Why a Singler Payer System Will Be a Failure: healthcare and Big Oil

reply to post by neo96



I have never understood why we had to do this radical overhaul of our healthcare system. They say there are 10 to 15 million without healthcare and 8% of those without coverage is temporary because they are in between jobs. That is about 3% to 5% of our population. So 91% to 95% of Americans have healthcare insurance. Wow!! The fake unemployment number is 9.1% it is really about 14%. The idiots in Washington (all of them) are going to enforce mandatory insurance coverage but do nothing to assist any of us in getting jobs. Funny how they only make $150,000.00 a year but spends $15 million to get elected. Strange that they get a 4% raise every year no matter what. OH! Did you know they never will be in the Medicare system? Once you are a Senator or Congressman you have your on super healthcare insurance for life. No co-pay, no deductibles, and it covers plastic surgery. So they do not care about us lower class dogs and our health. They just want our money. One other thing how does a Senator go into office with a self worth of maybe a $1 million dollars and after one term he is worth $100 million. Fascinating. I guess that $150k salary must be a special kind of money that increases in value a 500% a year.

Washington DC is the big organize crime syndicate this country has ever seen... Like sheep we just follow these guys to the slaughter house. We are slaves to government 5 months a year. It takes the first 5 months of what we earn at our jobs just to pay our taxes. Now they want more. When are Americans going to say enough is enough? All my health problems are because I work two full time jobs just to put a roof over my head and food on the table. No vacation, no new car, no flat screen TV, no cell phone. Work sleep Ramón noodles and bologna. I want some of that $150 lb Kobe beef they are eating at the Whitehouse every Thursday. We paid for it.

That is my Friday rant. Single payer healthcare system will be a disaster. Medicare is broke so let add 200 million more recipients that will fix it. What a joke.

Reading through the replies I just wanted to point out that anyone who refers to other countries as having "FREE" healthcare are either lying or have wool pulled over their eyes. That's a giant red flag to me that you have no clue about universal healthcare.

IT'S NOT FREE! You are paying for it already through your taxes. Here in the U.S. we don't wish to have our taxes jacked even more just to have the govt tell us what kind of health care we can have.

All I have to say about this is that if we stop funding the massive global military and secret wars we instigate across the globe, i think we would be able to give everyone in this country much more affordable health care.

The problem with the health care debate is its the agents of compassion against the agents of greed. And the greedy always are the most powerful, so who do you think will win?

My wife works in a major trauma center non-profit hospital. I am talking a big metro hospital with 13 trauma chopperss and over 600 beds. She works on the revenue side of the hospital. She deals with the insurance companies daily. Here are the REAL issues:

1. Each insurance company imposes its own forms and rules and they change without notice. Of evey dollar spent, fully 1/3 of the healthcare dollar is spent to deal with the administrative mess that is private insurance. On top of that you have the insurance companies' profits. So a major portion of every dollar in the U.S. spent on "healthcare" goes to a middle man that ONLY adds complexity and ZERO real value.
2. Insurance companies that her hospital deals with (all the majors) ROUTINELY claw back money they paid on claims going years back. And they do this without notice and without appeal. At any time they can take back money that they said they should not have spent years ago. How does a hospital do any real planning when they don't know what will be clawed back when.
3. Contrary to the slick commercials, the insurance companies drive who gets what care and when except in emergency situations. OR, the care happens and then the insurance companies deny it, deciding as non doctors, that the treatment was unnecessary, regardless of what the attending physician decided at the time.

These are just a few of the problems. We have not even talked about pharma.

It is a MAJOR scam that benefits ONLY the useless insurance companies.

Originally posted by f4rwest
wow, what a thread full of idealists!

nevermind the fact that America is much larger and diverse then these other countries...
nevermind the FACT that innovation, incentive, and technology will decrease...
nevermind the fact that it's not really that difficult to find a job which will provide you with health care...
nevermind the fact that so many foreigners come HERE to have their procedures done...
nevermind the fact that in America it will eventually lead to rationing...
nevermind the fact that millions of people in america without health care are just flat out lazy and bred to be dependent...
nevermind the fact that other than the military, the government runs nothing right...
nevermind the fact that the people who need health care the most will be the ones who don't get it...
nevermind the fact that there are tons of ways to revamp the current system in favor for a more effective free market solution...
nevermind the fact that you know what medications/treatments are best for you or your loved ones, instead of some bureaucrat sitting at some desk in washington...

silly idealists, redistribution of any kind will ultimately fail....unless you live in a small tribal village in the trees.

it's human nature, man is too flawed to effectively govern man, especially in a country as larger and diverse as America.

