what would be our part, should be picked up by Medicare. Yet, they fight over every single thing. If it was just Medicare, then the prescriptions the Doctor’s are writing, would be denied, and the treatments that she is getting, would be denied, or approved about two years after her death.

So I am very pleased to meet you.

 

[Mac1958]

"Expand the current Medicare / Medicare Advantage / Medicare Supplement system to all, with graduated coverage as we age. Maintain the current and popular free market component, and take a massive cost monkey off the backs of American employers."
If you take the massive cost monkey off the backs of American employers, who picks up the tab? I'm guessing the American taxpayers, true? And how is the current free market component going to compete with an expanded Medicare system that is mostly paid for by the gov't?

49% of our lifetime health costs are incurred after age 65, and we're already covering that under the overall Medicare system. Because the cost of supplemental free market health plans would be so cheap for younger people, we'd have a sliding scale so that their actual Medicare coverage is far lower, say 30% and rising to 80% over time. That way we know that preventive/diagnostic treatments would be covered, instead of letting conditions fester and worsen for those who have no coverage.

The free market would expand its current Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage offerings to all. Competition. Innovation.

Would it increase our income taxes? Decent chance. But it would also keep costs down because we'd be catching serious conditions earlier. And it would be a SHITLOAD better than true Single Payer, the monopoly of all monopolies. I'd take a small tax increase over the large one that Single Payer would cause.
.

A decent chance? More like an absolute sure thing, and I don't think it'll be a small increase either.

Now tell me how private HC insurance can possibly compete with an expanded gov't paid Medicare program. Answer: they can't. Right now, Medicare pays for about 80% or so of most HC expenses, right? How does private HCI match that? Answer: they can't, so we're going to end up with something very close to single Payer by another name. Private insurance would effectively be reduced to Medicare supplement and advantage plans, but there's a whole lot of people at or below whatever the income level is for qualifying for gov't paid medical care.

So - right now we pay for Medicare for those 65 and up, if we change it to just about everybody then that's not going to be an insignificant increase in cost to the taxpayers. And we haven't talked about the increased demand, if you add almost everybody into the HC system then you're going to have huge access problems. Except for the rich guys, who can afford the cost of private insurance here or will be flying off to another country for treatment.

Nice idea, but until I see some numbers I won't be buying into the concept. Recent estimates are about $30 trillion (give or take) over 10 years for single payer, what have you got for this proposal? I don't see how the idea is fiscally feasible.

Perhaps you missed the whole section where I point out that private insurance companies would cover a much higher percentage when people are younger and cost the system less. Individuals would be responsible for the rest of their coverage.

We would not be just adding people at 80%, not even close.
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[LoneLaugher]

Medicare For All IS Single Payer and those of us who pay attention enough to meaningfully respond to this kind of poll question know it. Thread fail.

I swear, folks, I don't pay them to do this.
.

And nobody pays you to make dopey threads claiming to expose shit that everyone knows.

So you admit the lie.

Cool, thanks.

Yet you bitch anyway. That's just who you are.
.

It’s not a lie. It’s right there in the plan. You knew it. I knew it. Nobody told you or me that Medicare For All would preserve the wasteful private insurance market that we have today.

So who lied?

I refer you to the Slate article in the OP. That's not exactly a right wing publication.

You're ignorant. Or you're a liar. Or you're an ignorant liar.

There. I've shown you your attention for the day. You're welcome.
.

Once again. Who lied? Sanders hasn’t told anyone that private insurance companies would thrive under his plan.

Nobody is telling anyone that Sanders’ Medicare For All is anything but single payer.

No lies. Just you wanting something to be arrogantly outraged about.

It’s especially weird because you said you want to see Medicare expanded. Do you think that will benefit private insurers?

Shit. You have startled me with your eagerness to be misleading.

 

[LoneLaugher]

I'd love to meet the person who turns down Medicare in favor of buying a plan from Aetna or United,

Hi. Pleased to meet you.

My wife has double insurance. Both mine from work, and Medicare. When we schedule a procedure she needs, the insurance is a headache, they’ll only approve it for a single day. The Medicare hoops are far more difficult to navigate. When she needed a Wheelchair to get around, the Insurance Company sent one out within a week of the Doctor writing the order. Medicare contacted us a year later to see if we were ready to receive the item. A year. A fucking year later.

I could go into details of the headaches of dealing with Medicare, basically they are secondary, and anything not covered by the Primary, my work insurance, what would be our part, should be picked up by Medicare. Yet, they fight over every single thing. If it was just Medicare, then the prescriptions the Doctor’s are writing, would be denied, and the treatments that she is getting, would be denied, or approved about two years after her death.

