Can someone explain (in simple english) what is meant by the "Single Payer" option.

[aikanae]

28. Medicare - for - All

The administration, paperwork are centralized. Everything else remains private. Doctors have one form and one address to fill out and send in. There could even be single doctor private practices again.

Right now they have hundreds to fill out. It takes 7 full time staff per one doctor. None of the insurance companies play by the same rules or play by any rules at all. Often doctors have to offer treatment without guarantee of payment even if they get an approval from the insurance. I could go on for quite awhile about how bad this system is.

One of the worst effects from having a fractured system like this is that there is no way to get data on outcomes from various treatments. Most is derived from Medicare traditional using seniors. That's it. The best health information is coming from nations with national systems and they also have more interest in long term results. As long as profit remains a higher motive, the US health care system will only see interest in short term results, only now most of the utilization standards will also be hidden and controlled by private interests.

A side effect of not having a robust public health care system is there is no way to guage the health of the population. The Mexican Flu outbreak a couple of years ago, turns out that it was identified in Mexico City (universal health care system) and the origin was probably in the US about 6 months earlier - and went unidentified. That should spook people. Without a public heath system, I'm not sure the US could contain / control / react to a serious public health crisis. I can bet that a profit insurance system wouldn't want to be left holding the bag for massive treatment or containment.

Like I said, I could go on forever about how our system sux and many of these problems could have been contained or avoided or eliminated using a single payer system.

Canada's system was developed based on the US Medicare traditional model because it was cost effective and worked. Mexico's system is also. At one time, a non-citizen could sign up for Mexican insurance for under $500/year with no citizenship requirement. Now it's over $1300/year and there's a long list of common pre-existing conditions that are not treated for non citizens.

Every health care system in the world has had to tighten up due to "illegals" infiltrating for medical care. The US had become the world's illegals when it comes to medical care. The "best medical care" in the world is not found here. Back surgery? Go to Thailand or Philippines or Hong Kong. Cancer treatment? Not in the US.