Single Payer Healthcare

[CreekDog]

[Blue State Blues]

1. I wouldn't say ideal, nor is it the only option

it's just the most likely to be effective. And of the effective options, it's the most likely to happen.

[TheKentuckian]

5. I pretty much agree except maybe the whole thing is so far gone that

we need a NHS and be done with it. The profit motive and profiteering is rampant systemwide and the insurance industry way too far gone to make them utility regulated because we can't do that either in most of the country.

[shawcomm]

2. I think the ideal system is actual government health care

a la Veteran's Hospitals and Indian Health Service. It doesn't have to cover everyone, but be there for everyone unable to afford regular insurance. Or, combine that as a bottom tier, safety net service and single payer to remove overly costly administration for all of us.

[TZ]

3. Interesting no's on this one

This is another one I figured we could all agree on.

[harun]

7. We couldn't agree here on what 2 + 2 equals, but over 90% is pretty close.

[gravity]

4. It's not ideal

I prefer a system where people can choose between a government healthcare system and private insurance. People who are happy with their insurance can keep it and people who are happy with the government healthcare can use it.

[depakid]

13. Basically, the Australian system

and as Howard Dean has repeatedly noted- Americans want (and need) those choices.

Unfortunately, the administration and a fair number of Democrats have gone along with Republicans- and indicated that Americans don't deserve them.

That's right- you don't deserve the health care and financial security available in other western nations, especially since that might affect the bottom line of their corporate sponsors.

[SpartanDem]

6. The ideal system is anyone that is universal

I would gladly taken any country's system whether they were singler payer or not.

[hayu_lol]

8. What we need is a Single-Payer National Health Plan/Service...

It would cover everyone for all treatments, all needed drugs, all therapy. Everyone.

What we are being given is a reform of patient needs/requirements. The current bills are for the benefit of the insurance companies.

Now, with single-payer, people should be allowed to buy insurance policies...but who would after considering carefully what their needs are.

The current proposal should be immediately scrapped.

Under the proposed plan, who gets exempted? The Amish are getting an exception, certain other religious groups will get exemptions, how about Federal workers? What about the Congress? Bet anything they will be exempted.

The Congress has not yet gone in and fixed Medicare Part D. Why do some here believe that they will go in and try to fix the new plan? They won't.

[levander]

10. Cost is as important as universal...

It would cover everyone for all treatments, all needed drugs, all therapy. Everyone.

As long as the drugs are "needed", then yeah. But, if enough lonely jackasses just wants therapy all the time because it's something to do and freely provided by his tax-payer financed health insurance, we could end up mortgaging the entire country on health care.

There's got to be some way to curb costs.

And, that's why I'm against this current bill. Costs for health care will go up faster under this bill than they currently are. And, compared to other countries, we are already paying way too much.

The current bill, I wouldn't call it universal but, it provides near-universal coverage. The only problem is that it makes costs go up faster. There are alternatives out there that lower cost and provide universal coverage.

The expanded Medicaid and income-based subsidies this bill provides is one way it gets more people into coverage. If they could lower costs, they would get even more. And, even the people who do have coverage. If costs were lowered, their wallets wouldn't be bleeding health care.

[CreekDog]

11. Not to a sick child, or to their parents, or to anybody with a soul

:eyes:

[levander]

12. Go tell that to someone who lost their job in the recession...

Ask them if they could pick only one, if they'd rather have a job or health insurance...

Make sure they're aware of how little our government's going to be able to do for their children if we were to mortgage it all on overpriced health care now...

[CreekDog]

14. I said sick kids getting coverage is a higher priority than what it costs

yes.

if money trumps a sick kid for you, you are a sick adult.

now if you want to argue some other topic like you did in your response to me, go ahead.

[levander]

15. Let me try to explain another way...

How bout this? There's a sick child. It will cost us bazillions to keep the child alive. China offers to loan us the money. But, there's a strict payback schedule. The only way we will be able to pay this money back is for the entire country to live in poverty for the next 30 years while we continue to do the same jobs we do now.

Do you throw away everything we have built for ourselves here and save the child?

And remember, us living in poverty endangers our other children's health. People who live in poverty just don't have very good medical records.

That's a silly, exaggerated argument. But, it's an attempt to explain the point I'm making. There's a trade-off between costs and care. Yes, most people "with a soul" are going to be generous. It's just that there's got to be a limit to this generosity or we will doom ourselves, and the rest of our children.

