Skinny Repeal Disaster

Actually, the $250 billion annual federal subsidy in the form of massive tax write-offs that props up employer-sponsored policies is, by far, the biggest virtual hand out but, yes, a single-payer, inclusive system is the proven far more efficient and economical approach. It has the added benefit of relieving the private sector of the bureaucratic burden of administering such plans.

 

1. I agree that handouts to businesses are also handouts. If you noticed from my response yoiu quoted, I made no distinction where those handouts were going.

2. There is no reason to suspect single payer will work in this country without financially ruining us in the process.

 

Other than all advanced nations adopting variations of the same, proven paradigm and covering everyone at about half the cost, no.
On the other hand, opponents cannot point to a single real alternative that practices their airy-fairy ideological dogma and works.

 

You need to look closer at those other countries systems. None will work here. The costs for care are too high. Single payer is just another cost shifting program that doesn't lower the costs of care.

 

The US system is an overpriced disaster that fails to cover tens of millions whose inflated medical costs are routinely dumped on the taxpayer.

Pretending that the demonstrably superior approach of all advanced nations that includes everyone at much lower cost is inferior to some imaginary ideological pipe dream does not address the empirical reality.

 

You are assuming that thjose systems can just be copied and put in place here. They cannot.

Single payer in the US would require cuts in pay for the medical profession that no one in the US will allow. This would also increase the share of doctors opting for concierge practices. Less doctors means even more access issues.

Single payer would also require a level of taxation that would be DOA in both houses of Congress.

Single payer would lead to mass layoffs and an even greater pool of patients not paying into the system. This means more unfunded bills for the govt.


Can you address any of these issues?

 

Polarization, highly partisanship is the era we now have entered. Anything the Democrats propose, good or bad for the nation the Republicans are against. Vice versa is also true, anything proposed by the Republicans, good or bad for the nation the Democrats are against.

It's high past time our two party system goes away. Each party knows no matter how much people hate them, one or the other will win. Both parties are ruled, owned is a better word by big money. Corporations, Wall Street Firms, lobbyist, special interests, mega money donors etc. Neither party will every bite the had that feeds it.

We have elections to determine which of the moneyed elites, the one who back the Republicans or the ones who back the Democrats will get their abundance of rewards. Heck, quite a lot of those moneyed elites now donate, buy both parties.

 

Your ideologically-correct resistance in insisting that the US is not up to the challenge of following the multiply-validated paradigm is contradicted by a single-payer system that effectively covers over 50 million Americans, Medicare.

With the benefits of economy of scale - no astronomical executive salaries, no profit margins, no repeatedly-duplicated clerical functions, no agency commissions, no marketing and advertising budgets, no repeatedly-duplicated infrastructure expenses, etc. it operates at far lower overhead.

It provides coverage to the highest cost demographic and, by incrementally introducing progressively lower cost ones into the risk pool, the per capita outlay is reduced.

Allow Medicare to negotiate RX prices with Big Pharma, and Americans will all be covered, so there will no longer be the tens of millions uninsured having their inflated medical bills dumped on the American taxpayer, and Americans will be able to buy their prescription medications for as little as folks in advanced nations currently enjoy.

In control of the Senate, the House, and Executive, Republicans amply-demonstrated impotence in crafting a preferable alternative to the Affordable Care Act (after seven years of whining and staging over 50 meaningless show votes.)

Enough is enough.

Try going with what demonstrably works, the vested special interest leeches and their ideological lackeys that make the US healthcare plight by far the most costly on earth cannot be allowed to continue to gorge themselves at the taxpayer trough.

 

Much as I loathe the duopoly, with Republicans in control of the Senate, House, and Executive, I can't pretend there is currently an equivalency.

If the Trump regime had prioritized a rebuilding of the nation's infrastructure instead of contriving to deprive tens of millions of Americans of health coverage while transferring even more wealth to an elite that have been doing extremely well in recent decades, there would have been a bipartisan effort that would have enhanced the nation in multiple ways, creating good-paying jobs conspicuously among them.

 

If you take away the private system, you lose most of the infrastructure Medicare already uses. Dont forget that most of medicare is administered by private insurance companies. That means medicare will have to start from scratch to build their own networks.

Medicare is not more efficient, its just that costs are hidden within many agencies and arent counted as part of their operating expenses.
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/08/09/is-medicare-more-efficient-than-private-insurance/

Obamacare said the same thing, yet it failed because not enough people chose to buy into the program.

