Single payer healthcare system discussion

Brett_Murphy said:

tester said:

The uninsured and indigent often receive better care than someone with a good home and family structure in the US.  
 

Ever think about how the indigent pay for that health care? They don't. Others do. If you want to call single payer healthcare socialism, you kind of have to call that sort of medical treatment socialism, too.

 

That is sort of the point.  How exactly would single payer change that?  
 

It will not. If all of the money is laundered through DC; plan on adding 30% to the current cost. Every time politicians get involved, the costs increase. 

Here is a good one. During what time frame did the cost (inflation rate) of medical care in the US begin to diverge from other tech industries? What was passed at that time? 

Duke said:

In reply to alfadriver :

If you've ever read a single one of my political-economic posts, you'll know that I am absolutely AGAINST corporate subsidies, tax breaks, and bailouts. 
 

I do know that about you, which is one of the reasons I drew that parallel.  This is where the money comes from.  Period.  Instant solvency for medicaid for all as a single payer construct.  With enough surplus to pay off all student debt and several other warm fuzzies.  

I know people say, "if we tax corporations, they'll move overseas."  BullE36 M3.  The US has some of the most permissive import taxation on the planet.  Japan has some of the highest corporate taxes on the planet.  Why don't Toyota, Nissan, Yamaha, and Sanyo all expat to Leichtenstein?  Import taxes.  It would cost them more to import their product back to Japan than they pay in corporate tax by staying.

We charge a pittance compared to some countries to stay here, but we want cheap iPhones, so when Apple looks at the cheap tax here versus NO tax by moving away, and they can still sell their product here with next to no duty or import tax, they bail.  It's one of the reasons our trade deficit is so out of control.  We openly allow imports for cheap which means we have no leg to stand on when it comes to taxing corporations.  Instead we end up opening the big wallet to keep them here... so they can pay poverty level wages and keep us all on welfare.

Tax the berkeley out of them I say.  Start increasing import taxes to keep them here.  Sure, you'll now pay $500 for that TV that used to cost $400, but the $50k job you have now will soon be $90k.  We talked earlier about socio-economic engineering and how it doesn't work.  We in the US are engineering poverty, and then the very middle class that thinks they have it made try to screw the lower class out of welfare instead of realizing THEY ARE PART OF THE MONEY CHAIN that feeds corporate welfare.  We have set up an economy where we are obsessed with cheap.  Dollar General just announced that they will be opening over 1000 stores next year alone.  They own the largest trucking fleet in the nation.  We are the merchandise dump for cheap crap because we don't make proportional incomes.

We are the desperate boyfriend/girlfriend who has emotionally bankrupted themselves and are begging for their partner to stay and love them.  Our grip on our economy and keeping corporations/money in the US is so pathetically weak that we are doing ANYTHING for them to stay, including further bankrupting ourselves.  And just like that emotionally bankrupt person, when a friend says, "hey, buddy, she's no good for you," we snap at them and say it's love.

In the same way we call it socialism if we try to re-allocate some of that "love" to the people who have been raped of their economic stability.  We seem to be addicted to bailing out and licking the boots of corporations that we can't see when the love is gone.  We have done this so completely and effectively that each of the top dozens of corporations have yearly profits that are larger than the entire US budget.  They use that profit to buy whatever they want from our government.

I'm genuinely afraid that it is too late.  We have a society who has allowed fear and complacency to replace accountability and responsibility.  Then they see how things are broken and they'll blame anything but the real culprit because it's too late.  Blaming big corps and the government won't do any good because it's too late, even though that is where the true problem lies.  Instead we toss abnormal fears toward anything that isn't within out little coccoon and say "ehrmagerd... sercialersm."

E36 M3 is broken.  We know it.  But blaming the wrong entities just because we, A) listen to propoganda or B) are afraid that trying to fix the real issues are too big a bite to chew often just leads us to a fear of what we DON'T want instead of a hope that we can get what we DO want.

I honestly think that some people just cast shade and play sour grapes with these other countries that have happy, successful people and a strong economy.  They say stuff like "I don't want happiness if it includes socialism" or somehow otherwise equate socialism with communism.

The bottom line (in my opinion) is that we have completely fist-berkeleyed our democracy hardcore.  It doesn't mean that democracy as a concept is flawed, it means that we screwed it up.  When I see so many other successful democracies who didn't colonize and destroy with warfare for their oil, it makes me wonder.... how long do we really think we can keep up this big brother, earth's keeper, superpower crap?  The last time Finland was in a war was in 1939 and it lasted 4 months.  It wasn't about oil, trade, or colonization, it was because the USSR wanted to steal land from them.  That is worth fighting for.  Randomly berkeleying up half a continent so we can have cheap oil?  Why do you think the US has been at war for 222 of its 242 years?

alfadriver said:

docwyte said:

Our healthcare costs more because our taxes are less.  Which would you rather have?  This stuff isn't free, the money comes from somewhere.