Stop begging

I was just wondering, do you by chance have even one supporting document that might help to verify any of the assertions made in your post? Or, was this intended to be just another baseless rant being put forth by your typical right wing conservative?

A not-for-profit single payer system is the only way to achieve universal coverage at an affordable cost. Sooner or later everyone gets sick or injured, therefore it is only reasonable that everyone should pay and everyone should have coverage. If we just take the money currently being spent by private for-profit insurers, on things like ads, t.v. commercials, lobbying congress, bloated administrative cost and profit margins, devote that money to actual health care, I think we might be quite surprised by the outcome and not in the ways portrayed in your post.

reply to post by rgzing


The percentages are actually higher than that.... come on man you live in the states, you should know the percentages better than me....


So here we go;

Number of uninsured Americans rises to 50.7 million


A record rise in the number of people without health insurance across the nation is fueling renewed debate over a health care law that could to work better at boosting coverage than controlling costs.
More than 50 million people were uninsured last year, almost one in six U.S. residents, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. The percentage with private insurance was the lowest since the government began keeping data in 1987.

The reasons for the rise to 50.7 million, or 16.7%, from 46.3 million uninsured, or 15.4%, were many: workers losing their jobs in the recession, companies dropping employee health insurance benefits, families going without coverage to cut costs. Driving much of the increase, however, was the rising cost of medical care; a Kaiser Family Foundation report shows workers now pay 47% more than they did in 2005 for family health coverage, while employers pay 20% more.

Full Article - USA Today

It's not just about the people that are unemployed or cannot afford private healthcare. Do you think all personal or employer related healthcare cover everything whether it be hospital and extras such as dental, optical or other things that are covered under extra cover?

Then think about all the claims that are denied every year! It doesnt matter what the reasoning behind it is, all that matter is that the insurance company is denying claims to increases profit as any private company would do.

So can you justify that? Paying your premiums every year and then being denied healthcare for cancer, a heart attack, stroke or the many other illness' that are denied... so what then is the patient supposed to do? Pay $80,000 for treatment? Pay a similar amoutn for an MRI that takes 5-10 minutes and for a machine the hospital has already paid for?


Thank goodness i live in Australia


I had an MRI last month because i was getting blurred vision and higher than average headaches. There was nothing abnormal thank goodness but you know what, i didnt pay for it, all i needed from my doctor as a referal and it was covered by medicare as with all Australians.

Imagine the stress i would face if i could not have afforded private healthcare and the hospital would not treat me....

In the end it worked out fine for me, but there are many people that have been diagnosed with health problems for similar symptoms.

Fair enough the US population is higher than Australia so then of course full Medicare would cost much more, but then how much higher is the US GDP compared to Australia????

reply to post by Havick007


To be fair the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act made it illegal for heath insurers to drop coverage due to illness or to deny coverage.

What a lot of republicans and conservatives are advocating and still trying to do is to repeal the entire act and think of a solution to the health care problem later. They can't even write a bill that says what they want to do about health care, they just want to repeal that act.

Would I want the oil industry under the control of the federal government? Absolutely! Imagine a system that Sarah 'You Betcha!' Palin setup, if you're going to drill for Alaska's oil you're going to give some of your profits back! What would happen if we did that with everything that private companies did? Coal, trees, natural gas...

Coca-Cola is trying to privatize water. Water. $3 for 12 oz of water that costs barely pennies from the tap. It's insanity. Absolute insanity.

reply to post by links234


What about pre existing conditions?

So if i take out health cover today but they find i have had a certain condition or slight symptoms in the past 6-12 months would the private companies still cover it?

