Let's do single payer healthcare

I'm ready for it. We have AverageJoe using Medicare right now but somehow thinking that this is not a government program. It is.

Single payer would cut out the middle man. Estimated cost savings fluctuate but it could make US healthcare as much as $1 trillion less expensive. That's like 20%. So 20% of healthcare goes to insurance, or lobbying, or inflated pharmaceutical pricing, admin overhead, and fraud.

The current system is supposed to be based on capitalism. Shop around, pick the best option for the value, and go with that. But it doesn't operate that way at all. If you get sick you go to the hospital and your health insurance company pays whatever they charge. You or your employer pays insurance for this, so consumer's rarely see the price tag, and there is no motivation within the fee-for-service health care system currently to keep prices down.

Single payer changes the math on all of that. Employers would have a much lower cost to hire a worker. Employees would receive higher salaries and have less come out for health insurance. Hospitals would get paid by community needs, not by fee-for-service, so you'll have fewer shady doctors recommending back surgery for no reason.

It's just a better system. Capitalism doesn't work for health care.

Y'all just need to bite the bullet and pay 15 percent tax on everything under the sun like Canada.

We have basic dental and basic health care because we pay 15 percent tax on everything you can think of.

We need a public option as was originally planned under Obama before it was forced to be scrapped.

America is too unstable to have a purely government-run healthcare system. Dems set up single-payer, Republicans take down, ad infinitum. Just like Trump did with Obamacare and Medicaid. Or there will be another record-long government shutdown keeping people from using their coverage.

A public option, as long as it offers the same coverage as most plans, will force health insurance to decline.

@vivify said
We need a public option as was originally planned under Obama before it was forced to be scrapped.

America is too unstable to have a purely government-run healthcare system. Dems set up single-payer, Republicans take down, ad infinitum. Just like Trump did with Obamacare and Medicaid. Or there will be another record-long government shutdown keeping people from using th ...[text shortened]... ption, as long as it offers the same coverage as most plans, will force health insurance to decline.

@wildgrass said
Single payer would work better and for cheaper, run like a utility or a school district. Just like education budgets, payments are distributed for community need, not for specific services.

Public options are still fee-for-service which in my mind is the biggest issue in healthcare right now. Providers have a perverse incentive to treat people using expensive procedures ...[text shortened]...

I don't think other public things like schools have trouble operating under government shutdowns.

@vivify said
That's because schools are run at the state level.

Which brings up an interesting idea: state-level single-payer? Maybe something to consider since the federal government will never enact this; even if they do, the Republican/Democratic friction is too chaotic for it to work for long.

I'd agree with you if we didn't have children in Congress. Given that the divide ...[text shortened]... is the only semi-realistic choice.

Man, we really need more political viable political parties.

@wildgrass said
I'm ready for it. We have AverageJoe using Medicare right now but somehow thinking that this is not a government program. It is.

Single payer would cut out the middle man. Estimated cost savings fluctuate but it could make US healthcare as much as $1 trillion less expensive. That's like 20%. So 20% of healthcare goes to insurance, or lobbying, or inflated pharmaceutical ...[text shortened]... g back surgery for no reason.

It's just a better system. Capitalism doesn't work for health care.

@vivify said
We need a public option as was originally planned under Obama before it was forced to be scrapped.

America is too unstable to have a purely government-run healthcare system. Dems set up single-payer, Republicans take down, ad infinitum. Just like Trump did with Obamacare and Medicaid. Or there will be another record-long government shutdown keeping people from using th ...[text shortened]... ption, as long as it offers the same coverage as most plans, will force health insurance to decline.

@Metal-Brain said
But the democrat party did not want single payer. They wanted the republican health care plan so they got it. Democrats controlled congress at the time too, so you cannot say they didn't have the votes.

Why are you ready for it? You were not ready for it when the democrat party had the votes to do it.

https://www.salon.com/2010/03/12/single_payer/

@Zahlanzi said
let them
and pay the political price

@wildgrass said
No one was ready in 2010. Now we're ready. The public option (obamacare) doesn't really do the job of keeping costs down. Sure, the existing system could be incrementally improved on and expanded, but with single payer we get something much cleaner and I think there is more political enthusiasm for the types of legislation that will bring costs down for everyday Americans.

@wildgrass said
The US healthcare system is currently so messed up and corrupt it's not funny. How can anyone, democrat or republican, make the argument that the way America does healthcare is the only best way there is?

It seems like just pick any other system from any other developed country, any one, and it would be better.

It's so bad. You need a degree in accounting just to manage a small family in the throes of orthodontics.

@Metal-Brain said
I am calling you out.
Why was no one ready for it in 2010? Seems to me the only one that was not ready for it was Obama. Democrats controlled congress. Why were democrats not ready?

This is exactly why the establishment likes the midterms to make the POTUS a lame duck president. So it is not obvious they want no change by making one party turn against itself and adop ...[text shortened]... y are traitors. That makes it too obvious that partisan divide is not the real reason for no change.

@Metal-Brain said
I am calling you out.
Why was no one ready for it in 2010? Seems to me the only one that was not ready for it was Obama. Democrats controlled congress. Why were democrats not ready?

This is exactly why the establishment likes the midterms to make the POTUS a lame duck president. So it is not obvious they want no change by making one party turn against itself and adop ...[text shortened]... y are traitors. That makes it too obvious that partisan divide is not the real reason for no change.

@no1marauder said
The House passed the ACA, including a public option, by a 220-215 margin on November 7, 2009 with Democrats voting for it by a 219 to 39 margin.https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2009887

They needed 60 votes in the Senate for the public option and could not get them because of opposition from independent Joe Lieberman (though he voted for the ACA without it). But a large ma ...[text shortened]... You can't seem to understand this, but sometimes in governing you have to take the best you can get.