Posted on 04/26/2018 7:16:36 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
After beating back the repeated Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Democrats, for the first time in years, are taking the offense on health care. While the flashiest proposal—for an entirely government-run system—remains a distant aspiration, Democrats are again looking for new ways to expand Washington’s role in shaping the health-care system.
Their ideas include new plans to expand coverage, restrain drug prices, and create a public competitor to private health-insurance companies. Encouraging all of these efforts are polls showing that support for the ACA clearly increased during the long legislative struggle over its future.
“People are increasingly happy with the Affordable Care Act, but they are increasingly unhappy with the health-care system writ large,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who has co-authored one of the most ambitious proposals. “I think there is a greater willingness to accept a bigger role for public programs in repairing the health-care system.”
This shift partly reflects the leftward tilt in the Democrats’ internal center of gravity since 2009. But mostly it reflects the belief among Democrats that the public’s surprising support for the ACA—particularly the law’s expansion of Medicaid—suggests there may be greater tolerance than previously assumed for aggressive government action to restrain health-care costs. To critics who argue that a public option might lead to a government-run single-payer plan by pricing private insurers out of the market, Murphy, in effect, says: So what? “I don’t foreclose the possibility that ultimately enough people will choose [the public option] that it would be hard for private insurers to stay in business,” he told me. “But that would be up to consumers.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Ain't no fool like a progressive socialist thinking government will serves their needs?
Two more words: Alfie Evans.
“...public competition to private health insurance...”. Is there ANYONE stupid enough to actually believe that?
It is time for Trump to come out and say that the Great Society was a disaster for families in America, and that socialism is anathema to freedom.
“People are increasingly happy with the Affordable Care Act,”
Sure, those who’s premiums are subsidized and those who pay nothing.
I’d be happy too.
5.56mm
I’m going to countersignal here - just a bit.
I don’t want socialized medicine, because it will ruin a lifetime of my work.
HOWEVER
Once you are bought into it (which a majority of Americans are, in my opinion), you really can’t claim unlimited access to Other People’s Money.
That’s what we have now - a free market (sort of) paid for with OPM, which is obtained by money printing and debt. This cannot and will not go on.
So. Even in the UK, care is unlimited - IF YOU PAY FOR IT WITH YOUR OWN MONEY.
Unlike the USA, private doctors and private hospitals in the UK are under no obligation to see you or even to talk to you without payment. And your “free” healthcare provider will not pay for any care in the private system.
Therefore, most of the hospitals and most of the hospital staff doctors and GPs are part of the NHS. The NHS has a budget, which is not increased by a farthing because you need something that they provide. Every hospital, every “health area”, has to live on their budget.
Your MP can’t get you more than the NHS is budgeted to pay for. Your lawyer can’t do that for you, either.
The people who live there appear quite content with the tradeoffs. (I worked in a London teaching hospital in the 1970s). It’s always been my view that Americans would not tolerate it.
But, in the 1970s, Americans were not so dependent on Other People’s Money as they are now.
The right of Alfie, or you, or anybody in the US to have care for condition X is absolutely dependent on the willingness of someone, and at the end of the day the taxpayers, to pay for it. Right now, the process is dishonest and multiple tradeoffs are concealed. Eventually, the huge borrowing and money printing needed to make this all work will come crashing down.
In the UK, the process is explicit. Because it is explicit, it is ugly. But at least it’s not dishonest.
You do realize that they consider that a good thing don't you?
Clearly not true in the case of Alfie Evans because Italy was trying to take him to Italy for treatment at their own cost. Not only did the judge rule that they couldn't, he kept them from leaving a free country, proving that they are Subjects not Citizens.
The wise Judge would not allow Alfie to be transported because he might suffer a seizure as opposed to merely being painlessly starved to death.
I need to know more about this case to comment on your comment.
Was he in an NHS hospital? Was the NHS obligated by treaty or otherwise to pay for his care?
Read any news site been covered for Days. Italy declared him a citizen in hopes that the NHS would not kill an Italian citizen, they were wrong.
I have no access to any credible medical information, which is what I'm interested in.
Any case like this - and there are thousands of them - can be used to make the case for unlimited taxpayer spending on physician, hospital, and nursing services. I don't mind that approach, unlimited health care spending feeds my kids.
The only point I'm making here is that the UK made the decision in 1948, more or less democratically, to limit public spending through a universal budget, they've stuck to it, and although the way WE do it is different and more suited to our national character, we've been doing it with phony money since 1986 at the latest and that will eventually cause some kind of political smashup.
You don't need any credible medical informktion to know that the NHS is killing the kid and won't let him leave the hospital for totally free health care, absolutely no cost to the NHS.
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