And, the thing is, we're already paying more for medical care than other countries are. And, not only are our health statistics no better, but those other countries already have universal coverage. They pay less and way more of their people have health insurance.

If it were the case that we were paying less for our health insurance and didn't have universal coverage, I'd be all for spending more. But, that's not the case. We're already spending way too much. That our system is so expensive is how we know it's broken. And, that's why so many don't have health insurance. Because, it's too expensive.

So, I don't think I'm being less generous or having less of a soul because I say we have to worry about costs. I just think I'm being smarter.

Obama is already running around saying he's under no impression we can spend our way out of this recession. And, that's because this country's finances are already in poor shape. I was reading about investing some of my retirement account in China a couple of weeks ago. Did you know that China's stimulus for their economy during the recession was 14% of their GDP? China was able to do that because their government is financially well-off. You've seen how big the numbers are that represent the size of our national debt? China is the one loaning us most of the money so we can run debts that big. I don't remember how much our stimulus package was. I wanna say it was like 5%, but don't quote me on that. In any event, it was substantially less than China's. China is already out of their recession, and they went in about the same time. That last recession pretty much struck globally, it was started in the US and spilled everywhere else pretty quickly. But of course, we're still trying to recover from ours.

Do you have any idea how many more children a China that is financially health is going to save the lives of?

[vincna]

16. A very well reasoned, logical argument and I agree

Creek Dog, however, is dealing with the issue on an emotional level. Emotion is rarely pursuaded by reason and logic.

[CreekDog]

24. Giving care to a sick child is more important than money --that's a rational statement

As a human being, I don't know how you can rationally place the cost of something above a human life.

[levander]

27. Please don't belittle Creekdog...

While I can see what you're saying has some kind of grounding in truth, it's no way to hold a conversation if your goal is to change someone's mind or at least understand their mind.

If you were just trying to discredit and disregard him, you did a very good job.

[vincna]

29. I didn't intend to belittle anyone and if it came off that way, ...

I'm sorry. In my experience, it's virtually impossible to change a person's mind when that person is being driven by emotion. I've personally been in that situation many times and the reality is that communication is difficult or impossible. I hoped that pointing that out might get everyone on a logical plane

[TZ]

17. Wow

So basically you are weighing/judging how much a person's life is worth. And saying that capping costs trumps medical care and treatment of the individual . That's what China does.. I find the callousness toward the individual in your scenario disturbing. And while I support some things done for the common good, there comes a point where that wanders into fascism... Which is the slippery slope your argument puts us on. It also smacks of Eugenics.

[vincna]

18. Absent infinite resources, what alternative is there? nt

[TZ]

19. Umm I'm sorry but Eugenics is not the answer

Would you like to tell me that you think forcing women who know they are going to have sick children to have abortions to keep "costs" down is aceeptable? Because THATS what you are basically arguing for. This is not Nazi Germany nor are we China, nor should we take them as a role model. Funny how European countries/Canada/Australia all have socialized health care and don't have this issue. They do however have one thing that people in this country refuse to do...accept higher tax rates. I'm all for all of us sacrificing a little more to benefit all.

[vincna]

20. Explain how recognizing our resources are finite equals eugenics

From Wikipedia: Eugenics is the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans, with the aim of improving the species. In a historical and broader sense, eugenics can also be a study of "improving human genetic qualities." Advocates of eugenics sought to counter what they regarded as dysgenic dynamics within the human gene pool, specifically in regard to congenital disorders and factors relating to the heritability of IQ.

Where did I say anything about selective breeding? For that matter, where did I say anything about forcing women to have abortions? I said that Levander's point about prioritizing resources was well reasoned. He/she pointed out the obvious and I agreed.

Whether you like it or not, no country has infinite resources to spend on anything, including sick children and recognizing that is not eugenics. What makes you think countries with socialized medicine don't prioritize and recognize their own resource limits? It happens when people have to wait months for needed medical procedures. Do some research and look at waiting periods in Canada or the UK for certain medical procedures. Let's say you were diagnosed with cancer and had to wait six months for treatment - your chances of survival would be reduced. Isn't that essentially the same thing, i.e. limiting access to healthcare? Here's a link to a good article about the Canadian system:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/06/canadian.health.care.system/index.html

I'm not trashing the Canadian system. The point here is that Canada does recognize that its resources are limited and does its best to allocate them to those most critically in need. They are doing exactly what Levander described in his post.

