Bill Clinton: US could save more than $1 trillion per year by adopting universal health coverage

[FourScore]

By Bill Berkrot
Bill Clinton: universal health coverage saves money
NEW YORK | Wed Jun 8, 2011 3:36am IST

(Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said the United States could save more than $1 trillion a year by adopting any other advanced nation's healthcare system.

He also said there are important advances included in President Obama's healthcare reforms and urged that it be improved upon rather than repealed.

"Our healthcare system has gotten all out of whack," Clinton said in a speech on Tuesday at the Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference, stressing the need to bring inflation in healthcare costs back in line with economic inflation.

Clinton said Canada and the European countries that have universal health coverage for their citizens spend a smaller percentage of their gross domestic product on healthcare than the United States does.

"Germany and France, with what is considered the most effective systems in the world in terms of universal coverage and quality of treatment, they spend 10 percent. Canada spends 10.5 percent," Clinton said.

"The United States spends 17.2 percent without having universal coverage," Clinton said.

"That means if we just scrapped our system and adopted any other wealthy country's system, at a minimum we would have a trillion dollars more a year for pay raises, for investment in new technology, to create new jobs or whatever..."

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/06/07/idINIndia-57557820110607

[ProSense]

1. "He also said there are important advances included in President Obama's healthcare reforms

...and urged that it be improved upon rather than repealed."

Now that Clinton has endorsed Obama healthcare reforms, joining Bernie Sanders, it should be smooth sailing from here on out.

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. Obama's 'plan' is a bandaid on a broken arm.

It not only CAN be improved upon, it MUST be improved upon or it will collapse under its own pretensions.

Locking in the insurance companies and mandating that individuals buy private insurance is the exact OPPOSITE of the path to universal healthcare.

[bvar22]

28. It is also the exact opposite of what "Campaign" Obama promised.

*

[hifiguy]

2. A little late to the party, Big Dawg.

You should have been saying this a couple of years ago, because it's what everyone with a dime's worth of brains knows after half an hour's study on teh Google.

But better late than never.

[bvar22]

3. Thats just great.

Where was he when we had that fight? :shrug:

The opportunity for REAL reform,
for a REAL Single Payer System,
has been lost for at least a generation.

[disillusioned73]

9. It's probably damage control.. for his little pow wow with Paul Ryan

in regards to medicare "reform" that was caught on tape.

Another Single Payer johny-come-lately... go figure.

[Horse with no Name]

22. I agree. BUT did you capture the essence of what he said?? Something i have never heard before

Instead of "Making our own unique healthcare plan" as so many have suggested...he flat came out and said that other countries have it RIGHT...let's use their model.

I may be wrong but I have never heard anyone of any importance say that.

[tekisui]

4. Did he just now figure that out? Would have been nice two years ago.

[indepat]

5. A trillion dollars a year is but such a small price to pay for the joys of our for-profit system

of health care with its death panels and huge bonuses for those who deny health care to the suffering: we all need to wake up, smell the coffee, and fully appreciate all the infinite joys of living in a society wherein an extreme RW agenda has permeated every facet of daily life in our society. :patriot:

[jtrockville]

6. But we can't do that. It would decrease executive pay.

Take Stephen J. Hemsley, for example: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=200985&ticker=UNH:US

I wonder how many people have to pay for health insurance with United Health Care, and receive absolutely no health care at all, in order to fund just his salary.

[CrispyQ]

27. I have United Healthcare through my husband's employer.

I pay $140 a month for it. Last year I had a 'well woman' exam, a little bit of blood work - nothing special - & a urinalysis. I paid a $35 copay & when all the bills were issued & paid, United paid out $236 & I paid out $277, not including my copay & monthly premiums. So for the year, I paid $1992 & United paid $236. Maybe if Hemsley didn't make so much, United could have actually paid more for my medical visit than I did.

Don't ya just love a for profit "healthcare" system?

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[zacherystaylor]

7. Money goes to non medical expenses

As long as they keep spending money on advertising, lobbying, bribes (often refereed to as campaign contributions), or profits they won't have much left for health care.