So I am very pleased to meet you.

Bullshit.

 

[Mac1958]

I swear, folks, I don't pay them to do this.
.

And nobody pays you to make dopey threads claiming to expose shit that everyone knows.

So you admit the lie.

Cool, thanks.

Yet you bitch anyway. That's just who you are.
.

It’s not a lie. It’s right there in the plan. You knew it. I knew it. Nobody told you or me that Medicare For All would preserve the wasteful private insurance market that we have today.

So who lied?

I refer you to the Slate article in the OP. That's not exactly a right wing publication.

You're ignorant. Or you're a liar. Or you're an ignorant liar.

There. I've shown you your attention for the day. You're welcome.
.

Once again. Who lied? Sanders hasn’t told anyone that private insurance companies would thrive under his plan.

Nobody is telling anyone that Sanders’ Medicare For All is anything but single payer.

No lies. Just you wanting something to be arrogantly outraged about.

It’s especially weird because you said you want to see Medicare expanded. Do you think that will benefit private insurers?

Shit. You have startled me with your eagerness to be misleading.

Learn the system. I know it inside & out. You're just tossing out platitudes.
.

 

[LoneLaugher]

And nobody pays you to make dopey threads claiming to expose shit that everyone knows.

So you admit the lie.

Cool, thanks.

Yet you bitch anyway. That's just who you are.
.

It’s not a lie. It’s right there in the plan. You knew it. I knew it. Nobody told you or me that Medicare For All would preserve the wasteful private insurance market that we have today.

So who lied?

I refer you to the Slate article in the OP. That's not exactly a right wing publication.

You're ignorant. Or you're a liar. Or you're an ignorant liar.

There. I've shown you your attention for the day. You're welcome.
.

Once again. Who lied? Sanders hasn’t told anyone that private insurance companies would thrive under his plan.

Nobody is telling anyone that Sanders’ Medicare For All is anything but single payer.

No lies. Just you wanting something to be arrogantly outraged about.

It’s especially weird because you said you want to see Medicare expanded. Do you think that will benefit private insurers?

Shit. You have startled me with your eagerness to be misleading.

Learn the system. I know it inside & out. You're just tossing out platitudes.
.

I’m asking you WHO LIED?

 

[Mac1958]

So you admit the lie.

Cool, thanks.

Yet you bitch anyway. That's just who you are.
.

It’s not a lie. It’s right there in the plan. You knew it. I knew it. Nobody told you or me that Medicare For All would preserve the wasteful private insurance market that we have today.

So who lied?

I refer you to the Slate article in the OP. That's not exactly a right wing publication.

You're ignorant. Or you're a liar. Or you're an ignorant liar.

There. I've shown you your attention for the day. You're welcome.
.

Once again. Who lied? Sanders hasn’t told anyone that private insurance companies would thrive under his plan.

Nobody is telling anyone that Sanders’ Medicare For All is anything but single payer.

No lies. Just you wanting something to be arrogantly outraged about.

It’s especially weird because you said you want to see Medicare expanded. Do you think that will benefit private insurers?

Shit. You have startled me with your eagerness to be misleading.

Learn the system. I know it inside & out. You're just tossing out platitudes.
.

I’m asking you WHO LIED?

Anyone who is calling Single Payer "Medicare for All", when they know better.

Bernie, for one.

Even Slate admits it. I don't expect you to.

I'm done now. Think what you're supposed to think, fine with me.
.

 

[HenryBHough]

Nutty Old Uncle Bernie is from Vermont.

Vermont experimented with a state version of "Medicare for All".

Amid near bankruptcy and a population pissed of with the lousy care they wee getting the state suddenly terminated the experiment.

But Nutty Old Uncle Bernie's brain is too far gone to remember that.

Here's the NPR (darling of all liberals) story about the mega-fail:

Why Bernie Sanders' Single-Payer Health Care Plan Failed In Vermont

In the article the issue of "Where did my employer- paid health insurance go???" is prominent.

 

[LoneLaugher]

It’s not a lie. It’s right there in the plan. You knew it. I knew it. Nobody told you or me that Medicare For All would preserve the wasteful private insurance market that we have today.

So who lied?

I refer you to the Slate article in the OP. That's not exactly a right wing publication.

You're ignorant. Or you're a liar. Or you're an ignorant liar.

There. I've shown you your attention for the day. You're welcome.
.

Once again. Who lied? Sanders hasn’t told anyone that private insurance companies would thrive under his plan.

Nobody is telling anyone that Sanders’ Medicare For All is anything but single payer.

No lies. Just you wanting something to be arrogantly outraged about.

