Medicare for all

Medicare for all Bernie Sanders town hall:
YouTube


Young turks discussion after:
YouTube

A town of issues to discuss. A ton of issues that have already been discussed.
These are but a few:
- The US spends more per capita on healthcare with worse results than pretty much all other developed countries in the world.
- The US cannot negotiate prices for drugs used in Medicare with the drug companies.
- 30000+ people die because they don't have medical insurance. The fact that you can go to ER isn't enough. If you don't have medical insurance and you can't afford to go to a doctor you only get to ER when that diabetes or cancer you didn't discover in time is about to kill you.
- The US allows pharmaceutical companies and medical insurance companies to give millions of dollars in bribes to elected officials.
- You already have single payer healthcare. Medicare is immensely popular and it works. You just have to allow people to get into it.

Originally posted by @zahlanzi
A town of issues to discuss. A ton of issues that have already been discussed.
These are but a few:
- The US spends more per capita on healthcare with worse results than pretty much all other developed countries in the world.
- The US cannot negotiate prices for drugs used in Medicare with the drug companies.
- 30000+ people die because they don' ...[text shortened]... hcare. Medicare is immensely popular and it works. You just have to allow people to get into it.

My wife and I have medicare. If you don't also have some kind of supplimental policy you can still be in trouble if you have to have expensive proceedures done because medicare only pays 80% of the bill so if you have an operation that has a cost of 200,000 medicare pays 160,000 and you are still stuck with a 40,000 bill. My wife is in poor health and has been in hospital so many times in the past 4 years I have literally lost count. But her supplimental has paid almost every penny medicare does not. The next issue is prescription drugs. Without drug policy of some kind, there was a stretch where we lost our prescription plan for 6 month. Under the plan, say drug X cost 7 dollars but with no plan, 125 dollars. Try living with that for 6 months. Another drug issue: the "donut' hole.

Even with a drug plan, if you spend too much, have too many expensive drugs prescribed, at a certain dollar limit, even the drug policy will stop paying and you again go basically without drug plans till the next January. That is so cynical it is beyond belief. That donut hole only hits the patients with the worse problems. For instance, my wife has among other problems, diabedes and without insurance the injectors cost about 80 dollars good for about one week. She also needs lyrica, we couldn't even afford that at all, where one script worth cost over $400. The whole drug industry is cynical, why can we get the same thing in Canada for less than half the price of the exact same drug in the US? If we could get the expensive stuff from Canada, we would probably never go into the donut hole but as it is we have gone into the donut hole every year for the past 5 years.

Of COURSE congress approved the idea of drug companies being able to legally bribe,oops, not bribe, LOBBY, for favor from senators and congressmen.

It is in the interest of their golden parachute to do so. Now they are in seventh heaven now that it is ok for companies and CHURCHES to donate an infinite amount of money to whomever they think will vote for their special bills.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
My wife and I have medicare. If you don't also have some kind of supplimental policy you can still be in trouble if you have to have expensive proceedures done because medicare only pays 80% of the bill so if you have an operation that has a cost of 200,000 medicare pays 160,000 and you are still stuck with a 40,000 bill. My wife is in poor health and has ...[text shortened]... to donate an infinite amount of money to whomever they think will vote for their special bills.

"My wife and I have medicare. If you don't also have some kind of supplimental policy you can still be in trouble if you have to have expensive proceedures done because medicare only pays 80% of the bill so if you have an operation that has a cost of 200,000 medicare pays 160,000 and you are still stuck with a 40,000 bill."
this brings us to one of the other major issues. is that operation really 200 grand? how do other developed countries pay way less for each medical procedure. I forgot the details but someone made some math a while ago taking i believe a hip replacement procedure as an example. They found something along it being cheaper to buy a first class plane ticket to Spain, have the procedure, go on a several months long vacation, have an accident and break your hip again, have the procedure again and get on a return plane to the US.

Originally posted by @zahlanzi
"My wife and I have medicare. If you don't also have some kind of supplimental policy you can still be in trouble if you have to have expensive proceedures done because medicare only pays 80% of the bill so if you have an operation that has a cost of 200,000 medicare pays 160,000 and you are still stuck with a 40,000 bill."
this brings us to one of the ot ...[text shortened]... accident and break your hip again, have the procedure again and get on a return plane to the US.

Why don't all the people who believe in free healthcare get together and pay for their free healthcare, no more cry baby whining.

Originally posted by @zahlanzi
"My wife and I have medicare. If you don't also have some kind of supplimental policy you can still be in trouble if you have to have expensive proceedures done because medicare only pays 80% of the bill so if you have an operation that has a cost of 200,000 medicare pays 160,000 and you are still stuck with a 40,000 bill."
this brings us to one of the ot ...[text shortened]... accident and break your hip again, have the procedure again and get on a return plane to the US.

It's not really $200 grand. No insurance company would ever pay that kind of money, nor would Medicare. I see hospital bills and then what the insurance companies actually pay. They pay 10 or 20 cents on the dollar.

