Are We Ready? --- SINGLE PAYER Is Coming Whether We Like It Or Not!

[kpete]

Single-Payer Health Care Is Coming To America-Are We Ready?

The supremely-thoughtful Rick Ungar chimes in on Moneybag Bertolini's big announcement with a reminder that single payer is coming whether we like it or not:



While I have long argued that the for-profit health insurance model no longer works, and that some form of a single-payer system is—whether you like it or not— inevitable, the simple fact is that we are no more ready to make single-payer a success in America then we are capable of sustaining the existing for-profit model.

.....................

If you are a single-payer advocate—and it is no secret that I fall within this category—you are likely pumping your fist in the air at this news. After all, when the CEO of one of the nation’s largest health care insurers waves the white flag, it’s got to be a good thing for those who wish to usher in the era of universal coverage.

Whichever side draws your support, if the war over the Affordable Care Act has taught us anything it is that there is likely to be more than enough legislators to block an effort to extend Medicare to all Americans, or some other variation of a single-payer system, for the foreseeable future. However, if the for-profit insurance companies find it no longer worth their while to stay in the business, which is my own expectation and a notion that appears to be shared by Mr. Bertolli of Aetna, a single-payer system may be thrust upon our politicians when government is the only entity large enough to take on the financial responsibility of our health care system.

However it happens, and I very much believe it will, we had better be prepared—and we are not.

.................

MORE:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/02/23/single-payer-health-care-is-coming-to-america-are-we-ready/

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Health care company stocks are back near an all-time high

e.g.:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=UNH+Interactive#chart1:symbol=unh;range=my;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AET+Interactive#chart1:symbol=aet;range=my;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

Investors know that both political parties will severely protect corporate medicine. Bertolli's spew is simply an attempt to cower his politicians into shoveling more cash into his pocket.

[gateley]

6. What you say makes sense, Manny. nt

[Justice wanted]

2. I hope this is true.

[onehandle]

3. Before President Obama was elected, big business was pushing single payer.

But with a Black Democratic President, they clammed up quick.

[midnight]

4. "Our health care is out-of-pocket (empty) with a $10,000 deductible."

"“We could hardly understand the policy when we bought it because it was so well disguised. We don’t get sick days or days off, until now. My husband has had to hire someone to help him. This is an extra burden on our dwindling income. We have tried to refinance our debt to a lower percentage rate, but we’re told we don’t qualify because we don’t make enough. Funny, our current bank is doing well each month off our higher rate.
“You could say why don’t you just sell the family farm and get jobs so that you don’t have to work like slaves to the banks? I ask you, do you know anyone who is quitting their public service job, so I can get health care I don’t have to worry about, having security in my employment and maybe even be able to have disposable income I could put away for retirement instead of my monthly contribution to my health care provider?
“My husband and I are both from big families and it seems the only ones who are weathering this depression are the ones at the public trough. In fact several of the retired ones are in Arizona and Florida as I write. We are one more major health crisis away from losing all we have worked for our whole lives. Please forward me that job application soon.”
Brenda’s is a family farm story I’ve recounted many times during my nearly 50 years at this newspaper. No one suffers more from the unfairness of the marketplace or our failure to truly reform our health care system than our family farmers, especially those who haven’t been able to take advantage of today’s "big is better" mantra championed by the so-called agribusiness conglomerates."


Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/dave_zweifel/plain-talk-sad-email-underscores-how-gop-divides-us/article_d581c9bf-e5e1-5c72-b1d7-cc9792f4b02a.html#ixzz1nXithJAM




When we make people pay this type of deductible-something has to give....

[dflprincess]

5. Go out ot Monster.com

UnitedHealth Group has a ton of jobs open.

[Zalatix]

11. Probably all phony openings. Their real job openings are in

South Africa, Brazil and India.

[EC]

12. Not really.

They have open positions, but are always on hiring freezes. I was up for a job back in 06 and they called and said there was a 3 month freeze on hiring, they called me at the end of the freeze, but a week later the freeze was back on. That is still going on, they are not hiring to fill open positions if they seem able to work through the freeze without added help, then they are not going to be able to hire. Oh and every 6 months you have to reapply, just to stay on their list for when the freezes are over.

[kestrel91316]

7. I hope they are peeing in their pants at the prospect of

the Single Payer steamroller that will make medical "insurance" go the way of buggy whips.

[sandyshoes17]

8. Love you kpete

I so hope your right

[Enrique]

9. Ungar is playing on people's fantasies

on both the left and the right, both imagining Obamacare as the deathknell of the private insurance industry, despite the fact that it is not. For example as Manny points out in reply #1, health stocks are doing just fine.

The Aetna CEO Bertolini did not "wave the white flag" or anything close to it. It appears Ungar is hoping that people won't read what Bertolini actually said, mabye because they are so blinded by their fears/hopes about Obamacare.

[JNathanK]

10. You'd think right wingers would be fine with the USPS model for funding government services.

I don't see what's so bad about it. Right wingers should really have no problem with the USPS model of government, where funds are organized voluntarily through the purchase of services, not taken compulsorily through taxation, like with the military-industrial complex. Of course, most right wingers wouldn't know this about the USPS, since I've heard many idiots holding up the line at the post office complaining about how their tax dollars pay the clerk to not kiss their ass and treat them like royalty, which of course just isn't true.

Ideally, its can be the best of both worlds. Its voluntarily funded by citizens but organized by a government agency to limit the concentrated profit incentive that a CEO would have. This potentially frees up funds to expand the service or keep prices low. This is mainly why USPS rates are significantly lower than Fedex or UPS rates.

Right wingers really bug me on this issue. They see no problem in using compulsory taxation to fund a private corporation with a profit incentive model (Halliburton) but just cant stand the postal service or payer healthcare where funding is voluntary and profit motivations for a board of investors isn't an issue.

[Monk06]

13. Single payer, the genuine model of single player requires that insurance companies not be allowed

to sell health insurance for profit. In Canada private companies are only
allowed to sell cosmetic surgery, allergy therapy and travel insurance.

They are prevented by law from providing basic general practice and surgical
services for profit in Canada. That is the only way it will work. Medical costs
double under for profit health care models and that cost is paid by the consumer
or as we say in Canada; the citizen.

Bertolli is playing the typical corporate game. When you lose the public opinion
war, make it appear that you are capitulating. Meanwhile he and his friends are
plotting to pervert the single payer option to their own ends. That is Corporate
single payer; all your health dollars are belong to us.

[lovuian]

14. the Medical system is imploding

Corporations don't want to deal with healthcare
in other countries as Canada France Britain etc....the corporations don't have to worry about paying employees healthcare

US Corporations have been through the escalating healthcare costs themselves...its ridiculous

Insurance companies have placed the screws on Doctors and now the brunt of the expense is going to be carried
by hospitals

they will go bankrupt

when the last line of defense goes bankrupt ....then we have no healthcare

its coming

it is a state issue an a right for healthcare

I just watched Dickens The Curiosity shop
Nell sick and starving collapses in the street ...she is taken in by a clergy man
and dies She was fourteen


In Dickens time there was Debtors Prison No hospitals No Medicare No food stamps
orphanages where children died and starved

Is this where Ron Paul and Republicans want to go? The British Empire died during this time
The Bureaucracy was so intent on punishment that they killed off their own Empire


We are doing the same thing with the American Empire
Total collapse will come

[garybeck]

15. Vermont is going for a single payer system. nt