Medicare for All, including dental, optical, hearing aids and mental health services?

[Scuba]

60 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes, and we can afford it.
	59 (98%)
	No, that would cut into insurance company profits.
	0 (0%)
	No, it'd be a nice pony, but military spending and tax cuts for the wealthy must come first.
	0 (0%)
	Other (please explain).
	1 (2%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Warren Stupidity]

1. We might have to pay more taxes!

Fine with me.

[TexasBushwhacker]

2. I agree

Not to mention that poor dental and mental health can cause big effects on physical health. It saves money in the long run to take care of those things.

[Wounded Bear]

11. The dirty little secret....

is the cheapest solution is to cover everybody for everything, except perhaps for elective shit. Pay for it with a small progressive payroll tax, take the corporate profit out of it.

It really is that simple.

[TexasBushwhacker]

13. No argument from me

I'll give you an example. Before Obamacare, I was in the hospital for depression. I met a young man who was also in for depression. Why was he depressed? He lost his leg in a construction accident. His employer didn't provide health insurance and in the bad old days it was next to impossible to buy insurance yourself. So he did not have insurance. Of course, they treated him in the ER, but without insurance all they are obligated to do is to stop the bleeding and save his life. Reattachment surgery and physical therapy might have been an option with insurance, but it's not the kind of things hospitals do for free. So they amputated his leg.

So without his insurance, he was then a depressed ex-construction worker in a wheelchair. Sure he can try suing his employer, but that wouldn't get his leg back. So I guess he was going to file for disability and try to get some state funded job training for something he could do from a wheel chair. And after being on disability for 18 months, I guess he would be eligible for Medicare and could get an artificial leg.

The thing is, if the health insurance, pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers hadn't gotten so greedy, they could have stayed in business. But fuck 'em. We deserve single payer healthcare and the insurance companies deserve to go out of business.

[HereSince1628]

7. Wouldn't it be GREAT to get something for your taxes besides military hardware?

Imagine things that actually are helpful to everyday quality of life...things that support pretty decent jobs, and thereby insert tax-dollars back into communities all across the nation.

[GummyBearz]

17. I like all of these things as middle class individual with a family.

But if my taxes go high enough, we can't afford the payments on the house we just bought. That means I would instantly turn against it out preservation for myself and my family. So please clarify these statements with who is paying the extra taxes...

[DhhD]

19. Add up dental costs, glasses and doctor visits; you will save money with a far less tax.

[GummyBearz]

21. Again, it depends on how high the tax goes

Right now I know exactly how much I pay per paycheck in dental and medical bills. It is about 5% of my after tax pay check. So assume that goes to 0%, I would break even at a 5% tax increase, and lose money every percent higher than 5%... I'm willing to end up paying more money than I currently do for national health care, I just don't want to have to sell my 2 bedroom house that I spent the majority of my life savings to buy.

[canoeist52]

40. However, you're assuming that your health insurance premiums will remain stable

which is highly unlikely with the unregulated greed of insurance companies.

[GummyBearz]

41. The monthly price stays the same, the coverage just gets worse

Which technically means you are correct if a major hospital stay occurred, as I there would be higher deductibles, co-insurance, etc. You have a good point there.

[1939]

20. "They" will pay for it NT

[yeoman6987]

26. It would end up that the 15 dollars an hour will end up being what they bring home now

But at least they will have something to show for it.

1.66 a week for the family leave
20 dollars a week for federal taxes at least for health care tax
10 dollars a week for college tuition tax for current students in state schools

[meow2u3]

31. So what if we have to pay more taxes

At least we'll know (in part) where the tax money is going--to help people instead of killing them for profit!

[edhopper]

3. What possible reason

would we not?

[Jackilope]

4. Thank you for including hearing aids!

I cannot believe it isn't included with Medicare OR Medicare supplementary insurance. My Dad is having hearing loss as a result of chemotherapy. Can't believe how much hearing aids are out of pocket. He is refusing to buy them as he doesn't know how much time he has left and doesn't want to waste the money.

[TexasBushwhacker]

14. It's included in some Medicare Advantage plans. Not the full price, but some of the cost.

In any case, I don't know why it isn't considered durable medical equipment, because THAT'S WHAT IT IS.

FYI, some hearing aid companies sell reconditioned models that are cheaper.

[Jackilope]

30. TY. I believe he checked it out with his supplement.

I will pursue the reconditioned ones + see if his time with the National Guard would qualify him for a different coverage. It is just troubling that something like hearing aids cannot be covered or more reasonable.

[Wellstone ruled]

29. Hearing Aides are one of the largest rip off games going.

Unbelievable profits. And the Batteries are another rip.

[valerief]

5. Medi4All. All of our tax money doesn't have to go WAR PROFITEERS, after all. nt

[jwirr]

6. Scuba, what about things like foster care and nursing home

care? Where do you see them coming in. They are currently paid by government medical programs when there is not enough personal money to pay for them.