[TZ]

22. You need to read a little history

About Pre-Nazi Germany when they had a terrible economy..The Weimaraner Republic. The notions you are floating are similar to what the Germans wanted to do to save a very bad economy...I'm not saying YOU are advocating this, but what I'm saying is that what you want to do is a definite slippery slope idea.
Insurance companies are already trying to do something like this with genetic testing...If they know you are likely to get sick in the future, they aren't going to take you on board. If someone knows their child is going to have a heart condition that requires lots of surgery and no promise of ever leading a normal life, do we demand that she get an abortion to cut costs? Or do we take income into account and say..you are poor, you can't afford insurance..abort the fetus..Do you see how what you are suggesting could lead to this sort of stuff?
Its all easy to say, well we just need to cut costs...and not support sick people. But it can lead to very very nasty practices. And no way no how, should anyone in this country be forced to make a health decision because of what it "costs the rest of us". Thats just unthinkable.

[vincna]

25. Utopia always sounds wonderful...

but unfortunately, it doesn't exist.

[anakie]

28. this 'Weimaraner Republic' you speak of

the pre-Nazi economy really was a dog.


Peace

[levander]

9. The most popular system in Europe is not single payer...

The Dutch get the highest approval scores for their health system amongst their citizens. And, their system has all private insurance companies, albethey highly regulated. But, their system relies on capitalism much more than single payer. Capitalism having been America's secret to much of what success we have had all along. It only makes sense that a system based on capitalism would be the most popular. It's just that the more I learn about this issue, the more insurance doesn't seem like a market where a less regulated, more extreme free market is beneficial. Some work has to be done to tie the insurance companies' interests with those of their policy-holders. This being where regulation comes in.

And, maybe this is why insurance company's have such a bad rap in America? The insurance market operates too much on a free market basis? It's in the insurance companies interests to keep the sick off their roles. Denying claims and finding ways to kick people off their roles once they get sick would seem to damage their reputation in free market mechanics. But, they seem to have found ways to do it infrequently enough that they save substantial amounts of money, but not frequently enough to impose a consumer back-lash against that one company.

So, you regulate. You removing their ability to participate in these underhanded tactics. And, you tie the companies' interests much more to those of their policy holders.

Now, the only way for these insurance companies to make more money is to find ways to keep their policy holders' health expenses down. There's a standard set of services, as regulated by the government, that the companies must cover. Then, sometimes there's additional services that could keep policy holders healthy at a lower cost. It now becomes the job of all these insurance companies to find these services and encourage their policy holders to take advantage of them. Because, that's the only way for them to make more money. And, that's where the capitalism comes in. The insurance companies that find low cost ways to keep their policy holders healthy make more money. Which is entirely what we want out of a health care system after all. Everyone has access to a standard level of coverage that is as inexpensive as we can make it.

With the Dutch system, you have the insurance companies competing to find the cheapest way to keep everyone healthy. Instead of with the singe payer system, where you would have Washington bureaucrats trying to do it.

And, much of the innovation in the health care industry becomes trying to find services that keep costs down so they can make it into these insurance policies. Getting into private companies insurance policies would no doubt be a faster route towards making money than trying to convince Washington to regulate that the insurance companies must cover the service you invent.

Plus, if whatever system we ends up with, somebody starts doing a shitty job, with a single-payer system, you're stuck. But, if you have competing private insurance companies, switching suppliers is pretty easy.

Here's a story PBS did on the Dutch system to explain how it works better than I can:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec09/healthcare1_10-07.html

[invictus]

21. I support a Canadian-style single payer system.

[Hippo_Tron]

23. France has the best system in the world, we should more or less copy their system

It's technically not "single payer" as most people have a private insurance supplement but the bulk of the expenses are paid through the government with tax revenue.

[mkultra]

26. Its the best idea that would never pass

[ibegurpard]

30. you START with pie-in-the-sky

you DON'T start with the minimum you'd settle for...then you end up with the Senate healthcare "reform" bill.

[Mimosa]

31. Right: don't start with the minimum...

...unless you plan to settle for less than the minimum. As Obama wanted for us. :( He hasn't fought for US. Sad to say. :(

[mkultra]

32. You start with something practical

this kind of rubbish really is just ignorance.

[levander]

33. That's what they tried to do with the public option...

I'm surprised some on DU don't understand that the advocates for single-payer, they were trying to use the public option to transition into single-payer.

But, they couldn't even get the public option. So, single payer / the public option is dead for a bare minimum of 5 years.

There's other ways to control costs. It's time to move on for now people...