Posted on 07/07/2017 12:26:21 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Lingering uncertainty about the fate of the Affordable Care Act has spurred the California legislature to consider adoption of a statewide single-payer health care system.
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.
Of course, having to pay taxes is itself a mandate of a sort, but it’s one the electorate has largely come to terms with. Apart from fringe groups that denounce all taxation as theft, most people understand that our entire system would collapse if tax payments were purely voluntary.
The Affordable Care Act is an inefficient system that was adopted only because its architects believed, plausibly, that the more efficient single-payer approach would not be politically achievable in 2009. But single-payer now enjoys significantly higher support than it did then, and is actually strongly favored by voters in some states.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
What is the historical cure for communism? A bullet in their head or a century of death, slavery, and misery until they figure it out (again).
I vote for the compassionate approach. The first one.
What is the historical cure for communism? A bullet in their head or a century of death, slavery, and misery until they figure it out (again).
I vote for the compassionate approach. The first one.
The nySLIMES lunatics, ghouls and liars want you to die. That ultimately how they will “save money”.
That’s why they’re always broke. Stop trying to force socialized medicine on all of us.
Single payer is medicare on steroids.... If you think medicare is bad wait until everyone has government health insurance.
So to compare our current morass of closed insurance markets, payoffs to politicians, pay to play schemes, etc. with some socialist country is considered apples to apples?
A better way to change the system is everyone pay cash. if we must continue Medicaid and medicare, hand everyone a check, and let them shop around for the best deal. If you don't need a $40,000 procedure or operation, but want it, hit the hip. But when everything is free... whooboy look out. Everyone will get every expensive option, oh wait. It's already happening.
First, he admits its about MONEY NOT HEALTHCARE.
Second, when the gov’t won’t pay for the tests, you don’t have to worry about paying for treatment.
Death panels are real!
Saves money on Social Security and broken Pension system.
Both Oregon and California are on record as recommending Doc Assisted Suicide rather than CURATIVE treatment.
Single payer can cost less because it allows the government to solely and arbitrarily decide how to ration care, who gets things fixed and who does not, who lives and who dies.
Single payer is the exact opposite of freedom.
Example - you are super healthy 80 year old who needs a replacement knee - nope, you don’t get it - tough. Average life expectancy is just 78, so you are lucky to still be here. We’re out of budget for those, you are too old, take an aspirin instead, etc, etc. Don’t care if you want to pay for it yourself - not allowed.
Health care is not and never can be a right.
Medicare has been good for me....but only because I have a great supplement. I can go to any doc, anywhere I want. I have a $150 per year deductible for my supplement. And it dropped my insurance costs from $800 per month, yes just for me, to around $400 per month. My script insurance is separate.
But that doesn’t mean I want single payer for everyone. Our insurance costs did nothing but go up with Obamacare. Before we went on Medicare we were paying $1400 per month for our private insurance.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
You’re are right, but you are only half right, and it’s not your fault you are only half right.
Where you are right: Single payer can save money because it rations care, thereby letting people die, and even encourages euthanasia, which causes people to die. However, single payer can cost more money than other ways of providing healthcare on account of waste, fraud, and inefficiency, which come with all government programs.
I posit that there should be two simultaneous health care systems: single payer and private, so as to allow surgery in your example. And why not? Cost to patient on single payer: zero. Cost to private citizen who has money to pay for private care: Whatever the market will bear.
Excellent “selling” point!
(Actually, it might start out being less expensive, but as soon as people figure out how to game the system and how to profit from the system, costs start spiraling, and since it’s single payer, there is no exit. Gaming and exploiting in 3...2...1....)
You are correct. The only reason single payer MIGHT save some money is that the current multilayered system is rife with duplication, inefficiency and corruption.
Make sound reforms of those things and it will be no contest.
Socialism: All it will cost you is everything.
Sure, it costs $0 to treat someone after they are dead.
Some forms of stupid can’t be fixed
You want single payer? Check out the BA and Indian health care
Of course, any acceptable single payer system MUST have a robust private option.
It’s surprising to me that all you anti-single payer people are basically advocating for the notion that taxpayer money should be supplied on demand and without limit to people who don’t plan to pay for what they consume, if what they consume is medical care.
3 letters: NHS.
“Single payer can cost less because it allows the government to solely and arbitrarily decide how to ration care”
In other words, it allows the people, through their representatives, a say in how, and how much, of their hard-earned money gets spent on other people.
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