[philosslayer]

8. Yes and Yes

[Scuba]

10. With Medicare for All, children in foster care would be covered like every other child.

I'm less knowledgable about the costs and scope of nursing home care in the US, but we are the richest nation on the planet, so there should be a way to provide it without bankrupting our elderly.

Perhaps others can weigh in as well.

[phylny]

12. All the foster care children I've seen for Early Intervention

have Medicaid, which is a fantastic insurance that pays for speech and other therapies, unlike most private insurances.

Perhaps you have a different experience/information?

[jwirr]

18. I think that Medicare pays for my daughter's foster care

because they would have paid if we still used institutions. As to nursing home care Medicare pays for the first 180 days and then you either pay for it yourself or if you are too poor then Medicaid pays for it. And that is what scares me about saying Medicare for All.

[grasswire]

9. it is just nuts that dental optical etc are left out of Medicare

So many elderly people need those services.

[REP]

16. Some Advantage plans cover optical and glasses

Mine does (I'm not that old yet, but am disabled). I have full ophthalmology as well as optician coverage, plus coverage for frames and lenses every other year. I have a plethora of annoying eye issues (blepharitis, meibomian cysts, corneal ulcers, etc) as well as things that put me at risk for both retinal and vitreous detachment, so I see my eye doctors far more than I'm comfortable with (due to a very early childhood eye injury, I feel about the ophthalmologist the way most people do about the dentist).

[annabanana]

15. yeah.. And just exactly when did the eyes and the mouth stop being part of the whole person?

(Yet another structural flaw in our healthcare system)

[MohRokTah]

22. No

Attempting to move to such a system immediately would plunge the entire globe into a Depression of such monumental proportions that the global economy would never recover.

It would take a minimum of two decades for the US to move to Medicare for all.

[Scuba]

23. Bwahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

[yeoman6987]

27. You thin Medicare for all is going to happen before 20 years? I don't.

Not really funny either.

[sonofspy777]

24. We wouldn't attempt it -- We'd DO It!

Immediately if not sooner.

[Warren Stupidity]

32. wow of all the incredibly horseshittily republican reasons for not supporting universal healthcare

this one is perhaps the most horseshitty of all.

I suppose you can point to some evidence for your well reasoned assertion that moving to universal healthcare would plunge the global economy into a permanent catastrophic depression?

Or perhaps instead you would like to admit that you just made up that ludicrous bullshit and that you have no intention here of engaging in honest discourse on the issues.

[MohRokTah]

33. Wow, what an incredibly naive understanding of the interlinkings between various financial...

institutions and what would happen if suddenly multiple institutions were put out of business completely!

Did you learn NOTHING from the Great Recession?

You cannot immediately destroy hundreds of insurance companies in 50 states with no effect on global finance. Doing so would result in multiple failures which would lead to a domino effect, ending in the failure of nearly all banks in the world with no way to bail anybody out.

Instead, you ease the institutions out of the market over time to minimize the effect upon other financial institutions resulting in a stronger financial industry as a whole while achieving your ultimate goals in the long term.

[Warren Stupidity]

34. Health insurance is 700B in a 17T economy.

Even assuming that the entire sector was wiped out tomorrow, which is not what would happen, that is not going to plunge the entire world into a permanent catastrophic depression. The big four control 86% of the sector and are already diversified and would continue to exist even within the sector, for example selling supplemental insurance or providing administrative services for government insurance programs. They certainly would not be raking in the huge profits they are taking today, but the economy would expand in other areas, like for example in health care services, a shift that would, to many people, seem to be a far better use of people than working on shifting funds from one account to another while rationing healthcare to assure that the owners of the fund shifting business rake in obscene profits.

[MohRokTah]

36. You fail to recognize the ties that $700B has to the rest of the financial industry as a whole.

We would never recover from the meltdown if you suddenly put them all out of business.

[Warren Stupidity]

37. So Canada's economy collapsed when they moved to universal healthcare?

And of course as we know, Taiwan's economy never recovered from their transition to a public universal system.

But even here in the US, the transition to medicare was devastating. I am old enough to remember the Great Depression of 1965.

[MohRokTah]

38. That was decades ago in a much smaller economy.

You're comparing apples to horse shoes.

[Warren Stupidity]

39. In other words: you've got nothing.

Your predicted total permanent collapse of the global economy - that is what your claim was - is based on one sector of the us economy representing 4% of the us gdp having an abrupt decline while other sectors are having a related period of abrupt growth.

[Old Codger]

42. Maybe it was misunderstood

They only meant for all "Americans" not the whole world

[Omaha Steve]

25. Another yes vote

K&R!

OS

[FLPanhandle]

28. This might work if limited to US Citizens only

If extended to illegal immigrants, the floodgates would open wide and the costs would skyrocket.

[Warren Stupidity]

35. your concern is noted.

So you think if one of these horrible 'illegals' show up in the ER and can't pay - just toss 'em out the door?