Why I(still) oppose "Medicare for All"

Bad Policy is worse than no policy. We lived through the ACA. We lived through the attempt to steal from the people their right to make their own financial decisions(for good or ill) under some misguided brand of idealism that thought it'd lower costs(instead, it substantially raised them) like anyone with any sense of scarcity/financial demand would understand would happen when you force exclusivity on the market place.

The Democratic argument to the financial facts that make this deal untenable and dead on arrival(DOA) is that health care shouldn't be a marketplace item, it should be a 'right'. Yeah, well you could say that about every consumable good(food and gas, mainly.). The big reason why we don't say that, is price controls. The Financial Market, through scarcity controls the flow of buyers/sellers to maintain a positive ratio.

If we removed the price control that is purchasing power, then the positive ratio would quickly become negative and then you'd see real scarcity of the finite supplies of food, water, gas, etc.(Even though I think city governments charging on water is a god awful proposition.)

None of this is to mention the unique fail that is Federal Government. Even before the proposition by Democrats/before Trump, these programs were already uniquely in the negative. This is because, virtually ALL government programs(including the rape kits) have a major BACKLOG.

(That is to say, there's an excess demand/usage of these things.). What Medicare for All would do, is to increase the backlog without any relief whatsoever. As more and more people get subpar care(and as more doctors felt underpaid by federal as opposed to private insurance companies), this would be a disaster. A good deal of this played out with the ACA disaster.

It isn't even "feel good". It's just incredibly stupid. Any real meaningful proposal has to first start by eliminating or substantially reducing the backlog of current users of these federal programs before even thinking about an expansion. Although, it feels circular(to me) to eliminate a backlog, only to create a new one.

In reality, medicare should be minimalist, and public assistance programs should be minimalist. Only then, will funds be actually adequate to support the poor in our nation. We want to advocate policies that support a Self-Sustaining Nation that can grow the Middle Class so that buyers can be buyers(incl of health insurance) at their own pace and choice.

Government acting as a buyer/seller is not stabilizing the marketplace. It's minimizing the potential of both buyers/sellers while undermining the American Economy. We can and must do better than the DOA proposal that the public supports, but would crush them.

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20181101/NEWS/181109985

 

About 60% of the healthcare dollar is spent on senior citizens and premature babies... not on working American families with children.

 

There's definitely a discussion that needs to be had as it regards our pension crisis. But really, every public program boils down to the same thing: Way too many people are using it, and there's not enough funds for it. Hence, why medicaid for all and all of its variants are absolutely mind numbing ideas. The 'Far Left' wouldn't suggest half the ideas they do, if they had a financial background which would help bring them closer to pragmatic reality.

So for example, with the Pensions(SSI). The solution is stupidly simple: Break it up. We should prioritize immediate retirees and immediate pension payments and get those off the books immediately, then the next in line and finally the youngest of pension qualifers should wait the longest.

 

The first thing you need to do when you’re stuck in a ditch is stop digging.

Washington is $22 trillion in debt. Beginning another huge entitlement program is asinine.

 

I'm not even a pure conservative. Based on my financial studies, I advocate a financial philosophy that I call "Forward Spending", which is really the principle behind investments: Invest $5 dollars, get back $10. If I felt Washington was actually getting back capital return in its programs, the spending would be put to good use.

Instead, we find Washington's spending is down that empty black hole. And it's all because it might be the most financially illiterate organization out there.

 

You should read "The Graying of America".. The boomer population is moving thru the system like a pig thru a python. Private deliver-single payer would reduce costs immediately by 30%.

 

There are both greedy vested interests and diehard ideologues who are determined to keep US healthcare, by far, the most costly on earth, and to reject all proven, superior approaches that do not provide the superfluous middlemen with their bloated cash cow or do no conform to dogmatic beliefs.

It's time to for an empirical assessment of Trump's vow to create a system that is "something terrific!" that covers "everybody!" at "less cost!"

The U.S. adult uninsured rate stood at 13.7% in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to Americans' reports of their own health insurance coverage, its highest level since the first quarter of 2014. While still below the 18% high point recorded before implementation of the Affordable Care Act's individual health insurance mandate in 2014, today's level is the highest in more than four years, and well above the low point of 10.9% reached in 2016. The 2.8-percentage-point increase since that low represents a net increase of about seven million adults without health insurance.

The uninsured rate rose for most subgroups in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared with the same quarter in 2016, when the uninsured rate was lowest. Women, those living in households with annual incomes of less than $48,000 per year, and young adults under the age of 35 reported the greatest increases. Those younger than 35 reported an uninsured rate of over 21%, a 4.8-point increase from two years earlier. And the rate among women -- while still below that of men -- is among the fastest rising, increasing from 8.9% in late 2016 to 12.8% at the end of 2018.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/246134/uninsured-rate-rises-four-year-high.aspx
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Meanwhile, health insurance premiums continue to rise, Americans with coverage subsidized by employers are seeing higher and higher deductibles, and the growing numbers of uninsured Americans are having their inflated medical costs dumped on the taxpayer.

