Seriously, why do you fear Universal Healthcare as a solution for US?

Single payer won't work unless the government buys up the providers and that will simply not happen. We would never put that kind of money into it upfront. IIRC our dinky little local hospital sold for around half a billion dollars about ten years ago.

 

That's why Bernie's plan of an expanded Medicare plan makes sense. Medicare pays 80%, you either purchase a supplement plan to cover the 20% or join an Advantage Plan, in essence an HMO that agrees to accept a fixed monthly premium from the government for your health costs. No need to outright purchase providers.

 

That would be part of the effects, yes, but getting rid of excessive regulations is needed to lower costs. Competition would drive up quality of service and thus take the place of any requirement for the various state regulations and mandates on what insurers must cover.

I'd be willing to be that they'd all turn out to be wrong too. Experts have been knocking on the ability of the free market to solve problems for decades and have continually been proven wrong. No reason to believe it couldn't happen with healthcare, because there are numerous things that they do not take into account that the market is able to achieve on its own. Same as the experts who designed Obamacare apparently couldn't see in advance that the whole thing would collapse on itself, yet conservatives, the people that apparently don't know anything about the subject, saw it coming from a mile away.

Or reading about the subject and understanding some economics and history. Also being licensed in insurance or working in the healthcare industry is not going to give one anymore insight into the subject than an interested layman. You can find doctors, nurses, insurance people, etc...who favor the single-payer proposal and who favor the free-market proposal.

A for-profit system won't work if it is not free-market as well. Part of the problem is also the tying of health insurance to employment. It needs to be de-coupled from employment.

Medicare is unsustainable as it is, let alone trying to expand it to cover everyone.

 

I should be able to choose.....whether it works for me or not. The government as greedy, you prove that with your Congressmen and Senator remark. Why would I want my health care insurance left to someone who can be bought and sold.....and why would you Sir want to mandate I do so?

 

A single payer, universal healthcare system is the only one that truly makes sense.

IF the Republicans actually want to improve Obamacare...they should head in that direction. Their adherents are the reason America is a third world nation when it comes to healthcare...so it makes sense that Republican leaders should be leading their sheep in the correct direction.

 

Different sets of policies to choose from.......many different "networks" or providers......wouldn't bring the prices down....or improve the product?

What other product besides health insurance would behave in such a manner? Where an increase in the network of products and increased choice doesn't affect costs?

 

I'll help you pack then, Canada?

 

I'm going to stay here in America...and do my best to see that our country is saved from the crazies of the right.

Do you have a problem with that?

IF so...I'll help you pack.

 

Wrong question. The correct one? Why do you think it's a good idea to make the government responsible for roughly 20% of the U.S. economy, given how wonderfully efficient it's been shown to be with its various other endeavors? Besides, if what you're trying to do is control costs, aren't there more effective ways of doing that? Do we really need a whole new government bureaucracy with all the trimmings in order to get medical costs to align properly with the rest of the economy? Yes the system is broken, but I fail to see how making that system a part of the government is anywhere near being a reasonable solution.

 

It will work.. and the government could sell VA facilities.

I worked for an ESOP chain for a few years.. We did very well .. so well that Columbia HCA bought us.

 

We don't need a new government bureaucracy .. Medicare works well... and it is private delivery.

 

Lucifer: "So I ask you, why is the concept of essential basic healthcare for everyone a threat?"

1. Because it never winds up being *essential health care" or "basic" healthcare.
2. When the government gets involved it winds up one of two ways - gold plated care for everyone or rationed healthcare. Gold plated care for everyone is unaffordable, that's why Medicare is failing. Rationed healthcare is why healthcare is cheaper in other countries. They use a measurement called QALI to ration care. If the cost of your healthcare exceeds the what you have to offer society in the future then you get the pain pill Obama talked about for grandma! I.e.- lower health care costs.

The ability to efficiently allocate resources is where the free market has the government beat hands down. If you want gold plated care and are willing to pay for it then that is what you get in the free market. If you want rationed care because that's all you want to pay for then that is what you get in the free market.

No one has a natural right to any level of healthcare other than what they can provide for themselves. Anything else is a government entitlement paid for through redistribution of wealth and central planning of the economy. Entitlements given by government can be taken away by government just as easily as they are given.

That *is* what is going to happen to Medicare and SS in just a few years. They are failing financially just like Obamacare is. And it is the very same thing that would happen to a single payer system. Medicare and the VA are both single payer systems and are prime examples of what would happen to a universal single payer system!

 

Medicare isn't failing.... 87% of Medicare is funded by the 2.9% payroll tax.

Social security will be fine.. They will raise the cap to $125,000.

 

We're not going to keep allowing you to burn cars and destroy property, Frank. Ok? You can wear the little pussyhat and parade around in protest. You can continue to define yourself all you want, I happen to support your help in giving us another election win in 2018. You can filibuster Gorsuch and get nuked, Trump is busy reversing Obama orders and you can stomp around......but you can't keep breaking the law, Frank.

 

One wonders how the single payer supporters would pay for their new entitlement.

 

What do you pay NOW for health insurance?

 

Plenty. Half is paid however by my employer. That leaves me options. Many employed who are young choose not to pay for health insurance, pay as they go so to speak. It allows me to choose a plan whether to pay higher premiums lower deductibles or what have you. The are supplemental plans as well. Choices the key, not mandated single payer

 

What if your employer kept that money and you kept yours? Would you support a small increase in your payroll taxes?

 

I believe that the greatest impediment to implementing UHC is that no one wants to pay for it, and everyone represents a constituency to our politicians. The thing is this ... If we want something from government we can have it if we're willing to pay for it. If we're not willing to pay for it, we can't have it. I did a study as to what UHC would cost to implement nationally using Medicare costs as the basis. The bottom line was that to provide Medicare for all would cost 27% of salary of all earners which could be split by employer and employee, 13.5% each. If you were self-employed, the cost would be the full 27% of your net income after business expense was deducted.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...-healthcare-can-be-accomplished.500686/page-3

There's no free lunch, and yet everyone looks to someone else to pay for things.

 

I'm not breaking any laws, Blackbeard. I am not burning cars; I am not destroying property.

Stay cool. Don't blow a gasket.

 

Yeah but this would be on top of the excisting health care there already is, why would you want that?

The US now spends around 15-17% of its GDP on health care.

The closest comparable countries are a lot of northern/western european countries that spend around 10-12%

Studies show that care in general is comparable between those countries and this this means the US is spending several % of its GDP for no reason but waste/profit in that sector.

So in theory you could completly overhaul the US health care system to a system comparable to either of those countries (that usualy means a mix of public basic care and private extra care) thats either quite a bit cheaper or provides a lot better quality to more people then before.

In reality of course due to politics thats never going to happen.

 

I lot of doctors will limit medicare patients because their reimbursements are so low. Unless the insurance payments increase, they would drive down the quality of healthcare and or drive people out of the business.

 

Why would someone want a bunch of different networks to choose from as opposed to the biggest possible network that has all their doctors they want in it? I mean I have yet to find someone who won't take my Anthem policy, but I know people who are on other plans who have to choose. One of my brother's family had to switch to almost all completely new health care providers whenever whatever policy they have lost lots of network providers a few years ago.

 

Depends of the practitioner's ability to streamline his practice. Internal medicine and internal medicine specialties serve a large percentage of Medicare patients.

 

Single payer could be structured much the same as you just stated. Premiums paid for your plan, choices like most employer based plans offer, usually three tiers. Premiums would be based on income and costs would be controlled much like Medicare does today. It is doable.