It’s especially weird because you said you want to see Medicare expanded. Do you think that will benefit private insurers?

Shit. You have startled me with your eagerness to be misleading.

Learn the system. I know it inside & out. You're just tossing out platitudes.
.

I’m asking you WHO LIED?

Anyone who is calling Single Payer "Medicare for All", when they know better.

Bernie, for one.

Even Slate admits it. I don't expect you to.

I'm done now. Think what you're supposed to think, fine with me.
.

Bernie calls his plan "single payer" on his website. He's not lying to you.

 

[LoneLaugher]

I refer you to the Slate article in the OP. That's not exactly a right wing publication.

You're ignorant. Or you're a liar. Or you're an ignorant liar.

There. I've shown you your attention for the day. You're welcome.
.

Once again. Who lied? Sanders hasn’t told anyone that private insurance companies would thrive under his plan.

Nobody is telling anyone that Sanders’ Medicare For All is anything but single payer.

No lies. Just you wanting something to be arrogantly outraged about.

It’s especially weird because you said you want to see Medicare expanded. Do you think that will benefit private insurers?

Shit. You have startled me with your eagerness to be misleading.

Learn the system. I know it inside & out. You're just tossing out platitudes.
.

I’m asking you WHO LIED?

Anyone who is calling Single Payer "Medicare for All", when they know better.

Bernie, for one.

Even Slate admits it. I don't expect you to.

I'm done now. Think what you're supposed to think, fine with me.
.

Bernie calls his plan "single payer" on his website. He's not lying to you.

That's a wrap, friends.

 

[Mac1958]

.

 

[candycorn]

Medicare for All Doesn’t Mean What Americans Think It Means

“Medicare for all” is a popular and politically effective slogan. Polls have shown that 70 percent of adults, and maybe more, say they’d support opening the federal health care program for the elderly to every American. This is all much to the delight Sen. Bernie Sanders, who managed to mainstream the idea during his 2016 presidential run, and has trumpeted those survey results in recent appearances.


One problem for Sanders is that when most Americans hear the words “Medicare for all,” they aren’t necessarily imagining the sort of single-payer system the Vermont senator has proposed. Worse yet, support for national health insurance seems to vacillate a great deal based on how pollsters couch the question. On Wednesday, for instance, the Kaiser Family Foundation published its latest tracking poll on public attitudes towards health care policy. Similar to its previous results, it found that 56 percent of Americans would support “a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare for all, in which American would get their insurance from a single government plan.” That’s not a bad outcome on its face. But many survey takers seemed to be confused about what Medicare for all, as it’s been formally proposed, would actually do. Among those under the age of 65 who had employer-sponsored coverage, 55 percent said they thought they would be able to keep their current health plan if Medicare for all were put in place.


That is not how Sanders’ single-payer bill would work. The legislation that Sanders has written, and that many of his colleagues and potential Democratic primary opponents endorsed, would expressly ban private insurance plans that compete with the government.


That turns out to be a fairly unpopular idea. According to Kaiser, support for Medicare for all drops to 37 percent if survey takers are told that the bill would eliminate private insurance companies, with 58 percent opposed.


In other words, Americans want access to government insurance, but they don’t want to be forced to use it—people prefer optionality. Kaiser finds that 73 percent of adults support “creating a national government administered health plan similar to Medicare open to anyone, but would allow people to keep the coverage they have.” This is an idea that, in health policy world, generally gets referred to as “Medicare for anyone.” The closest thing to it is probably a proposal produced by the Center for American Progress that would ban private insurers from competing on the individual market and would create strong incentives for employers to move their employees onto the federal plan.

==================================

Expand the current Medicare / Medicare Advantage / Medicare Supplement system to all, with graduated coverage as we age. Maintain the current and popular free market component, and take a massive cost monkey off the backs of American employers.

You are being lied to, if you care.
.

Good stuff at the end there.

 

[task0778]

"Expand the current Medicare / Medicare Advantage / Medicare Supplement system to all, with graduated coverage as we age. Maintain the current and popular free market component, and take a massive cost monkey off the backs of American employers."
If you take the massive cost monkey off the backs of American employers, who picks up the tab? I'm guessing the American taxpayers, true? And how is the current free market component going to compete with an expanded Medicare system that is mostly paid for by the gov't?

49% of our lifetime health costs are incurred after age 65, and we're already covering that under the overall Medicare system. Because the cost of supplemental free market health plans would be so cheap for younger people, we'd have a sliding scale so that their actual Medicare coverage is far lower, say 30% and rising to 80% over time. That way we know that preventive/diagnostic treatments would be covered, instead of letting conditions fester and worsen for those who have no coverage.