... Larger majorities of the public favor more incremental changes to the health care system such as a Medicare buy-in plan for adults between the ages of 50 and 64 (77 percent), a Medicaid buy-in plan for individuals who don’t receive health coverage through their employer (75 percent), and an optional program similar to Medicare for those who want it (74 percent). Both the Medicare buy-in plan and Medicaid buy-in plan also garner majority support from Republicans (69 percent and 64 percent).

https://www.kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kff-health-tracking-poll-january-2019/
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Meanwhile Rx prices, higher for Americans than for everyone else, continue to rise.

The Trump administration has been promising since its early campaign days that it will formulate a drug plan to lower prescription drug prices by giving Medicare the authority to negotiate prices with drug companies.

https://medicareworld.com/2018/06/14/medicare-to-negotiate-drug-prices/
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To date, that appears to be yet another fake promise as well.

 

Trump can't fix healthcare.. He doesn't know anything about it.. He doesn't read or listen.

 

He blithely made empty promises regarding healthcare as if he were shamelessly flogging Trump®U to his patsies.

The undeniable deterioration of the system under Trumpery needs to be honestly confronted.

 

Very straight forward astute assessment. The Medicare for All crowd are very good and snatching a statistic here and a statistic there showing with little bits and pieces how good it will be. But the very simple and well known macro economic principles are deftly avoided. They say we could cover everybody with better care at lower costs without ever thinking about the economic impossibility of that. As soon as everybody has medical care that someone else pays for, the demand, as you aptly say, goes sky high. Since it is impossible to meet that demand extensive backlogs and rationing are inevitable. Then everyone has medical care coverage only for the medical conditions that the government says you need.

 

Liberals have no one to blame for high health costs but themselves. Take a long hard look in the mirror. You wanted the free hospital visits back in the '80's and Reagan signed off on it. Reagan signed off on the amnesty you wanted so bad too. Then liberals screwed him and didn't seal the border like you promised. Every bit of that snowballed, with all your other little slave plantation programs, and you fought tort reform. The result is costs going through the roof BECAUSE THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH, SOMEONE HAS TO PAY FOR 30 MILLION ILLEGAL'S HEALTHCARE.

All this s**t is on you.

 

The ideologues who are unable to confront the demonstrable deterioration of the US healthcare system under trumpery, or the extant to which pragmatic approaches of advanced nations have actually achieved inclusive and cheaper results - multiple examples that expose their fake claim that to provide "everybody with better care at lower costs" as Trump had vowed he would do - is the "the economic impossibility" they false claim.

Reality, repeatedly, contradicts them.

 

I've stated that if they want to provide free medical care, they should focus on the cheapest and most cost effective preventative treatments, which are likely to save the most amount of money over the long-term.

A Cuban-style healthcare system probably would not be too expensive.
Then again, it would be far from providing comprehensive care.

 

Do you understand cost shifting.. Medicare for all would be far superior.. Why do you think insurance costs and deductibles continue to go up?

 

30 million ? You must be using Trump facts.

 

Why send money to Washington?

If I send a dollar to Washington, they take their cut (20%? 40%?) and then the rest back to the states. Why not just keep the money local?

 

Your post rests on a few assumptions that you neither state nor examine. The first assumption is: It's bad to be uninsured. Why do you think so? I have no health insurance — I want no health insurance. Up until a month ago, I hadn't been to a doctor in ages. I finally went to have excess wax buildup removed from my ear. It cost me all of $95. The healthier someone is, the less likely that person is to want insurance. And the more expensive the insurance is, the less likely healthy people are to select it.

The second assumption you're making is that Rx prices matter to people. Yes, if you're stupidly taking your statin drugs, which neither prevent heart attacks nor extend lives, then Rx prices are going to be important to you. Intelligent people, however, realize that it's far better to have sufficient levels of vitamin D, magnesium, and vitamin C and to take some fish oil on a regular basis. None of these things are covered by insurance and none of them are affected by Rx prices.

 

The gov will squander most of what we give them and give us shitty care in return

 

Reagan.....that liberal

 

The government doesn't provide any care except at the VA... and that is shitty and very expensive.

 

The consensus that "it is bad to be uninsured" that is reflected in advanced nations achieving the goal of universal coverage, the US achieving universal coverage for all 65+, most Americans seeking to be insured, and the preponderance of private businesses providing subsidized coverage so that their employees can be insured, is to be found in the very nature of insurance: protection against incurring unanticipated major medical costs as a consequence of the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.

Unanticipated medical expenses in the US have been the major cause of family bankruptcies for quite some time. Incurring such expenses with the reasonable expectation that they will be covered by the taxpayer (after one's assets have been seized and liquidated) is irresponsible.

Willard Mitt Romney:

Folk remedies abound. Many Americans require prescription medications. Being forced to pay more for them than citizens of advanced nations does makes sense to them.

 

Pitching human health to gas and other discretionary products is morally reprehensible.

Beyond that it leads to a gross misunderstanding of capitalism.

Capitalism is a method of distriibution of goods that is governed by profit, not by market penetration.

We KNOW what happens when that fact is ignored.

We tried that.

 

Marine Vet was in my office just yesterday complaining about the VA.. I would say that there were over 14 paperpushers between he and his doctor.. but he didn't actually have a doctor, which was a problem because nobody could prescribe the pain meds he needed (I think he had a knee replacement). Another anecdote was that they used an ambulance (very expensive) to move him across the street.

 

If they went to Medicare for all they could sell off the VA faciities and open them up as private delivery healthcare.