We are ALREADY PAYING for universal health care;

[eridani]

--we just aren't GETTING it.

--Dennis J. Kucinich

Incrementalism can't work because most people will never get expensively sick, and therefore will never find out (like the stars of SiCKO) that their insurers are crappy. They will keep paying into private plans out of habit, and those dollars will continue to be removed from the pool of dollars used for actual health CARE. Fragmented risk pools also will keep expenses high.

The only solution is to treat health care like fire protection. You will probably not get expensively sick, and you will probably not have your house catch fire. But those things could happen to anybody, so society shares the risk and pays for fire protection for all. Health care should be no different. You don't have to raise taxes or garnish low income workers' paychecks to accomplish this.

[billbuckhead]

1. Yep!

Somebody has to be the adult and tell everyone how the cow ate the cabbage. There are no free lunches and everyone must pay if they expect to get.

[eridani]

3. My point is that we are already paying and don't need to pony up more

Just redirect all the money to actual CARE, not "coverage."

[JDPriestly]

2. We pay for the emergency care for the uninsured

when the hospital bills us or our insurer, when we pay our taxes.

What is the saying: A penny saved is a penny earned. Our current health care system ignores the wisdom of that. Yes, we are paying, but the uninsured don't get decent health care for our buck.

For what we pay to provide emergency services when it is too late, we could pay to get preventive care for the same people, and the preventive care would be cheaper in the long run. The present system is a fool's paradise. We think we are saving money, but in fact we are wasting it.

[doc03]

4. I have a concern with a Universal Health Care Plan

I work in a Union shop and have a good health care plan. The problem I see with it is, couldn't it encourage companies to terminate our plans and dump us on to the Government. The reason this concerns me is after the PBGC was created that is what happened. I work in the steel industry and the companies and Union both used the PBGC to prop up the industry. The companies wanted to get out of their pension obligations and the Unions were willing to let them since our pensions would be picked up by the PBGC.

[Hippo_Tron]

5. Yup and that's why Single Payer isn't politically viable

Quality of service will go down for people that do have very good health care plans. It won't go down to the level that the health insurance industry and the GOP propaganda say it will, but it will go down. People with good health care will have to give something up for everybody to be covered, and Americans hate sacrifice. It is all about them.

[doc03]

7. I can see my company and many others

dumping our insurance as soon as it would go into effect. My company has been in bankruptcy twice and they dumped two pensions on the PBGC. We are now near bankruptcy again and if universal health care is there you can bet they will go bankrupt again force wage concessions on us and dump our health insurance.

[eridani]

15. People with "good" health care plans mostly get no service whatsoever--

--because they don't get expensively sick. All the stars of SiCKO thought they had good insurance until they got sick.

[Johonny]

31. I don't agree

I see no reason the quality of service will go down. It's not like dealing even with good insurance companies is easy for you or your Doctor. The US has the largest overhead of any industrial country. Single payer health care cuts out the overhead.

[Hippo_Tron]

32. Again, it's not what the insurance propaganda makes it out to be

But if you have the money to pay for insurance that is prohibitively expensive for most people in this country, you can have whatever treatment you want whenver you want it. Under single payer this will no longer be the case and that means some people will have to give something up. The fact is that the wealthy get better care in the United States than they would in Europe. The trick used by the industry is to convince people that, that applies to everybody.

[laconicsax]

6. With a single-payer system, you don't need to worry about having a good plan.

No copays, no premiums, no coinsurance maximums, no limits on the number of visits/treatments per year, no provider networks. You go to a doctor, the Government pays the bill.

[doc03]

8. Neither Clinton or Obama are

advocating a single payer plan are they?

on edit: "The government pays the bill". No the taxpayers pay the bill!

[eridani]

13. We are already paying the bill now

The only thing that would change is that far more of the dollars would be spent on care.

[laconicsax]

16. The same way the taxpayers pay

when the fire department does their job.
when the police do their job.
when public school teachers do their job.
when the state transportation department fixes the road.

And no, neither of Clinton or Obama are advocating single payer. They happen to be cowards on that issue (and others).

edit: grammar

[roody]

24. No, they are not.

[eridani]

12. If you've never gotten expensively sick, how would you know how good your plan is?

I really don't know whether my local fire department is any good either, and with luck I will never know.

