QuotePlease be aware that the current system is untenable.
I am.
QuoteA single payer system, for at least the basic services, cuts out 10% of waste, profit and inefficiency. Look at the published payout ratios of large commercial health insurers. It runs around 85-89%, Medicare is vastly more efficient with a 1% overhead and a 99% payout ratio.
According to?
QuoteThe only people calling the plan free or the "best" care, are people against it.
the LAST thing I'm calling government health care is "best" and I know of no major voice against it who is.
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But you aren't going to be turned away for lack of it.
no one is turned away now.
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The current thinking is that 22,000 American deaths/year are directly caused by lack of insurance.
that "current thinking" probably comes from the same people who define the number of uninsured Americans is all people who spent even one day in the previous year uncovered as opposed to the number of people uncovered over the long term - which is a MUCH smaller group.
It also implies that said death rate will be lower. in point of fact, what's more likely to happen is that you will have MORE deaths under single payer, but those deaths willbe old people that the bean counters consider a poor investment and it will be impossible to prove they wouldn't have died anyway.
It may be true that a person or a family can ethically decide that expensive care shouldn't be rendered to an elderly patient, but it's scary when you government decides you are not as worthy of care as a younger recipient.
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Lets have care for everyone
We do have care for everyone - what we don't have is
coverage for everyone, which is a different thing.
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First off, many of us have ZERO coverage, so worse is pretty much impossible.
To repeat - zero coverage is NOT zero care.
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They don't have your best interest at heart, if you think they do, you are foolish.
Neither do politicians.
QuoteThey have entire divisions setup just to deny coverage for as much as possible.
so does medicaid and disability.Anyone who's ever applied for Disability (a government administered plan of course) knows that almost everyone is denied on the first application because the government knows most will give up and go away - including many who actually are disabled - upon the first denial. the only people who get it try over and over again.
So let's not make the mistake of thinking that a government run health care system will be more compassionate and less likely to ration care than private entities, because that too would be foolish.
QuoteYou really can't tax the poor too much more than they already do
If you mean direct taxation, they DON'T tax the poor AT ALL on the federal level. so I'm not sure what this sentence means. A family of four can make it to almost $30K in income before they pay a dime - more if they are diligent to take advantage of deductions.
I've paid a lot of taxes in my life but I've never once had a federal income tax obligation since I got married. All my taxes have been indirect.
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Second, why is our infant mortality rate that of a 3rd world nation. We do have the best medical care AVAILABLE. Could it be that most people cannot afford access to it?
Nope. Because it's illegal to turn away those who can't pay, as you can find posted on a big sign in any emergency room.
Further, why do people plenty smart enough to know that correlation is not causation try to win points by citing the IMR as
proof that people lack access to health care?
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As a child I remember 8 hour waits.
How does that relate to people who die as they wait MONTHS for a needed procedure in the UK and other places? Among many other complaints.
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No, but at least you know you won't be homeless because you broke a leg.
Who is? I find that pretty hard to believe.
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Of course it will run out of money. That is how government works...
which is precisely WHY it's a bad idea for it to be on the government's dime or at least under there control.
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They are certainly not going to bankrupt the system by giving a few people surgery. Compared to what is spent overall, it will be pennies. In fact it costs Canadians 16cents per year, per person to provide the surgery. You can probably find 16cents in your car under the seat or in the ashtray.
I don't disagree here. Citing the cost of GRS in this debate is a weak tactic, logically, and an appeal to emotion not reason. I certainly disapprove of that argument even though I find single-payer untenable.
it probably bears stating here what I DO think needs to be done, not just what I'm against.
I'm not, by the way, against government action. and I do favor ideas which would take the obligation of providing health care completely off the small (and large) business if they so choose.
what I favor is Medical savings accounts, established and funded by tax dollars but spent by individuals with mechanisms built in to incentivize smart spending. I'm not economist enough to know what the funding level should be, and perhaps it would need to be phased in but I would favor it for ALL, absorbing the current government medical spending on current programs.
In essence, for all routine medical expenses, you would make your purchase out of this account, and you would have incentive to apply market forces to your purchases.
In conjunction with that would be a catastrophic care insurance policy, federally backed, which would cover the relatively small percentage of all people who face the staggering costs of cancer treatment or heart disease or whatever.
Over time, as the balance in the individual accounts grew, the services which needed to be insured would be only those which would be the source of the horror stories we hear about the current system.
You would have to find the gaps, to be sure, where a patch would be needed (for instance, people already nearing retirement age are going to need more spending than younger people no matter how you fund it).
BUT, the bottom line is that when you shop for your medical care like you shop for a new home or car or furniture, then there is incentive for you to make the best buy and incentive for providers to offer the best deal - in theory it should have a much better shot at containing costs than single payer.
so, of course, MSA's are anethema to left wing politicians - why? Because if YOU are making the decisions, government has less CONTROL over you and THAT my friends is what they WANT, not to "take care of you"