[PotatoChip]

8. We know this already

Well maybe not the specific stats, but most of here are aware of the fact that Universal healthcare would save us money. The problem is getting the message out to John Q. Public.

I have several family members in the healthcare field (ironically) who truly believe that "we cannot afford universal coverage". The disinformation campaign waged by the RW and their monied interests seems to be working unfortunately.

[Obamanaut]

10. Didn't he used to be POTUS? Why wait until now for this revelation, why not then? nt

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

11. He's just now coming out after the hatred and lies that the Teabaggers/Republicans spewed

last year?

Aren't you a little too late, Bill?

[Turbineguy]

12. The GOP has no interest

is saving money or improving the lives of millions of Americans.

[FreakinDJ]

13. But but but .... The Death Panels will decide who lives and who dies

and and and .....

....... they might let your Grandmother (a white person) die

[WinkyDink]

14. NOW he speaks out?

[JVS]

15. Something he should have talked about 2 years ago.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. trillion dollars more a year for pay raises, for investment in new technology, to create new jobs

or for HEALTH CARE.

The problem is less that we spend so much, but that we spend so much to such poorer results.

That trillion a year, if STILL spent on healthcare, would mean no more medical bankruptcies (which often still end with poor healthcare), better pre-natal care (in which the US lags behind all industrial nations) resulting in fewer costly post-natal problems...

We have the best medical care in the world - for those who can afford it. Universal healthcare would mean that we ALL could afford it.

The first step is cutting out the insurance companies that suck up such a huge percentage of the healthcare dollar.

[msongs]

17. The Obama crowd is not interested in universal health coverage, Bill, but thanks nt

[Pirate Smile]

19. You have to be able to get it passed through Congress or else it is just more blah, blah, blah.

[Downtown Hound]

20. Gee Bill, weren't you the president once? n/t

[Horse with no Name]

21. But the truth is

the fatcats don't want to have to SHARE their cadillac healthcare with everyone.

They have made it a privilege that one has to EARN...after all, the unwashed masses heart attack might delay someone like rush limballs non-urgent appointment to have the boil off of his ass lanced.

[slipslidingaway]

23. Infuriating that he says this now, but also read what he said about Medicare...

anyone know what kind of reforms he favors?

I looked for a copy of the entire speech, but could not find one.

"...He said resistance to change, in addition to political maneuvering, is part of what is keeping the government Medicare program from any meaningful reforms.

"The beneficiaries in the present would rather hold onto the present than make sure they've done what's necessary to preserve it for the future, and that's part of the problem with Medicare," Clinton said..."


Also here what Conyers said in September 2009, universal SP advocates asked to step back under Clinton and support his bill, and not even included in the discussion under Obama.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6522383


"...Now, on the other hand, the universal single-payer health care bill is not just a few people that have come up with something to involve themselves in the discussion with health care reform. As a matter of fact, the single-payer concept is one of the oldest serious major notions that has been around. That is to say, for those of us who were here when the President was Bill Clinton and he assigned his wife the task of taking on the reform of health care, we were summoned, we who were supporting single-payer, were summoned to the White House collectively.

I remember very well that Jerry Nadler of New York was there, a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee. And what happened was that we were urged to step back from our initiative which had been going on for years before the Clintons assumed their responsibilities on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and after some brief discussion, we agreed that that was the appropriate thing to do. We did it. We did step back.

That concept is now undergoing a very short shrift in this whole discussion, namely because this whole discussion was initiated on the premise that universal single-payer health care was too new, too startling and too complex. It would take too long to institute. And so we are going to start off by not including it in the mix.

...What I am saying is that those Members who support universal single-payer health care have already made a major concession in the discussion, major concession. And it just seems to me that this could have been addressed in a different way, and it wasn't. That's water over the dam. But still, 86 Members, and there are more who are not cosponsors of the bill, were never cut into the major premises of how we go about it..."

[slipslidingaway]

24. kick nt

[donheld]

25. Weren't some on DU, just last week, thinking President Clinton wanted to axe medicare?

Funny how things change, and people forget.

[robinlynne]

26. now there's an idea.