Posted on 03/23/2019 1:04:34 PM PDT by reaganaut1
At the heart of the “Medicare for all” proposals championed by Senator Bernie Sanders and many Democrats is a revolutionary idea: Abolish private health insurance.
Proponents want to sweep away our complex, confusing, profit-driven mess of a health care system and start fresh with a single government-run insurer that would cover everyone.
But doing away with an entire industry would also be profoundly disruptive. The private health insurance business employs at least a half a million people, covers about 250 million Americans, and generates roughly a trillion dollars in revenues. Its companies’ stocks are a staple of the mutual funds that make up millions of Americans’ retirement savings.
Such a change would shake the entire health care system, which makes up a fifth of the United States economy, as hospitals, doctors, nursing homes and pharmaceutical companies would have to adapt to a new set of rules. Most Americans would have a new insurer — the federal government — and many would find the health insurance stocks in their retirement portfolios much less valuable.
“We’re talking about changing flows of money on just a huge scale,” said Paul Starr, a sociology professor at Princeton University and author of “The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry.”
“There’s no precedent in American history that compares to this,” he said.
Economists have begun wrestling with basic questions about what this sort of change would mean and disagreeing over whether it would cost more or less than the country’s current health care system.
No one has examined the full economic impact of such plans on jobs, wages, investors, doctors and hospitals — or the health insurance companies themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Here’s an idea: why not let the free market do what it does best. Let’s allow insurance to be sold across State lines, begin Tort reform, and make it MANDATORY that pols must enroll in the same insurance plans they insist we do. You know, get some skin in the game.
“You’ll never see another Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.”
But isn’t it funny how they both espouse(d) Socialism! But of course they are exempted and live behind walls in their “dachas” with their private doctors to attend to them and armed guards to make sure you don’t bother them.
“...The insurance companies decide what care you get which is scary enough. I can’t imagine how horrible it would be if it was the government making the decisions.”
If it were the likes of Nanzi Piglosi, Madd Maxine, Camel Harris, Spartacus Booker, Schmucky Schumer, Adam Schitt, the ISIS brides and anti-Semites Ilham Omar and Tlaib, airhead AOC, Stacy Abrams, et al, any bets on how long any of The Deplorables would last after being denied care?
I don’t know that Jobs espoused Socialism. But Gates increasingly seems to. Both undoubtedly know (knew) better.
I’ve heard it said that under Socialism, big companies become de-facto monopolies and that eliminates competition.
And its not like Gates will ever have to worry about his three hots and a cot.
As the article mentioned, it could be profoundly disruptive. Abolishing insurance companies who pay taxes could mean abolishing other companies & turning them over to government entities. Do government entities pay taxes? It would take money to run these things, so guess who would pay for that? If past experience is any teacher,the private enterprises have nearly always been more efficient in the area of operating expenses than has been the government. Extrapolate all this out & you can see that you would have more government workers who are paid from taxes, & less non-government workers to pay those taxes.
I think I just found Schiff in his new gig!! He’s a Muslim Terrorist Dummy!
Your health needs may be different.
I have pretty much your needs, and my insurance plan covers those things, and more. Why should I pay for yours? (Sorry for sounding so cruel).
That’s why we have private insurance for those circumstances.
If it’s government run it will employ twice as many people all on your dime and be less effective.
If the dems take the WH again, insurance companies will be vaporized. Insurance companies are gonna realize they should’ve fought Obamacare when they had the chance...instead of giving Obama a blowjob.
Yes, I’m saying insurance companies suck...but hey, love the one you’re with.
The ONLY thing that interests these people is control, and the wealth it brings.
Stan Evans was right: “Liberals don’t care what you do, as long as it’s mandatory.”
Why don't we start with a pilot project, like just eliminating coverage for Congress, their families, and staff?
Milton Friedman on the four ways money can be spent:
1. spend your own money on yourself;
2. spend someone else’s money on yourself;
3. spend your own money on someone else;
4. spend someone else’s money on someone else.
You seem to think the Constitution matters? Maybe to us but not them.
Abolish bloated government too.
TRANSLATION: “We don’t want you making your own decisions. We want to make them for you.”
So you feel comfortable being a parasite?
100%
J McEwen..actually no friend of mine but a distant relative. He was pissing blood, for a lack of a better word.
Anyway, went to the doc. Told he had to wait for an appointment to get scoped. They have to get permission you see before any procedure is done.
So, three months and he went in and they scoped his bladder-YUP, lessions. But wait..they couldnt take a biopsy because there was no authorization. So another three or four months. Then the biopsy was done. Yup Cancer. AND it had broke through the bladder wall by that time. They had to wait another three or four months to get authorization to operate. By then it was to late and he died of cancer of the bladder.
Unnnnreal.
Destroying the insurance industry might never have happened before, but it’s not unprecedented in the Democratic playbook.
0bama was bent on destroying the coal industry for example. That would have economically crushed many lives.
They want to eliminate all manner of hydrocarbons. While not specifically saying, that would destroy most oil and natgas companies.
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