Posted on 03/14/2013 8:11:08 AM PDT by ksen
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-system-cost
http://truecostblog.com/2009/05/13/how-much-would-universal-healthcare-cost/
There is no such thing as “single payer”. The government pays for NOTHING. Taxpayers pay for everything and when a lib says “single payer” they really mean that the achievers need to be paying and the government distributes it. People who believe in government healthcare are simply parasites who believe someone else should pay for them.
Guess what ~ Americans will rank ABOVE the others.
Why should we adopt something like Single Payer which, using ethnic group to ethnic group analysis, can be demonstrated to be harmful to our health!
“And yet routinely the US ranks behind many other countries that do have a universal heath care system.”
BS! Those who believe that need to make one of those countries their home.
That's about the only good purpose for a Federal government.
You made my point beautifully Ksen. Government should not get anywhere NEAR our health care. And people should have the power to shop for health care, forcing providers to compete for our money. Simple.
Hospital emergency rooms would still treat uninsured. But at the LSU med center, after treatment your finances are quickly reviewed and then you are then billed a percentage of the cost you can afford.
I wouldn't necessarily fall for that argument. The underlying statistics are manipulated, and the data points they use to measure "ahead" or "behind" are cherry-picked to support the cause.
The US has the most advanced healthcare, and an overwhelming majority of advanced treatments are discovered and perfected here.
Logically, the answer is no. Because not only won’t it cost less, but it *can’t* cost less.
To explain, say you want to buy something, say an apple. The price dictated by the market is based in market forces. If it becomes too high, many people stop buying apples that it is no longer viable to sell apples. But if government is involved, it contributes *nothing* to the deal, but costs a LOT, just for it to be involved. It cannot make the price of apples lower, but it can make you pay more for your apples, with the faux promise that you will always have whatever passes for apples, even if they are spoiled and inedible.
But government isn’t the only thing that can bias healthcare. If you also buy “apple insurance”, so you pay a flat fee to buy your apples for a month, you have still added a layer that adds *nothing* to the deal, precisely because your purchasing of apples is a routine thing.
Granted, apple insurance still makes sense if unpredictably, you *must* have an apple, or you will die. But few want to provide “catastrophic” apple insurance, because when you *must* have an apple, the price of apples may be impossibly high.
But enough about apples. What about health care?
Right now, some doctors are offering GP health care, but refuse insurance, Medicare and Medicaid as payment. By not having to hire a bunch of office staff solely to do paperwork for the three things, they save so much money that they can offer their patients the same services and treatment for 50% less.
However, and importantly, this applies to routine health care only. Catastrophic health care is a completely different ball of wax, and one where insurance is almost essential unless a person is very rich.
Yet this looks at possibilities: it is also important to look at the *realities* of single payer in other countries.
Canada requires government health care by forbidding private health care for the most part. The end result is that for major health problem, Canadians almost have to travel to the US for prompt service.
And that is the first flaw of single payer.
Secondly, for many more importantly, look at the state of Britain’s single payer, in its final death throes. As its prices have continued to escalate, the quality of its service has declined so much that medical murder is seen as a practical cost saving technique. Perhaps as many as 30,000 people a year now are having their lives cut short because of “economic necessity”.
Single payer has turned a “health care system”, into a national euthanasia program.
And there are many in the US who want that here. They see the Baby Boomers as a threat to future government growth, and having to choose between the two, they are more than willing to exterminate everyone over a particular age, and/or with particular health problems.
Such people have given up on the idea of medicine and the healing arts. They want control, and do not care who suffers and dies in their path to get control.
Truly, the motto of the Democrat party has become:
“Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.”
— Lucifer, from Paradise Lost
The one big problem is it is not healthcare.
If you are dependent on other people’s money for your health care, then they get to decide when to cut you off. If that is a “yes” then so be it.
When was the last time you elected someone from your insurance carrier? Or got rid of one too for that matter?
No
For the same reason many others have already stated.
A monopoly any monopoly is ripe for corruption and waste.
The reason capitalism works is because of competition.
Is our current system fair? No, some do reason sub standard care. If we had a single payer health service then there would exist two tiers, the elite would get the best and everyone else would get the worse. Just look at where it already exist, Canada and United Kingdom. And it still would not be fair.
Nonsense. People like you argue that the NIH is some savvy investor, facilitating pivotal research because no other private entity can. Private pharmaceutical companies, for example, foot a significant amount of the costs of drug development, and they do it in a much more cost-effective way.
Bottom Line?
You are sadly mistaken. Gov’t interest, so far, has BEEN the ‘bottom line’. “We’ll make it cost less.” And they’ll do that by FORCE of denial of care. Just LOOK at all those savings!
Of course, the taxes, once imposes will never disappear or reduce, but HEY the Gov’t will be paying less.
I recently had a very bad fall accident. I had no issues getting the needed care, nor did that nasty horrible money grubbing insurance company not pay the costs it was contracted to cover.
You really believe, looking at what Gov’t is trying to do to its electorate, you believe that the Gov’t is more trustworthy than a company?
I completely agree with you. A smaller, mostly homogenous population that is fitness oriented is going to be healthier than we are and will be able to control costs better.
Still, I believe we are steadily marching towards single payer for a couple of reasons:
1) The very nature of employment, now. Most folks don’t stay with one employer and it’s accompanying guaranteed healthcare. Employment is more tenuous; people don’t feel like they have financial security let along any level of health insurance security. You know that if you lose your programming job tomorrow, you have a 401k and $23,000 in the bank and two kids to provide for. The “middle class” just doesn’t feel that sense of safety that they felt after WWII. Don’t underestimate the desire for parents to make sure their kids have healthcare.
2) The cost of caring for the elderly. Without sharing costs with the young and healthy, it is going to be cost prohibitive (”going to be?”) to continue to care for the elderly. And let’s face it: we are not going to throw grandma under the bus.
I know there are a lot of ideas floating around to get around problem two, but I still think it will be a major contributor towards single payer. The elderly are costly to care for, and without the strong arm of the government, there is no reason for health insurance companies to accept them.
I agree. There are rays of hope within various healthcare systems around the world, but when you look at the details, someone has to give up something in order for the next person to get something.
Then why don’t you MOVE to those single payer countries, experience the care and report back to us?
I worked in Canada, and was treated to the experiences of the Canadians regarding their healthcare. It is not well loved, nor is it cheaper.
One thing I do agree on is that we are going to have to figure out how to decouple health insurance from employment, and relieve companies of the burden of managing employees’ health insurance.
Consider that when they offshore, they don’t have to worry about the guy in Mumbai’s health insurance.
Uh huh, good luck getting coverage for a pre-existing condition before the government mandated that insurance companies couldn't refuse coverage for that anymore.
Single payer systems outlaw private transactions.
No they don't. Even France has an optional supplemental insurance option.
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