So you plan to end IP protections for pharmaceuticals?

Dont confuse inept politicians inability to put a better plan together with the quality of the current one.

Just because it works in other countries doesnt mean it works here and I have already given a few of those reasons. None of which you have disputed.

 

Neither those of the right or the left will never admit a duopoly. I don't think it made a difference who won last year, as you know. You would have had the same thing going on today, except with different names. From where I sit, neither party has an America agenda, just a Democratic and Republican one. With as dysfunctional the GOP has been, it might not even matter what their agenda is. Control of the senate is good. One can table bills one don't like. One can get presidential appointment with just a majority now thanks to the Senator Harry Reid Nuclear option. But for the time being, one still needs 60 votes for cloture on legislation.

Even with one party rule we have a total mess in Washington. That mess starts at the top. Schumer and McConnell won't come close to working together to improve America. Lott and Daschel did as did Mitchell and Dole. We have entered an era where it is much more important to be a Republican and Democrat first than being an American.

 

Obviously, no one can know, but I have no reason to pretend that a savvy President Clinton, an establishment pol who had earned the respect of Republicans when she served in the Senate, would suddenly become temperamentally unstable and erratic to the point of being a divisive and ineffectual figure within her own party and a laughing stock on the world stage.

 

You really really need to look at the evidence

Single payer is CHEAPER

 

I have looked at the comparisons. It's not cheaper. Claiming it is makes a great many assumptions that we have no reason to believe will come true.

Look at doctor's compensation. Look at the costs for pharmaceuticals. Those are in now way comparable to what you see on Europe and their Single Payer model does nothing to address a way to pay for those things.

 

Medicare is single payer that works very well in this country and it pays for itself with premiums and a very modest 1.45% tax rate while covering the most expensive members of society to insure medically.

 

Single payer eliminates the 20% overhead of private healthcare insurance which would be a MASSIVE COST SAVING!

 

Upon what basis do you make that assertion. Per capita costs are dramatically lower in every country that has a system of universal care. For that matter, the popular single payer Medicare system provides health care service for less cost that the private insurance system.

 

Not only that, but a single payer has the market leverage and power to keep better control on what hospitals and practice groups charge. That is a major reason why Medicare delivers health care more cost effectively than private insurance.

 

That's wrong. A single payer has the market power to hold down prices on what providers can charge. Single payer Medicare typically pays significantly lower rates than private insurers do for equivalent services.

 

Medicare currently covers 20% of the population who have the highest medical costs with modest premiums and 1.45% tax rate. Even if you multiply that tax by 5 to cover 100% of the population it would still be a modest 6% tax increase while at the same time SAVING everyone the 20% OVERHEAD of private health insurance.

Yes, it will cost less and a 6% tax increase would pass Congress.

As far as "massive layoffs" goes I don't recall anyone on the right whining about corporations doing massive layoffs to ship jobs overseas. How many people are employed in the private health insurance industry? Do you imagine that it will disappear entirely or just adapt and learn to live alongside Single Payer systems like it does in the rest of the civilized world?

The problem with a doctor shortage is relatively easy to address. Nurse practitioners and medical students who are willing to work for a fixed salary for a period of 10 years after medical school as repayment of their education expenses. A whole lot more people would enroll if they did not have to privately fund their medical school expenses.

 

Your linked source about Medicare is from a Libertarian Blogger!

 

Single Payer systems in other nations NEGOTIATE lower costs with Big Pharma. The GOP in this country is OWNED by Big Pharma which is why they OBSTRUCT the ability to negotiate lower drug prices.

 

I looked at some figures before that showed seniors (who use Medicare) use about 40% of the total health care service, while Medicare spending is something like 20% of total health care spending.

 

Perhaps you should be instead looking at the Australian system

 

Couple example of how these kind of reports skew the data:

"Further, raw numbers show that, using Medicare’s own accounting, its administrative expenses per enrollee are higher than private insurance."

Of course they would. The average person on Medicare is in their 70s and using far more health care services. So naturally expenses per enrollee are higher.

That's misleading. What would be relevant are expenses per services provided.

Another is the CBO report showing per capita spending growth from 1975 to 2008. Average life expectancy in 1975 was about 69. In 2008 it was about 75. In 1975, Medicare at to cover about 4 years of an average life span. By 2008, it had to cover an average 10 years, a 150% increase. Of course per capita growth is going to be strong under those circumstances. It's amazing it wasn't a lot higher.