Posted on 03/14/2013 8:11:08 AM PDT by ksen
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-system-cost
http://truecostblog.com/2009/05/13/how-much-would-universal-healthcare-cost/
The traitors in congress that voted for Obamacare exempted many organizations from it for a reason.
And yet a single payer system is good enough for our military men and women. I know quite a few retired vets and one of the biggest perks of retiring from the military is keeping their government healthcare. :shrug:
In a smaller country with a more homogenous population, maybe.
But in a multi-cultural country like the US, it would be a huge mess.
That's a different conversation about the role of lobbyists and the power they can wield over congressmen.
This is not proof that going to a government run, single payer system will improve innovation. It's simply evidence that, here in the US, we are already doing things to destroy innovation.
We don't really have free market forces driving our health care system. Government already runs 50% of our spending... and, new taxes are driving the medical device business elsewhere.
Do you really believe, that if we had a system here where people actually PAID for their own health care, that we wouldn't also be gravitating toward "faster, better, cheaper"??
What we have is, people sitting at home watching commercials for a FREE electric chair.. "Medicare will pay ALL the cost!".
That's a good article.. thanks for the link. But to me, it only highlites things we are doing wrong.
I believe, High Deductible Health Savings plans are our best path forward. They already HAVE bent the cost curve down. Incredibly so in my company. Apply something like this to Medicare??? And watch our health care costs come tumbling down.
Behind in what? By what measure? Comparing what to what?
NO.
Actually in a country as technologically advanced as ours it should be pretty easy to do. All that's lacking is the political will to do it.
Dave, I bet Pope Francis I would be for it. ;)
No.
No way.
Never.
1.) There is no free lunch.
2.) Any idiot can “save money” by imposing price controls. I have at least one clear, ringing example of such an idiot.
3.) Only an idiot would even try it.
4.) Price controls inevitably damage both the supply and the quality of any commidity.
5.) Third party payments lead to insurmountable conflicts among the payer, the recipient and the supplier. Any “saved money” is more than consumed by increased transaction costs, which may or may not be directly monetarized. E.g., waiting lines for service.
6.) Single payer, by definition means a restriction on one’s freedom to make voluntary contracts. In Canada it is a crime to perform an MRI on someone outside of official channels. If a doctor goes off the network and sets up a private practice performing MRI’s not paid for by the “single payer” whom do you propose to arrest, the doctor, his patient, or both. And in keeping with the spirit of the War on Drugs, make sure and confiscate the landlord’s building as well. We cannot have “back alley MRIs”, can we?
7. ) I could go on all day.
If it would save ME and MY family money, while not compromising our health care, I MIGHT be for it. After I look at the red tape and small print.
But I provide excellent coverage for my family at considerable personal expense. When you add in me having to pay to cover the lame, the lazy, etc., what you propose is impossible.
And the system worked well, at least for the insured. Drug companies spent vast amounts in support of medical research because it would lead to a lucrative market for them. Doctors and scientists made brilliant discoveries and lucrative careers. Very much a win-win.
Then, I suppose, the question arose: "What about the poor who have no insurance"..??
And even they were covered, paid for by government programs designed to cover the destitute and paid for by the taxpayers.
Now we have this......
It won’t save money because Government is just incapable of doing ANYTHING efficiently, cost-effectively, and without featherbedding and graft.
Granted our current medical billing system is overrun with inefficiencies and duplication that wastes tons of money.
This ignores the criteria of quality, quantity, availability, timeliness, value, etc.
When your neighbors, via the arm of government, pay more and more for the beans you desire, the shelves at your grocery store will hold fewer and fewer selections of beans, and beans of lower and lower quality. Your share of the cost you pay at the register might (or might not) be held artificially relatively low, compared to a free market price, for some particular, targeted, selection of beans. But to the extent that the government (and your voting neighbors) manipulate the free contracting of bean seller and bean buyer, the quality and variety will go down.
Well I suppose if you gave the President dictatorial powers it might happen.
That’s irrelevant. If “single payer” (by which you mean “gov’t provision”) was the best method for distributing scarce goods, then we should all live in gov’t provided housing and shop in gov’t monopoly supermarkets.
I hear it wasn’t so great when they did that in the Soviet bloc.
No.
To clarify just a bit.
NO.
I am not going to accept paying extra for lame, lazy, weak, stupid and perverted on the grounds that it might cost less overall. If anything, I’d cut expense by cutting them off. Nobody has a right to anything for which someone else has to pay.
Was that back in the day when life expectancy was about 60 years old and polio was still a problem?
I cracked a vertebra a couple months ago and found myself in the emergency room. Needless to say I was in alot of pain.
I sat waiting in what looked like the Martinez family reunion just because little Juan or Jose had a sniffle.
“No we no go to Walgreens and buy Nyquil... we go to hospital... get it free.”
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