The free market would expand its current Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage offerings to all. Competition. Innovation.

Would it increase our income taxes? Decent chance. But it would also keep costs down because we'd be catching serious conditions earlier. And it would be a SHITLOAD better than true Single Payer, the monopoly of all monopolies. I'd take a small tax increase over the large one that Single Payer would cause.
.

A decent chance? More like an absolute sure thing, and I don't think it'll be a small increase either.

Now tell me how private HC insurance can possibly compete with an expanded gov't paid Medicare program. Answer: they can't. Right now, Medicare pays for about 80% or so of most HC expenses, right? How does private HCI match that? Answer: they can't, so we're going to end up with something very close to single Payer by another name. Private insurance would effectively be reduced to Medicare supplement and advantage plans, but there's a whole lot of people at or below whatever the income level is for qualifying for gov't paid medical care.

So - right now we pay for Medicare for those 65 and up, if we change it to just about everybody then that's not going to be an insignificant increase in cost to the taxpayers. And we haven't talked about the increased demand, if you add almost everybody into the HC system then you're going to have huge access problems. Except for the rich guys, who can afford the cost of private insurance here or will be flying off to another country for treatment.

Nice idea, but until I see some numbers I won't be buying into the concept. Recent estimates are about $30 trillion (give or take) over 10 years for single payer, what have you got for this proposal? I don't see how the idea is fiscally feasible.

Perhaps you missed the whole section where I point out that private insurance companies would cover a much higher percentage when people are younger and cost the system less. Individuals would be responsible for the rest of their coverage.

We would not be just adding people at 80%, not even close.
.

" Perhaps you missed the whole section where I point out that private insurance companies would cover a much higher percentage when people are younger and cost the system less. Individuals would be responsible for the rest of their coverage. "

Okay wait a minute. You said "Expand the current Medicare / Medicare Advantage / Medicare Supplement system to all". That sounds like adding EVERYBODY who wants it into Medicare to me. So why in hell would a young person or anybody other than a rich person buy private insurance, unless they've already got a pre-existing condition? You're gonna cover previously existing conditions, right? Free Medicare coverage is cheaper than whatever you can lower the cost of private insurance to, all anybody has to do is sign up for a supplement/advantage plan if and when they need it.

 

[LoneLaugher]

.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Bernie knows this is true Single Payer and not "Medicare for All".

He also knows that the term "Medicare for All" POLLS higher than "Single Payer".

So do the Regressive Left.

I'm disappointed to see him lying like this. I'm not at all surprised that the Regressive Left is.
.

Hmmm. You’ve gone all in on this one, huh? The Affordable Care Act polled way better than Obamacare too.

You think that people don’t know that Medicare For All signifies the end of private health care insurance being the way people get their health care? Of course they do. Sanders uses nations with single payer as examples when he discusses his plan all the time. France. Germany. Japan. Look them up.

You claim to want to take the burden of providing a health insurance benefit off of the backs of employers. That’s a noble concept. Except employers would rather provide the benefit ( and get the tax break ) than increase the wages of their employees....which they’d have to do.

The key is to remove the obscene profit incentive when it comes to providing health care. There is an entire unnecessary industry which exists to do nothing but add cost to health care services.

Medicare For All IS Single Payer and those of us who pay attention enough to meaningfully respond to this kind of poll question know it.

Thread fail.

True.

Employers pay both the Medicare tax and the cost of providing private health insurance – enrolling their employees in Medicare would likely result in a net savings for employers even if there’s an increase in the portion of the Medicare tax they pay.

A savings the result of not paying premiums inflated by corporate profits.

 

[LoneLaugher]

View attachment 247399

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[Mac1958]

"Expand the current Medicare / Medicare Advantage / Medicare Supplement system to all, with graduated coverage as we age. Maintain the current and popular free market component, and take a massive cost monkey off the backs of American employers."
If you take the massive cost monkey off the backs of American employers, who picks up the tab? I'm guessing the American taxpayers, true? And how is the current free market component going to compete with an expanded Medicare system that is mostly paid for by the gov't?

49% of our lifetime health costs are incurred after age 65, and we're already covering that under the overall Medicare system. Because the cost of supplemental free market health plans would be so cheap for younger people, we'd have a sliding scale so that their actual Medicare coverage is far lower, say 30% and rising to 80% over time. That way we know that preventive/diagnostic treatments would be covered, instead of letting conditions fester and worsen for those who have no coverage.

The free market would expand its current Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage offerings to all. Competition. Innovation.

Would it increase our income taxes? Decent chance. But it would also keep costs down because we'd be catching serious conditions earlier. And it would be a SHITLOAD better than true Single Payer, the monopoly of all monopolies. I'd take a small tax increase over the large one that Single Payer would cause.
.