And if they wont cover it for pre existing illness then who would?


I also posted this earlier in the thread but did you see the Moore doco ''Sicko'' in the first 10 minutes it shows a guy who cut off his ring and index finger in a wood cutting accident and because he didnt have private health cover he was given options.... either re-attach the index finger for 60k or the ring finger for 12k and he chose the cheaper option and his index finger ended up in a landfill......

Does that sound right to you?

Originally posted by Havick007
reply to post by links234

 

What about pre existing conditions?

So if i take out health cover today but they find i have had a certain condition or slight symptoms in the past 6-12 months would the private companies still cover it?

Once Mr. Obama signed that bill into law, it became illegal for any private insurance company to drop or deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions. It also became illegal to drop or deny coverage at all. As of right now, everyone in the United States can buy health insurance without fear of being dropped by their provider.

And if they wont cover it for pre existing illness then who would?

Before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed almost no one would cover it. You would either pay three or four times more for your monthly premium or you wouldn't get covered at all and be forced to pay for everything yourself. Today, that is no longer the case.

I also posted this earlier in the thread but did you see the Moore doco ''Sicko'' in the first 10 minutes it shows a guy who cut off his ring and index finger in a wood cutting accident and because he didnt have private health cover he was given options.... either re-attach the index finger for 60k or the ring finger for 12k and he chose the cheaper option and his index finger ended up in a landfill......

I did see 'Sicko'. Some of that film is somewhat irrelevant now (it came out in 2007) with the passage of the PPACA (it became law in 2010) and the Zadroga bill (health care for 9/11 first responders) became law in January of 2011.

Does that sound right to you?

I would much rather have a system like England or Germany in this country. Unfortunately the PPACA was only a small step towards that. Folks like Neo would like to see the Act struck down as unconstitutional and reverse all of that progress in the name of 'freedom' and 'personal' responsibility.

reply to post by links234

I would much rather have a system like England or Germany in this country. Unfortunately the PPACA was only a small step towards that. Folks like Neo would like to see the Act struck down as unconstitutional and reverse all of that progress in the name of 'freedom' and 'personal' responsibility.

People use excuses like socialism or the constitution all the time but seem to forget that the privatised health system or the move to privatised health was only adopoted in the 70's...

The only real goal behind it was to move cost away from government and toward private company that operate on a profit scale.

Also you forgot to mention Australia's health system we have a great health system that dwarfs the US health system....

reply to post by rgzing


Part of the reason this big overhaul was required is that the uninsured (certainly underestimated by you, btw) are a disproportionally huge drag on the health care system and the cost is past on to the insured by way of annual premium increases that far outpace inflation... essentially, making people poorer and poorer at a faster rate every year. The free market is not the answer to this issue - if it were, it would be fixed by now. And, most countries that have adopted universal health care do it quite well (and quite a bit cheaper than us...).

reply to post by remaininlight


You know what amazes me by your reply, is that you basically refer to health insurance of ''us''... Human Beings, the same way you would refer to vehicle or home insurance....

hmmmm



Although i have to add after thinking about what you said a little more in-depth it's good to see you agree with universal health approach, i didnt like the comparison between health ins premium and that of of types of insurance. Although you didnt actually say it, it was the same comparison and i can say that because i have worked in the vehicle and home insurance industry and that is 100% correct that companies regulate premiums depending on previous claims etc....

Health insurance should not come under this type of policy.........

reply to post by Havick007


It's basically the same thing except health insurance is even more of a necessity because you can live without a car - but you can't without a body. If you have a car, you have to have insurance - even if nothing ever goes wrong... so why not a health insurance requirement? or a system that covers everyone?

The thing about health care reform that people don't seem to realize is that someday, everyone needs it - it's inevitable. And, unless you exhaust your life savings on health care while on your death bed (which would suck), insurance or the other insured pay for it

reply to post by remaininlight


Well i hope it does come to that and the government decides to spend more on the citizens of the country rather than of defence spending... although i do realise that GDP and defence spending arent that high, the US does spend too much on defence and basically paranoia of it's world neighbors.

From an outside perspective that may more sense but yeah..hmmm....