Healthcare costs have gone up because the MBA's have figured out they can make money in the healthcare industry.  There are far more administrative people now then there ever were before and they make good money, with nowhere near the debt load or time spent compared to the Doc's.

That's the part that should really bother people.  You pay a company money, they keep some for profits, some for processing fees, then tell you how you are allowed to use it or not.

These companies don't actually supply a service like repairing your health- just tell you how your healtcare payments can be used.

Does that seem right?  Legalized money laundering for a service all of us really need, with proft as the goal.

Bringing this comment over another page.

At ANY pont, some schmuck without a degree can tell an American doctor that their insurance won't pay for a procedure and limit care to a patient- and these companies had to be federally forced to just give prices to people instead of outright refusing them. 

The uninsured and indigent often receive better care than someone with a good home and family structure in the US.  

Oh really? I've been in EMS for over 7 years and I've never seen that- though I HAVE known plenty whom had to use the ER as their primary care before the ACA because no insurance company would take them, and that includes members of my own family. More still whom could only work after Medicare/Medicade were (in my state, recently) expanded- i'd be "indignant" too if I had to regularly choose between amidarone and food. Heck, no telling what kind of support system a person has, as states have different models and families have different scenarios and skills. Even something as simple as a family member's sudden death and willing an item like a basic home to a reliabile car could completely change a person's life, and you'd never know.

Guess stereotypes don't hold up well under scrutiny eh

Finland was Russia's bitch for decades after choosing the wrong murderous totalitarian regime. 

A country full of trees forced to buy it's neighbors trees.  Lost significant parts of its populated land mass.  Returned Soviet citizens who were trying to escape.

I could go on.

Oh we're talking about healthcare.  Got it.

NPR article. Extreme caution. Does not lambaste the President.

In reply to nutherjrfan :

This is huge. And you'll find the only people opposed to it are heavily involved in the system and usually making money from it.

Personal experience: a couple years ago I had an incident with a drill press and luckily only lost some blood and (I believe) broke my thumb (WEAR PPE, FOLKS. The vise can let go.) Hesitant to get a cast anyway, I started calling around to all the local medical imaging places to see how much it would cost to gave it xrayed to confirm (no insurance). Nobody would give me a price. Nobody. I called probably 10 different places before I gave up. A few wouldn't even perform an xray since they will only work with insurance companies. So I took some pain pills, wrapped it up the best I could and assumed I wouldn't have any lasting damage. Good scar, and a new appreciation for drills.

This is huge. I've never had health insurance as an adult. The only places I could get prices from before receiving services were for dental, eyes, and some services at certain walk in medical.

There was also a requirement that those rather numerous pharma commercials you see show a price for the product.  I believe that got shot down, but I think there is at least one commercial that had it in it.

In reply to Curtis :

Curtis you made some valid points in your comments to Duke.  But the pervading theory was it's too late. We can't do anything about it.  
 

I feel you are wrong.  History has proven you wrong. Please let me explain.  Are you aware of how Teddy Roosevelt became president?  ( it's a good read). Anyway here's a guy chosen to be Vice President because he's safe, and he goes and busts up the trusts because it was the right thing to do. 
 

Eisenhower was courted by both republican and Democrats, Runs and becomes President. Builds the interstate highway system because it's the right thing to do.  
 

Kennedy not only kept America out of WW3 but treated Black Americans as  Americans  setting up equal rights because it was the right thing to do.  

I could go on and on how the right person helped make America better.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not too late. As Churchill said Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others. 

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I personally know a nurse case manager who worked a case with an indigent person was kept in the hospital for well over 100 days due to no available discharge. Someone with any support at all would have been discharged far far earlier.  I am sure you are aware of similar cases if you work at a trauma center in a metro area. 
 

Good points, frenchyd

tester said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I personally know a nurse case manager who worked a case with an indigent person was kept in the hospital for well over 100 days due to no available discharge. Someone with any support at all would have been discharged far far earlier.  I am sure you are aware of similar cases if you work at a trauma center in a metro area. 

Not to mention Toebra's patient saga. 
 

Duke said:

tester said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I personally know a nurse case manager who worked a case with an indigent person was kept in the hospital for well over 100 days due to no available discharge. Someone with any support at all would have been discharged far far earlier.  I am sure you are aware of similar cases if you work at a trauma center in a metro area. 

Not to mention Toebra's patient saga. 

 

You get it.
 

It looks like someone took this thread full political a few posts back so I am out. 

barefootskater said:

In reply to nutherjrfan :

This is huge. And you'll find the only people opposed to it are heavily involved in the system and usually making money from it.