A decent chance? More like an absolute sure thing, and I don't think it'll be a small increase either.

Now tell me how private HC insurance can possibly compete with an expanded gov't paid Medicare program. Answer: they can't. Right now, Medicare pays for about 80% or so of most HC expenses, right? How does private HCI match that? Answer: they can't, so we're going to end up with something very close to single Payer by another name. Private insurance would effectively be reduced to Medicare supplement and advantage plans, but there's a whole lot of people at or below whatever the income level is for qualifying for gov't paid medical care.

So - right now we pay for Medicare for those 65 and up, if we change it to just about everybody then that's not going to be an insignificant increase in cost to the taxpayers. And we haven't talked about the increased demand, if you add almost everybody into the HC system then you're going to have huge access problems. Except for the rich guys, who can afford the cost of private insurance here or will be flying off to another country for treatment.

Nice idea, but until I see some numbers I won't be buying into the concept. Recent estimates are about $30 trillion (give or take) over 10 years for single payer, what have you got for this proposal? I don't see how the idea is fiscally feasible.

Perhaps you missed the whole section where I point out that private insurance companies would cover a much higher percentage when people are younger and cost the system less. Individuals would be responsible for the rest of their coverage.

We would not be just adding people at 80%, not even close.
.

" Perhaps you missed the whole section where I point out that private insurance companies would cover a much higher percentage when people are younger and cost the system less. Individuals would be responsible for the rest of their coverage. "

Okay wait a minute. You said "Expand the current Medicare / Medicare Advantage / Medicare Supplement system to all". That sounds like adding EVERYBODY who wants it into Medicare to me. So why in hell would a young person or anybody other than a rich person buy private insurance, unless they've already got a pre-existing condition? You're gonna cover previously existing conditions, right? Free Medicare coverage is cheaper than whatever you can lower the cost of private insurance to, all anybody has to do is sign up for a supplement/advantage plan if and when they need it.

As I said in the original post, a base Medicare foundation would allow people access to diagnostic and preventive care, allowing us to catch problems earlier and when they're cheaper. The younger you are, the less of a drag you are on the system. Let free market competition and innovation provide the rest.
.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Would it increase our income taxes? Decent chance. But it would also keep costs down because we'd be catching serious conditions earlier. And it would be a SHITLOAD better than true Single Payer, the monopoly of all monopolies. I'd take a small tax increase over the large one that Single Payer would cause.
.

Now tell me how private HC insurance can possibly compete with an expanded gov't paid Medicare program. Answer: they can't. Right now, Medicare pays for about 80% or so of most HC expenses, right? How does private HCI match that? Answer: they can't, so we're going to end up with something very close to single Payer by another name. .

The Medicare plan should not be the government plan offered to everyone, the Medicaid insurance should be and it should be a sliding sclae, one size fits all simple insurance that covers 100% of costs.

PHCI should be competitive by offering tailored coverage to the specific person via state insurance pools so folks can still get group rates. Employers should not be expected to provide health care coverage.

That is one way they can compete and I am sure they would find other ways still as a huge number of Americans never want to go within five miles of Medicaid.

 

[Polishprince]

I'd love to meet the person who turns down Medicare in favor of buying a plan from Aetna or United,

That would really depend on the plan offered by Aetna or United when squared up against the Medicare program.

If Aetna has the quality doctors under exclusive contract, and you give a shit about your health, why wouldn't you go with Aetna?

 

[Mac1958]

Would it increase our income taxes? Decent chance. But it would also keep costs down because we'd be catching serious conditions earlier. And it would be a SHITLOAD better than true Single Payer, the monopoly of all monopolies. I'd take a small tax increase over the large one that Single Payer would cause.
.

Now tell me how private HC insurance can possibly compete with an expanded gov't paid Medicare program. Answer: they can't. Right now, Medicare pays for about 80% or so of most HC expenses, right? How does private HCI match that? Answer: they can't, so we're going to end up with something very close to single Payer by another name. .

The Medicare plan should not be the government plan offered to everyone, the Medicaid insurance should be and it should be a sliding sclae, one size fits all simple insurance that covers 100% of costs.

PHCI should be competitive by offering tailored coverage to the specific person via state insurance pools so folks can still get group rates.

That is one way they can compete and I am sure they would find other ways still as a huge number of Americans never want to go within five miles of Medicaid.

The way the Regressives are playing with words on this, we're going to end up with either Single Payer or something like what I'm talking about.

They're fine with lying, that's up to them. But if the GOP goes for all or nothing, it could all go south.
.