Sanders: ‘I'm Going to Introduce a Medicare-for-All, Single-Payer Program’

originally posted by: Flatfish

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: FauxMulder
a reply to: brutus61

A single payer system always has high cost and low quality.

Proof? Or are you just pulling that out of your arse? Because if you study Medicare, it's pretty good with a low operating overhead.

You're right, his assertions are nothing more than smelly gas.

If I'm not mistaken, Medicare has an administrative cost that's at or near 3% which is astronomically low for the industry.

I don't believe there's a single for-profit, private healthcare insurance provider that can come anywhere close to those numbers.

While some people's alternative facts may disagree, the actual data regarding the various universal healthcare systems enjoyed throughout the industrialized world shows that they provide healthcare to their citizens at a lower per capita cost with better statistical outcomes.

Oh yeah, both public & private insurance providers are susceptible to fraud & abuse.

Don't let anyone make you believe that it doesn't happen in their house because that's a bunch of baloney as well.

I totally agree.

But I bet we will see the Retardicans make their normal ad hominem attacks against Bernie rather than have a serious discussion. As if the idea of monopolies and cartels do not exist. And every CEO is a heavenly saint who just wants to serve the people. Their position is just baloney. They don't care at all about any objections the Democrats make.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
I just want this to sink in, those of you that want socialized medicine. . . . basically, you want the Trump administration in charge of your health care.

I'll just sit back and laugh for a while.

The "Trump Administration" is only one of the three branches of government. Regardless of what you or he may think, he's not a dictator.

Nobody's putting Trump in charge of our healthcare. I thought that became pretty obvious just the other day when they couldn't get his plan passed.

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: FauxMulder
a reply to: Flatfish

The low overhead of medicare is a myth

Many people wrongly believe that Medicare is more efficient than private insurance; that view was often stated by champions of Obamacare during the debate preceding the law's enactment. These advocates argued that Medicare's administrative costs — the money it spends on expenses other than patient care — are just 3% of total costs, compared to 15% to 20% in the case of private, employer-sponsored insurance. But these figures are highly misleading, for several reasons.

Medicare is partially administered by outside agencies First, other government agencies help administer the Medicare program. The Internal Revenue Service collects the taxes that fund the program; the Social Security Administration helps collect some of the premiums paid by beneficiaries (which are deducted from Social Security checks); the Department of Health and Human Services helps to manage accounting, auditing, and fraud issues and pays for marketing costs, building costs, and more. Private insurers obviously don't have this kind of outside or off-budget help. Medicare's administration is also tax-exempt, whereas insurers must pay state excise taxes on the premiums they charge; the tax is counted as an administrative cost. In addition, Medicare's massive size leads to economies of scale that private insurers could also achieve, if not exceed, were they equally large.

Administrative costs are calculated using faulty arithmetic But most important, because Medicare patients are older, they are substantially sicker than the average insured patient — driving up the denominator of such calculations significantly. For example: If two patients cost $30 each to manage, but the first requires $100 of health expenditures and the second, much sicker patient requires $1,000, the first patient's insurance will have an administrative-cost ratio of 30%, but the second's will have a ratio of only 3%. This hardly means the second patient's insurance is more efficient — administratively, the patients are identical. Instead, the more favorable figure is produced by the second patient's more severe illness.

read more about why that is wrong here

I'm not sure I trust the three INDIVIDUALS cited as sources. Maybe you are right. But according to everyone else, Medicare has a 2% operating overhead because they do not have 50% of the administration costs going to the executives. I'm okay for having a fair discussion. As long as the Retardicans disclose the complete executive compensation package in the discussion.

The executive compensation package also has to factor in any contractual costs for golden parachutes. I thing that should be part of the conversation. If the postal workers have to have their pensions figured into the finances then so do the CEOs golden parachute costs.

originally posted by: Flatfish

originally posted by: DBCowboy
I just want this to sink in, those of you that want socialized medicine. . . . basically, you want the Trump administration in charge of your health care.

I'll just sit back and laugh for a while.

The "Trump Administration" is only one of the three branches of government. Regardless of what you or he may think, he's not a dictator.

Nobody's putting Trump in charge of our healthcare. I thought that became pretty obvious just the other day when they couldn't get his plan passed.

The members of the congressional committees still have some power in this country. Despite the desire by the right to have a strong right wing military style dictatorship.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Medicare also shorts the hospital or doctors office. We only get a small % of the dollar back in reimbursement not the full dollar.

originally posted by: havok

originally posted by: FauxMulder
Like I said before never has Government fixed anything. Everything they touch gets worse. More regulations, more taxes, more bureaucracy, less freedom.

