Upgrading the nation’s Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all ages saves money....

[midnight]

Upgrading the nation’s Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all ages would yield more than a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation, enough to pay for high-quality, comprehensive health benefits for all residents of the United States at a lower cost to most individuals, families and businesses.
That’s the chief finding of a new fiscal study by Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There would even be money left over to help pay down the national debt, he said.
Friedman says his analysis shows that a nonprofit single-payer system based on the principles of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and co-sponsored by 45 other lawmakers, would save an estimated $592 billion in 2014. That would be more than enough to cover all 44 million people the government estimates will be uninsured in that year and to upgrade benefits for everyone else.
“No other plan can achieve this magnitude of savings on health care,” Friedman said.


http://www.healthcare-now.org/medicare-for-all-would-cover-everyone-save-billions-in-first-year

[Recursion]

1. Well, sort of

The cost to the government at the end of the day would be higher. The total cost to the nation of healthcare would be much less. That's the big circle we're finding it hard to square.

[The Wizard]

7. Not difficult at all

Healthcare isn't free. You either pay the government or pay the insurance industry. The government's administrative costs aren't profit motivated and thus are more efficient. A government run system has a much larger base and that will also reduce costs by spreading the risk.
Many of the insurance industry employees will be absorbed into a government program, but some will be unemployed, and that's a problem, especially with Republicans blocking all attempts to pass jobs legislation.
We're confronted with a propaganda operation that convinces people the government is the problem (Reagan's legacy). As such, people vote against their own best interests out of the worst fears and lowest instincts.
The Republicans have become expert at exploiting the great dumbing down, and as a result normal Americans are victimized by their inability to critically think.
Remember, the average Pox News viewer is less informed than those who watch no TV news at all. Trying to talk sense to a Pox News viewer is like sticking an ice pick in your own head.

[Triana]

11. +1 n/t

[soryang]

2. Administration caves in again on key ACA provisions

Everyone has heard about the delay on the employer mandate by now. But did you know that the limits on beneficiary cost sharing have been delayed till 2015? Also the prohibition on lifetime caps has been delayed according to some reports. Too bad the Obama administration doesn't like Obamacare and has caved in to corporate complainers whenever the whining gets too loud. By 2015 no doubt they'll find more reasons to let insurance companies and employers off the hook.

[B Calm]

3. All the more reasons to give us a public option now!

[BumRushDaShow]

4. GOTV so that an "amendment" can be passed by a new Congress to transition to "single payer". nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

13. Been there done that, nominal Democrats blocked it from consideration straight out

of the gate. Speaker Pelosi wouldn't even let it come to the floor, and that was after failing to kill it in committee.

[awoke_in_2003]

14. Yep. They wanted public option...

so, like idiots, they started negotiation there.

[midnight]

16. This is really an important point.....

[Egalitarian Thug]

18. Thank you for saying so. I'm sure that there are many others that never write, but are here

reading regularly, forming opinions, making decisions, and couldn't care less what color jersey the players are wearing.

[midnight]

20. You are so welcome....

[soryang]

15. The lifetime caps for EHBs are unaffected by the delay

In other words, lifetime caps on essential health benefits are not permitted after their scheduled elimination Jan. 1, 2014.


I apologize for reporting this. I misinterpreted the Forbes article which is hostile to Obamacare. I am not hostile to it. I do prefer medicare expansion to all. Obamacare is an improvement over the current situation. I can find no authority for anything but a delay in the implementation of out of pocket limitations restrictions and, of course, the employer mandate is delayed.

EHBs are a good starting point for trying to understand the ACA.

[HereSince1628]

5. But isn't that exactly the half trillion reasons why it won't happen?

The folks now banking that money wouldn't be banking it as easily by the end of the first year.

That's a lot of money, seems like more than enough for the health insurance industry to justify buying off the gaggle of politicians needed to make it happen.

[RC]

9. You got it!

No way will they give up those multiple homes, corporate and private jets, etc., when all they have to do is to deny health care for the poor unwashed that think they have health insurance.

[n2doc]

12. Yep, and all it takes is maybe re-directing 1% of that into campaign contributions

and reform is dead.

[historylovr]

6. K & R

[Demeter]

8. It Was NEVER About Providing Health care to All, OR Saving Money, midnight

It was about looking like the US was doing something for People, but actually stuffing the Corporations with money forced out of the public's pockets, and the Treasury.

It's called a CON. It's not what you want or expect from a functioning government of, by, and for the PEOPLE.

[midnight]

17. Touche! Not many other ways to look at this obvious fact.....

[RC]

10. Universal Health Care is in the Constitution.

Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=138719

[midnight]

19. "How is it the same people that do not have a problem with however many wars we are engaged in at

the moment, that are costing us, US, $16.5 trillion so far, have a problem with health care reform that will save us billions?"

Private for profit industries have side lined our constitutional contract....