America Needs a Single Payer Health Care System

[marmar]

from Other Words:




America Needs a Single Payer Health Care System
Even if Obama's overhaul works as planned, there will still be 23 million Americans lacking health insurance in 2019.

By Kay Tillow


More than a year after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, our nation's health care delivery and coverage remain the disgrace of the industrialized world. There are more than 50 million uninsured Americans. Even if the health care overhaul works as planned, 23 million Americans will still lack health insurance in 2019.

The new norm is underinsurance. About 40 percent of us go without needed care because we can't afford it. The health care law won’t change that, even once it's completely phased in. Our plague of medical bankruptcies will continue too.

For unions, bargaining for health care is getting tougher as employers demand cuts and shift more costs to workers. Negotiations over better health coverage will become almost impossible when the excise tax on health benefits begins in 2018.

Many who saw the reform bill as "the best we could get" are disappointed that support for it hasn't grown. The truth is that most people agree on the reform law. They love the parts that block insurance companies from denying coverage and care. They hate the parts that give away our tax dollars to insurance companies. They hate the mandate that will force everyone to buy insurance from the very companies whose profit motive is the source of most of our health care system's problems. They hate the escalating costs of insurance and care. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.otherwords.org/articles/america_needs_a_single_payer_health_care_system

[me b zola]

1. Yes we do

Recommended

[damntexdem]

2. Well, duh.

But we're not going to get it any time soon.

[Keith Bee]

20. Exactly

[CottonBear]

3. I'm an unemployed 99er who lost my work based health insurance back in April 2009. I'm SOL. n/t

[rustydog]

4. I'm sick and tired of bigoted co-workers complaining that they

are sick and tired of paying (insert any race,homeless, intoxicated, drug addicted person) their hospital bills.

i tell them we should be paying for everyones health care and it will be a whole lot more affordable. the odd thing is some of the biggest bitchers have been foreclosed on, they live week to week, collection agencies call for them at work. They can't run their own lives very well and project it on those even less fortunate than they are.

Did you know homelessness is a lifestyle choice? "They" enjoy getting the free food at soup kitchens and tent cities. "They" are too lazy to find work.

Shit, I don't know if I am tough enough to spend one night let alone month after month in a sleeping bag under a freeway overpass.

[timtom]

5. Amen to that!

[upi402]

6. +1,000 n/t k/r

[Mimosa]

7. I don't recall it being argued for from the Bully Pulpit.

Now we're stuck with high age rated premiums forever at the hands of the for profit vultures.

[AndyTiedye]

11. We Haven't Got a "Bully Pulpit"

THEY own all the Tee Vee stations in the country. Obama can ask for a half-hour now and then
(which they can refuse) but the other 23 1/2 hours belong to the Republicans.

[Mimosa]

19. That is so true. CNN has become obviously Republican lately. n/t

[AndyTiedye]

8. It Can't Happen Until We Have the House back AND 60 Democrats in the Senate

Which equates to never.

[NorthCarolina]

9. Yes we do, but I don't see that happening with today's Dems. nt

[Chris_Texas]

10. Obama disagrees with you

He believes that the reason the poor are not buying health insurance is that the government is not sticking a gun in their faces and forcing them to do so.

Under his plan the poor may not have a home, or a car, or food for their kids, but they will by-god buy fucking health insurance or face fines and prison. It's called priorities, and HIS priority is making sure the insurance companies make as much money as they can.

[Mimosa]

21. Is prison part of the mandate?

Is a prison term possible for refusing to pay premiums and the consequent fines in the ACA of 2010?

[cali]

12. we need it, but it's not in the offing. I'm even fairly pessimistic about it happening here in VT

thought it's already passed the legislature and the guv will sign it. I have my doubts that we'll get the waiver we need and without that waiver there's no way around the ERISA laws

[Hotler]

13. socialist!

:sarcasm:

[w8liftinglady]

14. I care for these people every day.

The majority of the patients I see are either uninsured or on "The Government Dole".
Universal healthcare would end up costing SO MUCH LESS.
Many of my patients are hospitalized because they put off going to the doctor...because they were uninsured,had minimum wage jobs that would fire them if they missed days.
It makes me so sick,so sad.
I feel for their kids,who encounter the same thing.
We need universal healthcare.

[Mimosa]

23. We do put it off when we can't afford Dr visits, especially Rxs! n/t

[Uncle Joe]

15. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[slipslidingaway]

16. We do, but any discussion was blocked during the recent debate...

now we need to look at Medicare and Medicaid cuts.

:(

[slipslidingaway]

17. S&P's David Blitzer on single payer

Full text and video at link...
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/april/sps-david-blitzer-on-single-payer

Haines: Why are these costs escalating at - I don't know - three or four times the rate of overall inflation? What's going on here?

...Blitzer: Medicare for people over 65 is a single payer plan, and, indeed, we consistently see smaller rates of increase in Medicare items than we do in commercial insurance, the kind of insurance that employers provide for their employees.

Haines: Okay. I'm going to leave that lying there because some of our viewers right now are going apoplectic thinking you have just endorsed single payer health care.

Blitzer: I haven't. I've only reported the numbers. I'm not endorsing anything.

Haines: Believe me, I understand. You're quoting the facts. Some people think facts are partisan. I don't know how they get there, but they do. David, thank you very much. Appreciate your input..."

[Mimosa]

22. ^ +100000!!!!! ^ n/t

[slipslidingaway]

28. :))) n/t

[SOS]

18. America needs single payer

but the corporations which own and operate this country will not give their employees in Congress permission to enact it.
It will not happen.
Ever.

A Democratic Senate wouldn't even give us the public option
Mercantile Medical will always purchase enough Liebermans and Nelsons to ensure their profits.

[Scuba]

24. Why should the stockholders of for-profit health insurance...

...companies get any of our healthcare dollars? They add NO VALUE to the process of delivering care. Their executive are paid higher than government equivalents by a factor of thousands.


I'd rather have my healthcare decisions made a government beaurocrat who doesn't care if I die, than by a corporate beaurocrat whose job depends on it.

BTW, reported yesterday that the Paul Ryan budget puts another $30 Trillion of our healthcare dollars in the pockets of insurance company stockholders.

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x963159

(edited to add link)

[FiveGoodMen]

26. "They add NO VALUE to the process"

Agreed.

They are parasites.

Racketeers.

[raccoon]

25. Who don't know that? Recd. nt

[Doctor_J]

27. It would deprive the Health Rationing CEO's of their LIBERTY

to rip us off.

[xchrom]

29. Well the unimpeachable wisdom ofmoderate dems tells us we must tie

Every one to private insurance before we get to Medicare for all.

Or some such stupid nonsense.