Here is one point that I used to agree with. But these days I don't. If the government didn't step in 40 years ago to fix our air pollution, water pollution and land pollution caused from the thousands of steel and iron mills dumping their byproducts directly into the very waterways we drink from, our country would look like Beijing, China. That coupled with the fact that most of them are shut down, are the reasons we have clean waterways and (mostly) clean air today.

So, we have to give them some credit. Its a necessary evil to have a gov't that tells mankind NOT to pollute their own water and air.

Without it, people will do whatever they please if it means more money for them. Disgusting, but the nature of business is not to help people thrive. Its to make money.

Maybe a compromise is for the government to create an international market place for hospitals. This way, someone can take a flight to India to get a hospital operation performed by the same doctors with the same equipment. That would get the cost to a fraction of what US hospitals charge. Us hospitals charge Pentagon prices times two!

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: dfnj2015

ok.

Again, if we have socialized medicine, you won't have any say in your healthcare, or healthcare needs.

You'll get what you get.

Now please take a number and stay behind the yellow line. Your appendix will be removed as soon as the paperwork is correct.

Having a universal healthcare system does not prevent people having private healthcare. Most European countries have a mix of both.

In the UK if you don't like the service from the NHS you go private. As the private care has to compete against the NHS it is fraction of the cost of the US.

Stop talking rationally. This is America. We are blind fanatics shouting out hyperbole with no point of reference to reality.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: dfnj2015

ok.

Again, if we have socialized medicine, you won't have any say in your healthcare, or healthcare needs.

You'll get what you get.

Now please take a number and stay behind the yellow line. Your appendix will be removed as soon as the paperwork is correct.

What a load of Bull Sh#t!!!!!!

How much say do you get when private insurance providers decide they won't cover a procedure?

And please don't try to tell me that you just change providers to one that does, because we all know that if one carrier provided a coverage that no one else did, everyone with that ailment would quickly move to that company, diluting their pool of healthy beneficiaries and driving up the overall cost for coverage.

The various healthcare insurance providers are relatively uniform with respect to their coverages. The only things that really change are premiums, deductibles & co-pays.

At least if it's my government, I get to vote on who represents me within that government. Which is a helluva lot more than I get with a for-profit provider.

Medical procedures should be accepted or denied based solely on the merits of the procedure and NOT based on profitability or lack thereof.

I just have to wonder if participants here are concerned more with MONEY or with HEALTH. For my part, I'm concerned about both, but health is MORE important.

I wonder how many of the members just don't want that their premium might contribute to the cost of some poor person's insulin or a baby's hospitalization with whooping cough caused by parents who refused to vax.

Just wondering.

I also wonder why they think that if there was no private insurance or even employee-sponsored insurance anymore, that they would still have to buy insurance from their employer or buy it privately. It's like they don't realize they'd pay LESS because universal would DIRECTLY ELIMINATE the costs they pay now. There would no longer be premiums, the deductibles, and the out-of-pocket expenses that we have right now.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
I also wonder why they think that if there was no private insurance or even employee-sponsored insurance anymore, that they would still have to buy insurance from their employer or buy it privately. It's like they don't realize they'd pay LESS because universal would DIRECTLY ELIMINATE the costs they pay now. There would no longer be premiums, the deductibles, and the out-of-pocket expenses that we have right now.

Where have you seen that there would be no premiums, deductibles, or out-of-pocket cost?
Who's gonna pay, the pixies?
It's gotta come from somewhere...it always does.

originally posted by: Flatfish




Medical procedures should be accepted or denied based solely on the merits of the procedure and NOT based on profitability or lack thereof.

Medical procedures will just be based on if you can pay taxes afterwards.

Try getting things changed at the DMV or the VA.

That's what it'll be like.

a reply to: FauxMulder

Totally agree 100%

When money rules business and gov't, all we have are problems.
Career politicians ruined any semblance of a good gov't.

So honestly our own individual personal responsibility lies in keeping our politicians in check, and unfortunately we are too busy in our consumer lifestyles, or distracted by glitz and glam.

Maybe by design.

originally posted by: brutus61
As a Trump supporter I will probably not be received well with this post but I believe this is the right way to go. With big insurance companies out of the way the overall cost of healthcare will be reduced immensely. I actually would have backed Bernie because of this alone. If our country has the highest medical costs and lowest care, there is something wrong. So what it it that lowers cost and improves performance? Single payer system.