Personal experience: a couple years ago I had an incident with a drill press and luckily only lost some blood and (I believe) broke my thumb (WEAR PPE, FOLKS. The vise can let go.) Hesitant to get a cast anyway, I started calling around to all the local medical imaging places to see how much it would cost to gave it xrayed to confirm (no insurance). Nobody would give me a price. Nobody. I called probably 10 different places before I gave up. A few wouldn't even perform an xray since they will only work with insurance companies. So I took some pain pills, wrapped it up the best I could and assumed I wouldn't have any lasting damage. Good scar, and a new appreciation for drills.

Hospitals don't give a price because they don't know themselves.  The hospital pricing strategy is to throw a huge number out there.  You will either pay SOME of it before filing for bankruptcy, or you will default on it and they can claim the inflated amount as a loss.  Either way, it works out for them, and if you're destroyed financially, well...  who cares?  It doesn't matter to them that you can't afford to meet your mortgage or buy a new car or send your kids to school with food in their bellies and new clothes on their backs and all the other things that keep the economy moving, all they care is berk you I got mine.

That is why you get a bill for $10,000, and when you refer them to your insurance, you get an update that says "$1000 recieved, paid in full".  They only expect to get the $1000 in the first place, but they know you have no recourse if you aren't rich enough to have a lawyer, or really good insurance.

I get really riled up when the subject comes up, which is why I generally have been recusing myself from this thread, but to be frank, the system is broken. "Supply and demand" capitalism DOES NOT WORK when the demand is inflexible.  This is how the Shkrelis of the world take $30 lifesaving medications and jack them up to $1200 because, what are you going to do, NOT buy it?  Berk you, pay me.

I'm not saying that single payer or full on nationalized healthcare would be perfect.  I'm saying that it would be a far sight better than than rapetastic system that we have now.

And, for God's sake, make patents on medications non-transferable.  If a company that owns a patent on a drug gets bought, the patent should expire.

It's also because insurance companies do whatever they can NOT to pay full price, coupled with some doctors still setting their own costs (a holdover from the 1970s). Any time you go to your doctor and you're insurance is billed for a procedure or care it starts a 120-day shell game where insurance tries to get the payee to settle for far less, hoping that they cannot hold out. They'll toss ANY price out, hoping that the professional will accept criminal prices in exchange for being paid sooner. 

Not that what hospitals do to hide those costs is excusable, of course- but while this is a good thing, it doesn't tackle the major problem at its core. Insurance still dictates care through holding money and capital hostage, wether it's capital in the form of drugs or specialists or building "networks" that refuse to use resources from outside it. What I think this bill will really do is, force people to realize how many resources Don't get used simply because it's not in their insurance's "network".

tester said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I personally know a nurse case manager who worked a case with an indigent person was kept in the hospital for well over 100 days due to no available discharge. Someone with any support at all would have been discharged far far earlier.  I am sure you are aware of similar cases if you work at a trauma center in a metro area. 
 

God, VERY. Tons of poor diabetics whom lost limbs to surgery and wounds- too mobile to qualify for nursing homes, but can't go home on their own. Some insurance policies still don't allow for assisted living- they only just became eligible to be paid for by insurance with the ACA- so a patient who lived by themselves suddenly can't drive, can't work, and can't afford their house or live there without help? Laying in bed while the bills pile up? I had some ER patients whom treated it like their doctor's office because they physically couldn't get there half the time for wound cleanings or podiatry- and that's just the diabetics! Heck, even had a patient with a fresh trach- hole in the throat for breathing- that was in that spot, But because his insurance ran out, he couldn't stay at the hospital because he couldn't pay! Thankfully we found a place at the last minute for that guy; others weren't so lucky. 

In reply to frenchyd :

Agreed. There's a lot of parallels now with World War 1 and people I listen to (who are far more intelligent than myself) point out cycles as being apart of the human condition- fashion, for instance.

I guess the question becomes then, when do people quit waiting for heroes? Would a generational leader plan to become that? Or would they shape themselves against hard times, let the pressure turn them to diamonds?

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE : Good question. When do we quit waiting? .  
Isn't the real question why should America assume we will be rescued by someone good? 
Yes we have in the past, but in the past we were also the hope for the world.  America would do good good things like Lend Lease or  the Marshal plan.  
But even during that period there were detractors. America First movement,  prewar and Tail gunner Joe McCarthy postwar during the Marshal plan .  
The hysteria of  Japanese internment during the early war years compared to the Heroics of Japanese American troops in Europe. 
Maybe  the idea of America is bigger than any of the failings of America? 

People like to talk about privatization and how it supposedly makes things more efficient. But riddle me this, how is it more efficient to have hundreds of different insurers offering thousands of different plans, forcing health care providers to have large staffs of people just to deal with billing and collections. Wouldn't it seem more efficient to have one insurer with one plan? Wouldn't they also be better positioned to negotiate lower prices? Wouldn't it be more efficient to regionally concentrate some specialties, like hospital X does lots of joint replacements and hospital Y across town deals with the heart surgeries?

