Posted on 09/12/2018 9:30:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
President Barack Obama made a stunning policy shift on Friday, endorsing "Medicare-for-all" -- a single-payer health system -- for the nation. Most Democrats contending for the 2020 presidential nomination, and many Dems vying for Congressional seats this fall, are backing it, too.
But beware. They're pulling a bait-and-switch. The phrase "Medicare-for-all" sounds as American as apple pie. A new Reuters poll shows 70 percent of Americans respond to it favorably. That's because the public isn't getting the truth about what it means. The actual plan these Democrats are pushing doesn't look anything like Medicare. They're slapping the Medicare label on what would be dangerously inadequate health care.
For starters, it would rip away private health coverage from half of all Americans, including the 157 million who get their insurance the old-fashioned way -- earning it through a job. Conveniently, Democrats are forgetting to tell you that private insurance would be banned under their scheme; employers would be barred from covering workers or their families. Union members and executives who bargained for gold-plated private plans would lose them and have to settle for the same one-size-fits-all public coverage as people who refuse to work at all. Even immigrants here illegally would get the same benefits. What's the point of working?
"Medicare-for-all" is no longer a fringe proposal favored by the extreme left. It's gaining steam. Republicans who failed miserably to communicate a case for repealing and replacing Obamacare cannot make that mistake again. They need to warn voters about the dangers of single-payer health care.
Under "Medicare-for-all" -- the legislation introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders -- Americans would be automatically enrolled in the public program. Kids would be enrolled at birth.
The new scheme would guarantee hospital care, doctors' visits, even dental, vision and long-term care, all provided by Uncle Sam. But that's only until the money runs out. Sanders' bill imposes hard-and-fast dollar caps on how much health care the country can consume yearly. That means limiting mammograms, hip replacements and other procedures. Sanders' bill creates new regional health authorities to curb "overutilization" of care.
Seniors and baby boomers are big losers under "Medicare-for-all." Whenever boomers have to vie with younger people for health resources, they get pushed to the back of the line. In the United Kingdom's single-payer system, boomers are turned away for hip replacements. They're told they have fewer years of life ahead to benefit from costly medical procedures. British women are livid because many are being refused breast reconstruction after lumpectomies and mastectomies.
At least in Britain, people are free to buy private insurance and go outside the government system for care. But that's not true under "Medicare-for-all." You'd be trapped.
Dems backing Sanders' bill point to Medicare's cost efficiencies and say they can be expanded to the whole population. That's ridiculous. Medicare pays only about 88 cents for every dollar of care, shortchanging hospitals and doctors. These providers take the payments because they can shift the unmet costs on their patients with private insurance. But if everyone is on "Medicare-for-all," no cost-shifting is possible. The only alternative is lowering the quality of care -- longer waits, limited access to technology.
Single-payer advocates don't deny it. Stanford economist Victor Fuchs argues in the Journal of the American Medical Association that curbing the use of mammograms, new drugs and diagnostic technologies would make single-payer affordable. In short, go low-tech. But millions of American women have survived breast cancer thanks to high-tech screening and new gene-based therapies. Low-tech medicine would be a death sentence.
The United Kingdom's rock bottom survival rates for breast, lung, ovarian and pancreatic cancer are the result of that low-tech approach. British newspapers are declaring, "Cancer shame as UK survival rates lag behind the rest of the world."
Is that what we want in America?
Doctors can refuse to accept Medicare patients.
.
Bernie wants to piggy back on Medicare because he knows Americans don’t want to turn their backs on older Americans who have worked their whole lives and paid for this benefit.
Bernie wants to bankrupt the system by opening it to every deadbeat drug addict ...
“Free” healthcare is an idea only thieves and idiots believe in.
When someone says that we need free healthcare, you should look at them and say,
“Only an idiot thinks we can have free healthcare. If you get something for free, it is because somebody else worked for it without reward. It should be called ‘Stolen’ healthcare.”
It still amazes me that people still believe in a free lunch. My recent vacation in Hungary saw a tour guide say that they have free healthcare and education through college. I asked: Don't you mean subsidized healthcare and education. She said no, it's totally free, although you must "qualify" for education. I asked what their tax rates were. She said 40% on income plus a 21% VAT tax. I asked: So you pay 61% of your income in taxes but you claim everything is "free". Her response: Crickets.
RE: Doctors can refuse to accept Medicare patients.
Watch, under Bernie’s bill, THEY MUST or ELSE....
Medicare for All = Single Payer
Climate Change = Globull Warming.
Democrat = Socialist.
That’s why they have Focus Groups.
That's what Bernie is counting on... that we'll fix his horror to save the innocent people who are elderly.
Social Security Disability became the ‘new welfare’ for deadbeats... and democrats intentionally tied it to a program for the blind and truly disabled BECAUSE they knew Americans don't want to throw people who really are disabled on the streets. So we support half of Detroit and most of the South side of Chicago...
It’s not just doctors who would trim back on patient loads...entire clinics and hospitals would see the light...why offer a-through-z services? You’d see rural areas start to shut down bigger hospitals and limited services will be the norm.
Actually the architects of Medicare envisioned that over time Congress would just keep scaling back the eligibility age to the point that private insurance got totally crowded out of the market.
There ARE ways we could stop some of the medical rip offs that go on ... and that would save millions of dollars. The medical system we have now sucks - and needs to have incentives looked at - but it’s still better than what Bernie’s offering.
socialized medicine:
Egalitarianism + medical price & wage controls + bureaucratization =
-increased aggregate demand for and consumption of medical services
-increased total costs, waste, and inefficiency
-decreased supply of doctors = shortages of doctors
-decreased quality and quantity of medical services for each individual patient (rationing & waiting lines)
-decreased value of each individual patient to a provider
-enslavement of doctors
-death panels & aged become sacrificial victims
-decreased technological advances and decreased technological progress in medicine.
Is Betsy, the author, part of the cosmopolitan elite establishment? Why is she calling the ex-POTUS “President” Obama?
...Doctors can refuse to accept Medicare patients.
Or just quit
https://twocents.lifehacker.com/the-basics-of-fire-financial-independence-and-early-re-1820129768
The only point to sell people on “free.”
But it isn’t really free if you pay for it with your health and your life.
People have already forgotten Obamacare was a dangerous failure.
Medicare For All is all that and more - on steroids.
“At least in Britain, people are free to buy private insurance and go outside the government system for care. But that’s not true under “Medicare-for-all.” You’d be trapped.”
You could buy care in most of the other ~179 countries of the world, including Canada or Mexico.
Bernie’s the ‘give away the bank’ guy.....who got on the Political bandwagon for job security............
In 1981, 39 yr. old went on the public payroll earning about $33,700 per year as Mayor of Burlington, Vermont.
In 1991, 8 years later.. he ran for Vermont’s lone seat in the House of Rep. ..his salary bumped up to about $96,000.
In 2006, 8 yrs later.. he ran for Senate seat in 2006, where his salary bumped up to $165,000.
For seven years, from 2004 to 2011, his wife Jane was president of tiny Burlington College, where her salary was about $160,000 yrly.
All of the couple’s assets are in Jane’s name, and they own a condo in D.C. and a rental property in Vermont.
Standard Medicare works very well except for a few exceptions, such as physical therapy companies that run through patients’ Part B coverage to maximize profits.
Many Medicare eligible people take the option to buy privately-run (and mainly federal government paid for) Medicare Advantage plans that President Bill Clinton made available by signing the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 into law.
Betsy was lieutenant governor under Pataki in NY. She seems to know her stuff. I wouldn’t consider her one of the elites, far from it.
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