There is a similar program now run for the military called Tricare. This is what Airforce-Magazine has to say about it. Read more: http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/1999/June 1999/0699tricare.aspx This is from a family member.
You know, if we did single-payer correctly, there would be very fast claims processing... because it would be the one single, automated way for health providers to get paid. Looking at the military for an example isn't going to provide a good one; single-payer provided to civilians would not even remotely be provided in the same way.
For some things, much shorter wait times for other things. But I was specifically talking about claims processing, which would take less time with single-payer. Namely because the process could be streamlined and automated to a large degree. Claims processing and wait times do not have to be correlated. The time it takes for the provider to see you is largely independent of the time it takes for the insurer to pay for it. That's not immediate even in private systems. I find it somewhat strange that the private insurance folks are so keen to talk about wait times, when it is obvious from the data that the US does not fare appreciably better in this regard. Healthcare in the US is not appreciably better than healthcare in other developed countries, though it does cost far, far more than it does anywhere else in the world. We pay excessive amounts for health care, but our wait times are not correspondingly shorter, nor are outcomes appreciably better.
But you're okay when a small minority of business owners can use the government's lack of action to suck up the wealth, labor, and productivity of everyone else? No one would ever buy American health care if they had the option of a socialized alternative. In the same way that no one will pay $20 for a detergent when the $10 alternative cleans just as well.
But they could be forced into a system that costs $30 instead of $20. You do realize that the Administration argued that they used the insurance companies during the SCOTUS hearings because of the cost savings don't you?
You might have a point... except that single-payer coverage costs far, far less than private coverage. Something like half the price per capita. The US system costs far more per capita than the system found in any other developed country on Earth, despite offering no better outcomes for patients. The US system literally has no advantage whatsoever. It costs vastly more, yet it provides no better service. I really don't give a (*)(*)(*)(*) what the administration contends. I support single-payer universal coverage, not obamacare.
Except for all the times it does, which you conservatives steadfastly refuse to acknowledge. The government works more often than not, which is not something that can be said about private businesses--which fail more often than they succeed.
If you think no business passes its cost overruns onto the customer, I have this fine bridge you might be interested in...
Really? Social Security medicare and Medicaid are all inefficient and full of fraud. The government does very little correct. The EPA under Obama is putting a burden on business in a bad economy
For every case of fraud, there are dozens of examples of Social Security and Medicare working quite well. Yes, there is fraud. That does not mean the entire programs are failures. You focus on the fraud, and in so doing you ignore all of the successes of these programs. All the millions of elderly citizens kept off the streets. The government does far more correctly than it does incorrectly; but people like you never bother to pay attention when the government works. No one pays attention when a government agency does its job correctly, but hours and hours of media attention get showered on every example of failure and abuse no matter how rare it might be in the overall scheme of things. So you disagree with the EPA's purpose; in what way does this indicate that its regulations cause more harm to the environment than would exist without them? Because when you're charging government with gross incompetence--ubiquitous failure--you need to show how these agencies are actually failing. Not merely disagreeing with their purpose. Yes, one might argue that maintaining a healthy environment does put a "burden" on business. So what? Actual people, not just businesses, have to live in this country, and we can't do that if we can't even walk outside because the air is choked with pollution, or when we can't even drink the water because some yahoo decided to drill for natural gas next door. You may not agree with liberals or leftists about the importance of having an environment people can actually live in, but your disagreement does not mean the EPA is failing when it enforces a regulation against a company that's causing harm to the environment.
only if you let your beloved government create special privilege for those entities. no one would ever buy socialized health care if we got government out of our present system.
Not at all. They can and do that all on their own. All they have to do is control some capital-intensive non-rivalrous industry, like telecommunications, transportation, electricity & energy, water, sewage, hospital ownership, etc. They can easily crowd out newcomers and charge whatever they want, and they will pass on any costs associated with killing their competitors onto the customer. I understand that the idea of natural monopolies does not fit in well with your ideology, but that does not mean they do not exist. Oh, they would. If we got the government out, no one in the United States could afford health care at all. People balk at picking up a mere 25% of their lifetime medical expenditures on the private market, they would never be able to afford to cover 100% on the private market. Not without a dramatic drop in quality and outcomes.
see what happens when you let government hand out privilege for so long, you end up in a bad predicament, and can't figure out why it is not Free Market dynamics that have screwed you. Absurd. When doctors and hospitals don't have customers that can afford their products, they get no business and starve.
Whereas your own perspective is one so deep in free market religion that you can't see how free market dynamics will always fail you when it matters. There is always an infinite demand for saving a person's life. A rational person will literally pay anything for it. The fully private market might be able to provide a dramatically worse standard of service for absurd amounts of money, and it would be very profitable, but it wouldn't provide good outcomes for patients.
Not if they cannot sell their product, then it's called bankruptcy. The government can just tax, borrow, or print more money. They have no reason to be efficient.
though you can give no modern example as we have not had anything resembling a free market in ages. there is infinite demand for a place to live, a toilet that flushes, and food to eat. Guess you haven't heard of competing for customers ?
You can more accurately revise that to; "we have not have anything resembling a free market... ever." No society has ever tolerated the massive failures of a truly free market for any substantial length of time. Ultimately all of these are a lower priority than basic physical continuity. You can live under a bridge, you can (*)(*)(*)(*) in the woods, you can steal food to eat. You're up (*)(*)(*)(*) creek when your heart stops beating; even those most base survival strategies fail you when your heart does. It's really, really easy to kill off competition when the government doesn't stand in the way. If the industry is capital-intensive enough, you can just borrow the money to buy out your competition, then pass on the costs of that buy-out to your customers. If what you sell is important enough, they'll pay the costs. That doesn't really work with something like teddy bears, which is why the free market works fine for toys, but when it comes to products with low price elasticity and extreme importance it does come into play. The free market works fine for the trivial matters, it just fails utterly when it comes to important things.
You live in a very delusional version of reality if you genuinely believe that companies do not push cost overruns onto the customer. Your absurd viewpoint rests on a sophomoric view of the market where all actors have perfect information availability, which is obviously not reflecting reality. Most goods are not commodities exchanged on open markets; price elasticity varies based on the information available to a customer. When people are shopping around locally, they don't have a whole lot of choice when it comes to playing one business against another, and few companies would set aside the opportunity to collect a bit more money. If one company has to increase it's prices by 20%, the others around it would easily increase theirs by at least 15%. That's shifting the cost (or at least most of the cost) onto the customer, even while maintaining competition. Saying that a company can't push its cost overruns onto the customer because they'll go out of business is like saying that the government cannot ever run a deficit because the people would have a revolution. Obviously false.
In what way is that a contradiction? Companies do fail more often than they succeed, yet many can still push cost overruns onto the customer. Namely the relative few that do succeed. Life is more complex than absolutes. Some companies can push their costs onto their customers, others--most, even--cannot. Both of my statements were true and correct; and require an acceptance that life is nuanced, not simply modeled. In the same sense that many companies fail because they are unable to shift their costs to customers, many governments fail because they are unable to maintain order without resources. The fact that these events are common does not imply that no company can shift its costs, or that no government can survive with few resources.
the real convincing part of your argument was "you can steal food" I didn't realize that I was having a conversation with a child.