[doc03]

18. I had cancer three years ago and out of the

thousands of dollars in bills I paid $1000. This year I was hospitalized two times with blood clots in my leg it cost me $1000. With our plan we pay 10% of the bills up to a maximum of $1000 per year with no premiums. There is problem, it has a $5 Mil lifetime maximum, that sounds like a lot of money but I met a guy in the hospital that had a transplant and he said that cost more than $6 mil. and he had it done almost 10 years ago. Anyway apparently we are not going to get a single payer so wouldn't that encourage companies to dump there problems on the government?

[supernova]

27. If we had single payer

your company or union shop (whichever entity pays for the plan) could afford to give you a raise or give you more vacation or sick time rather than spend the money on insurance.

As for "dumping" you on the gov't, that's what single pay is. The gov't pays the bills through taxes. That means will be in a much bigger risk pool than just your current plan pool. You will be in a plan pool called "all of us Americans." At any given time, some if us are perfectly well and don't need it, some of us will be deathly sick and need it a lot, and some of us will be somewhere in the middle with mild or chronic but managable conditions.

It's not dumping you. It's simply switching who pays for it, you and me and everyone else.

[doc03]

30. I hear you, but it is not on the

agenda. From what I hear Hillary's plan may encourage companies to dump insurance too. Then Obama's doesn't cover everyone, he says some people don't want to buy insurance. Then the way I understood him if they get sick they could then start paying premiums and go on his plan. That can't work, there would be millions of freeloaders that wouldn't pay for insurance then if they got sick we would end up paying anyway just like we are now. That's like not getting car insurance then going out and trying to buy it after you have an accident.

[Desertrose]

9. Thanks, Eridani K&R

[slipslidingaway]

10. Kucinich on Health Care...

"This is a fight inside the Democratic Party..."

Health Care
Maybe next time?
2000, 2004, 2008...2012???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOB0f3I1AXk

Kucinich on Health Care and Prescription drugs 2004
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv8wkh4FMUo


Dennis Kucinich: Health care
"...What's lacking is political leadership..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2OUyZesqRg


:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

"Incrementalism can't work because most people will never get expensively sick, and therefore will never find out (like the stars of SiCKO) that their insurers are crappy. They will keep paying into private plans out of habit, and those dollars will continue to be removed from the pool of dollars used for actual health CARE. Fragmented risk pools also will keep expenses high."

[leftofthedial]

11. the corporations will have it their way

no matter what Dennis Kucinich (or reason) says

[defendandprotect]

14. In fact, what we are spending would pay for the most LUXURIOUS of health care systems!!!

But --- again --- we paying, but getting very little ---

We spending more than Switzlerland!!!!

Which has a quite luxurious system of health care for everyone --

[WeCanWorkItOut]

17. But why are our costs so high? First, it's overpriced treatment.

Please look at the breakdown from the Krugman-recommended analysis of why
Americans spend so much on health care.

Basically, it's $400 billion too much spent in hospitals and at doctors' offices.
$100 billion too much spent on insurance.
$57 billion too much spent on drugs.
$25 billion too much spent on a slightly sicker population.

Oh, and $85 billion too little spend on long term care!

Source:
http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/rp/healthcare/accounting_cost_healthcare.asp
That's at the McKinsey Global Institute. For good visuals,
go to the first box to the right and click on the orange lettering
labeled "View interactive graphic overview."

[Freddie Stubbs]

19. Yes, but many people don't want to give up their private insurance

[raccoon]

20. Right. But more and more of them will lose it anyway.

Due to jobs going overseas, employers not offering insurance, temporary employment, etc.

I think eventually the USA will reach a tipping point in that area.

[Freddie Stubbs]

23. Perhaps, but it has not reached that point yet

[raccoon]

25. That's what I said.

"I think eventually the USA will reach a tipping point in that area."

[ret5hd]

22. What % of them will keep their private plans after eligibility for medicare?

[ret5hd]

26. Tick Tock Tick Tock

[ret5hd]

33. Tick Tock Tick Tock

[LWolf]

21. Yes.

Here's a :kick: for authentic universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care.

[Maine-ah]

28. I love that man.

I hate what the media did to him.

[stimbox]

29. Exactly.

Here's another :kick: for REAL universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care.

[midnight]

34. Anything close to cheney care is what I want. And since

cheney doesn't pay for his, I should not have to either.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

35. There it is

presented as you did everyone gets it.

Not a single "major" candidate is on board. We know why.

K&R