“Ideally, where we should going is to join the rest of the industrialized the world and guarantee health care to all people as a right. And that's why I'm going to introduce a Medicare-for-all single-payer program,” Sanders said.

I think if Bernie and President Trump got together on this all Americans would experience the feeling of MAGA.

In the short term, Sanders advocated his bill that would lower the cost of prescription drugs. “President Trump said a whole lot of stuff on the campaign trail. One of the things he talked about was lowering the cost of prescription drugs. There is wonderful legislation right now in the Senate to do that. “President Trump, come on board. Let's work together. Let's end the absurdity of Americans paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs…”

I recently wrote a letter to President Trump expressing my opinion of some of the problems with mediciad and possible fixes. I have not heard back but will not stop trying nonetheless.

Here is a link to the story.

LINK

Bernie is a sellout watch and learn! At first he will be all for something that sounds good then after it picks up steam he will tweek it so its worse then what you had before he did this with the audit the fed bill. Bernie is a scam artist, look at how he was with hillary he endorsed hillary even after he knew he got cheated by the dnc and after hillary flipped script on the TTP and he basically wanted everyone to ignore hillary home brew email server in her basement with classified information on it. Bernie is a fraud!

I also think that the single payer program would be better than what we have. But knowing our government, they will screw it all up. They will try to boost it way more than medicare is and it will flop. The insurance companies can offer something like extended coverage for things.

originally posted by: DBCowboy

originally posted by: Flatfish




Medical procedures should be accepted or denied based solely on the merits of the procedure and NOT based on profitability or lack thereof.

Medical procedures will just be based on if you can pay taxes afterwards.

Now that's just being cynical and you know you just made it up.

Not that it matters, but some beneficiaries never paid tax in the first place. Due to birth defects, etc., some people never even have the opportunity to work or pay taxes.

Does that mean they're not entitled to healthcare in your book?

originally posted by:
DBCowboy

Try getting things changed at the DMV or the VA.

That's what it'll be like.

It's not as impossible as you may think. I remember when we wanted to get organ donor designation reflected on our drivers licenses here in Texas. We petitioned our state legislators and we got it done.

The point is, there is an avenue for change when you're dealing with elected representatives.

Now, as a customer of for-profit healthcare insurance providers, when was the last time you got them to change anything in your favor or to your liking?

(Short of having your government regulate them into doing it, that is.)

"" Sanders: ‘I'm Going to Introduce a Medicare-for-All, Single-Payer Program’ ""

So if this gets voted down, does that mean Sanders will automatically support a different system ?

a reply to: Flatfish

I'm not saying socialized medicine won't happen, but I can say it won't be the utopia you socialists thought it was going to be.

I'll still laugh. (It's the best medicine)

a reply to: FauxMulder

Even on the graph you provided, Medicare's administrative cost is less than half that of the private insurers.

If a patient is older and sicker, in only makes sense that their medical expenses will be higher than someone younger and healthier. That also means they will have more doctor/hospital visits and more claims to process which is all part of administrative cost.

I suspect that if we adopted Medicare for all where the government program got the benefit of now having a younger/healthier pool of beneficiaries, the administrative cost may go even lower than 3% because there's less per capita administering to do.

a reply to: Flatfish

Yes, but did you read this part?

Medicare is partially administered by outside agencies First, other government agencies help administer the Medicare program. The Internal Revenue Service collects the taxes that fund the program; the Social Security Administration helps collect some of the premiums paid by beneficiaries (which are deducted from Social Security checks); the Department of Health and Human Services helps to manage accounting, auditing, and fraud issues and pays for marketing costs, building costs, and more. Private insurers obviously don't have this kind of outside or off-budget help. Medicare's administration is also tax-exempt, whereas insurers must pay state excise taxes on the premiums they charge; the tax is counted as an administrative cost. In addition, Medicare's massive size leads to economies of scale that private insurers could also achieve, if not exceed, were they equally large.

Administrative costs are calculated using faulty arithmetic But most important, because Medicare patients are older, they are substantially sicker than the average insured patient — driving up the denominator of such calculations significantly. For example: If two patients cost $30 each to manage, but the first requires $100 of health expenditures and the second, much sicker patient requires $1,000, the first patient's insurance will have an administrative-cost ratio of 30%, but the second's will have a ratio of only 3%. This hardly means the second patient's insurance is more efficient — administratively, the patients are identical. Instead, the more favorable figure is produced by the second patient's more severe illness.