As a society you're paying for it anyway, so why not abolish insurance payments from employers and people alike and replace it with taxation that enables services to be delivered more efficiently? You could likely get more service for the same overall cost, or pay less overall.

In reply to RX8driver :

My father was the chief financial guy for the local hospital when the hospitals were run by local societies in BC. I grew up with stories of US Health Insurers contacting LGH asking for the rest of the bill because the billings were too low.

The medical system we have to day reflects the last administrations working us in the direction of single payer.  The preverbal question of "how do you eat an elephant" is in play.  I offer that you have to "cook it" is the phase we we are going through, today.

I have worked. in the "insurance" industry for almost 30 years.  My wife is a RN Case Manager and works in the NICU, think early and sick kids.  All three of our kids were born in the same hospital that she works.  Located in Southern California the facility see's and cares for a very wide variety of patients.  Those that have insurance and those that do not are not turned away. The Hippocratic Oath is the real deal, the scrubs they ware might be a different color based on how they help you but they are there to serve.

How you might have gotten to the facility and why you are there starts the discussion of how the system is mandated by the government, today.  If you are in an accident they, the system,  will gather you up and deliver you to the local Emergency Room and to the best of their ability stabilize your situation. Based on the field assessment provided by the transporting group they address your needs and determine your next level of care.  This is important if you are not bleeding or having trouble breathing.  

Using the ER as your primary care provider, that holding area just beyond the entry doors that never has enough seats, is not the place you want to spend time with you sick kids.   So the health care issue is a "non-emergency" one, right?  Factors like "life style, genetics and just "dump luck" are not fair, just part of stew we call life.  Or, are they?

If handing your self up to big brother for care is something you can embrace and are comfortable with I will not stand in your way.  Please do not impede my willingness to trade my labors and efforts on the health care I am going to spend my money on.  And in that same breath please do not judge the level of care I will receive.

Is that fair?      

jr02518 said:

If handing your self up to big brother for care is something you can embrace and are comfortable with I will not stand in your way.  Please do not impede my willingness to trade my labors and efforts on the health care I am going to spend my money on.  And in that same breath please do not judge the level of care I will receive.

Is that fair?      

As long as you're ok with millions of people dying, resorting to bankruptcy, or having to start a GoFundMe because they don't have the same privilege as you, we're square.  I will continue to fight for equal access to healthcare that doesn't abnormally favor those with the means to afford it.

RX8driver said:

As a society you're paying for it anyway, so why not abolish insurance payments from employers and people alike and replace it with taxation that enables services to be delivered more efficiently? You could likely get more service for the same overall cost, or pay less overall.

This is it.  The people who clamor about "getting something for free" or "but my tax dollars" don't get it.  Canadians (even though they have a tiny fraction of our population) pay FAR less in taxes than we do in taxes and healthcare combined.

As a Canadian I find it strange that people rail against government run healthcare as as a form of socialism but are generally ok with road maintenance, fire departments, police departments and the military being government run. Aren’t these also a form of socialism?

Curtis,

No, the "guilt" card will not work.  I embrace your ability. to exorcize your right of free speech to rally from the street corner all that will follow.  I, accept the responsibilities of my choices and see that as my privilege. 

Do you deny me the that right?

But I am curious, are you not fighting for equal outcome for your vision of healthcare?  

David 

FIrstly, thank you for taking my jerkwad post in stride and not being argumentative.  I was a douche and I apologize.

I certainly celebrate your right to your opinion, but if given the chance, I will deny you the right (via my vote) to live in that privilege at the expense of those less fortunate by no fault of their own.  I just can't envision those consequences you speak of having any place in an advanced society.  I'm not asking you (and those who believe as you do) to randomly pay for poor people, or open your wallet to bigger taxes, I'm actually trying to SAVE you money and improve the general health of the population... which further helps you, not being surrounded by sick-os.

The money is there.  You don't have to pay for it.  We just need the government to stop giving it away to the wrong end of the income scale.

jr02518 said:

Curtis,

No, the "guilt" card will not work.  I embrace your ability. to exorcize your right of free speech to rally from the street corner all that will follow.  I, accept the responsibilities of my choices and see that as my privilege. 

Do you deny me the that right?

But I am curious, are you not fighting for equal outcome for your vision of healthcare?  

David 

David. 
The problem is the Doctors have taken an oath to help anyone. 
So health insurance or not your life will be saved at tax payers expense. 
If you don't have the money to pay the health care system can take any of your assets or future income until it's paid. 
Now the doctors and hospitals are obligated but it's not unknown for them to treat deadbeats to a minimal degree and then allow you to go home to die.  
Those with good insurance get as much treatment as their insurance allows. Then they allow you to go home to die.