Michael Moore's health care proposal (in case you haven't seen it)

[antigop]

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/health-care-proposal/

1) Every American must have full, uninterrupted health care coverage for life.

2) Private, for-profit health insurance companies must be abolished.

3) Profits of pharmaceutical companies must be strictly regulated like a public utility.

[bluestateguy]

1. Sounds reasonable, but I do have one question

I support Canadian style health care, but I do have one question that maybe someone can help me with.

Where will all of the people employed by the insurance companies go? I'm not talking about the big executives, but rather, the rank and file employees who work for these companies as secretaries or office clerks? I doubt seriously that the government can put all of them to work for a new universal health care program? So where do the bulk of these people go?

[sweetpotato]

2. At least they will have health care even if they are unemployed

That's more than they would have if they were layed off today.

[Donnachaidh]

3. So, rather than fix a system that is failing the american public

We need to keep it in place to keep these people employed?

They have office skills - let them find work elsewhere. Just like everyone else has to do, when businesses go belly up.

[bluestateguy]

5. No, that's not what I said

but the fact of the matter is that, like it or not, if you abolish private health insurance you will have several hundred thousand people out of work, and we will have to deal with that problem. Similar to the post-Cold War defense cutbacks and base closures in the early 1990's, while it may have been the right policy, there was still the consequence that had to be dealt with of unemployment in the defense industries.

[cynatnite]

13. Many of them will still be needed...

if we have universal health care. Paperwork will still be needed.

[Donnachaidh]

19. why do you automatically assume that these folks will be unemployed?

A national health policy will also require possibly several hundred thousand employees. They just will be working for the government. Of course, they won't have the perks they have in private industry.

People are dying because of a flawed system. It needs to be taken down, and built from the ground up.

[bluestateguy]

20. Government programs employ fewer than their private sector counterparts

SOME of them, I'm sure, could catch on with government employment. But not all, or even most of them.

A program like Medicare, for example, has fewer employees than private insurance companions, because Medicare doesn't have to market itself like a business as the insurance companies do. Medicare spends far less of its revenue on paperwork and bureaucracy than the insurance companies do, so what this seems to mean is that even an expanded Medicare program could not possibly absorb even close to all of the old private insurance company workers.

[cynatnite]

24. How many people work in the health insurance industry?

How can you be sure they couldn't be absorbed or find other work?

[cosmicdot]

31. maybe we can fire up global warming intitiatives

for one, and create jobs in alternative energy and green-environmental efforts - we have a whole nation to do ...

as part of job transitioning? if one can handle a PC in one field, one can do it in another

we are going to need a bold leader ... someone with the vision required to oversee and manage our overhaul and renewal, and to make things happen ... not someone too interested in what corporate boards and CEOs need ...

our infrastructure is need of major work

heck, maybe we could bring some manufacturing and farming back to America
... and build more rail transportation ...

We can do it! Think FDR and the New Deal.

It's time for people for a change.

[SoCalDem]

7. Walmart? :) n/t

[antigop]

10. If they just open up Medicare, ie. Medicare for All wouldn't some go to work for Medicare? n/t

[Ian David]

11. All those jobs have already been outsourced to India. n/t

[antigop]

14. Good point. n/t

[antigop]

15. So we could create jobs in the country by going to "Medicare for All"

The Medicare jobs should not be outsourced.

[rinsd]

25. Coders are still in high demand (nt)

[blondeatlast]

12. Since the insurance companies are now wholly owned by the financial companies and vice versa,

they can be absorbed into that.

After all, the economy is just booming right now. :sarcasm:

[pitohui]

22. who cares, seriously, why should a person earn money barring my ability to get care?

they work in an industry that steals my access to health and even to continued life itself, they work in an industry that rations care and thereby kills people

they do not have a right to work in such a field, they need to educate themselves and find honest work

just like everybody else

[bluestateguy]

23. Maybe we need to do it this way

A massive government buyout of the insurance companies. Payoff the big executives, make them even more insanely rich than they already are; give them some money to make them shut up and go away. And buyout the employees with packages, similar to what the auto workers have been offered recently, so as to ease the transition out of their current jobs. A few, of course, could be put to work for the new government run program.

[lumberjack_jeff]

27. I. Don't. Care.

We don't need them. Surely there are gainful things that this country could do.

Hey, I know! We have a bunch of people, maybe we could build things!

[OzarkDem]

28. Similar list

Developed by the National Breast Cancer Coalition in 2003. Its not a detailed plan, but a list of guidelines any health care reform proposal should include:

# Healthcare is a basic human right.
# Healthcare is fundamental to maintaining a productive society.
# Healthcare coverage must be guaranteed for everyone.
# The healthcare system must provide the same comprehensive benefits to everyone and must meet the public's expectations.
# The healthcare system must be redesigned so that treatment and coverage decisions are based on evidence and best practices.
# All individuals must financially contribute to the system, based on ability to pay.
# The new health care system must be easy to use for patients and providers, and easy to administer.
# Any system of coverage must include these core values:

* Access. Individuals must be able to get all the care they need when they need it. This must include meaningful access to evidence-based interventions.
* Information. Individuals must receive information that is evidence-based, objective, complete and correct.
* Choice. Individuals must have some choice of doctors and care.
* Respect. Our healthcare system must treat the whole person, not just a person?s disease.
* Accountability. Standards regarding care must be clear, uniform, and enforceable. Patients must have a right to sue if their basic human right to healthcare is violated.
* Improvement. The healthcare system must have methods for measuring what is and is not working so that the quality of care can continuously be improved. Individuals must have access to well designed and efficiently run clinical trials, and must have coverage of all routine care costs associated with participation in such trials.

On edit: I meant to post this in response to OP.

[eridani]

30. What makes you think they are all in the US?

One advantage of the government being the single payer is that we could demand that claims processing not be outsourced, ever.

Still, reducing the complexity will reduce employment. WA state single payer proposals have clauses setting aside money for retraining claims processers to be health care providers. We're looking at a developing critical nursing shortage, after all.

[Donnachaidh]

4. shouldn't the first one be *full, UN-interrupted health care*?

Interrupted health care is happening now, thanks to the insurance companies.

[antigop]

8. Thanks -- fixed in the OP n/t

[LWolf]

6. Based on #2,

it sounds like he ought to be publicizing HR 676, and the candidate that co-authored it.

[antigop]

9. Absolutely, LWolf! But on "The View" Moore said there weren't any pres candidates w/a solution

except someone who is not running --- Gore.

[LWolf]

16. Which means he participates in the

organized denial of DK's work and potential.

[antigop]

17. You do wonder, don't you? n/t

[antigop]

18. On another thread, someone mentioned that Moore did mention Kucinich

on a Democracy Now interview. But, imo, it was rather back-handed and not really a ringing endorsement of Kucinich's plan.

[pitohui]

21. i support that 100 percent

what really gets my goat is all these fund raisers and beggars who come around to collect money to find a cure for some disease -- and then when a treatment is found, the treatment is too expensive for me and mine

why the fuck should i donate to research just to help out a bunch of rich people, rich people already live longer than poor people do to begin with

they should be embarrassed

if new treatments and pills are discovered by public donation and by public subsidy through the national institutes of health, then those pills should be freely available to the public

[lumberjack_jeff]

26. self delete

sorry, wrong place.

[gravity]

29. They should just have the government provide universal coverage

Abolishing for profit corporations isn't going to make the system any better.