Hospitals bill insanely high rates that they know insurance companies will negotiate down. But when a private pay person comes in, there's nobody to negotiate with, so they bill the full amount.

That's why people with no insurance who have major health problems either can negotiate with the hospital for months or years, probably ruin their credit and end up still paying too much or declare bankruptcy. No private pay person can afford to actually pay the whole bill, as if he could, he'd have had insurance in the first place.

That's the worst element of the US Healthcare system, and it's one that the ACA did not do a great job at solving.Yes, the ACA increased the number of insured, but it also made insurance policies more expensive and much harder to afford for people who make too much to get subsidized insurance. The repeal of the individual mandate, of course, if just going to make it worse.

Originally posted by @sh76
It's not really $200 grand. No insurance company would ever pay that kind of money, nor would Medicare. I see hospital bills and then what the insurance companies actually pay. They pay 10 or 20 cents on the dollar.

Hospitals bill insanely high rates that they know insurance companies will negotiate down. But when a private pay person comes in, there's nobo ...[text shortened]... ized insurance. The repeal of the individual mandate, of course, if just going to make it worse.

"That's why people with no insurance who have major health problems either can negotiate with the hospital for months or years"
Yes, that's totally a reasonable thing to ask a person dying of cancer. To battle an army of lawyers for that next chemo dose. Or ask every citizen of the wealthiest country in the world to prepare himself for a legal battle every time he wants to do a thorough checkup every 1 or 2 years so he could catch an illness in a manageable state.

"That's the worst element of the US Healthcare system, and it's one that the ACA did not do a great job at solving"
yes, ACA was deeply flawed. i don't think you will find a reasonable person (other than the weak democrat politicians who pushed for it specifically) to say otherwise.

no progressive is pushing for ACA. not now, definitely not then. ACA should have been a single payer system but the weak democrats who couldn't comprehend anything but "slow incremental change is how grownups do politics" gave concession after concession until the ACA became the retarded mutant monster it was when signed.

We are talking about single payer healthcare. We are talking about healthcare as a right. We are talking about negotiating prices (something every capitalist understands). We are talking about banning the practice of bribing politicians. We are talking about medicare for all. This thread isn't about ACA, but nice try derailing the subject (or maybe you did it because you were careless, in which case try to be more attentive next time)

Originally posted by @wajoma
Why don't all the people who believe in free healthcare get together and pay for their free healthcare, no more cry baby whining.

Why don’t the people who want a standing army get together and pay for it? No more cry babying.

Originally posted by @zahlanzi
"That's why people with no insurance who have major health problems either can negotiate with the hospital for months or years"
Yes, that's totally a reasonable thing to ask a person dying of cancer. To battle an army of lawyers for that next chemo dose. Or ask every citizen of the wealthiest country in the world to prepare himself for a legal battle ever ...[text shortened]... r maybe you did it because you were careless, in which case try to be more attentive next time)

So if health care is a right, why should Medicare be able to turn you down for anything?

So the next time Medicare turns someone down for a medical procedure or treatment, are their rights being violated?

Originally posted by @whodey
So if health care is a right, why should Medicare be able to turn you down for anything?

So the next time Medicare turns someone down for a medical procedure or treatment, are their rights being violated?

I would say so.
It shouldn’t be right to deny someone care if they need it.

Originally posted by @zahlanzi
"That's why people with no insurance who have major health problems either can negotiate with the hospital for months or years"
Yes, that's totally a reasonable thing to ask a person dying of cancer. To battle an army of lawyers for that next chemo dose. Or ask every citizen of the wealthiest country in the world to prepare himself for a legal battle ever ...[text shortened]... r maybe you did it because you were careless, in which case try to be more attentive next time)

Jeez. 🙄 🙄 🙄

You're too stupid to know when someone's agreeing with you.

Originally posted by @sh76
Jeez. 🙄 🙄 🙄

You're too stupid to know when someone's agreeing with you.

I could say that you're too stupid to understand when someone is not attacking you but a system. Too dumb to understand that agreeing with someone for the wrong reasons still makes your position flawed, too dumb to understand what the discussion is about and bringing something completely unrelated because it's easier to attack that rather than debate on topic, too stupid to understand when insults are warranted and when they are not. Too stupid to understand when you're contributing something to the discussion and when you're just filling up space with random thoughts.


I don't need you to agree with me, i couldn't care less if you do. I want you to produce a coherent thought when you're debating me or else i will just stop bothering with you.

Or you could just resort to insulting me again. That will save me so much time.

Originally posted by @sh76
Jeez. 🙄 🙄 🙄

You're too stupid to know when someone's agreeing with you.

I think she's saying that you're right in principle, but don't go far enough. Not knowing all the details I don't know about that, rhere are certainly downsides to literally unlimited healthcare, but one thing is certain. What you have now is murderous.

Edit: and both of you are above this spat. Neither of you is whodey.

Originally posted by @shavixmir
I would say so.
It shouldn’t be right to deny someone care if they need it.

Since Medicare denies more people medical care and various treatments than private insurance, we all want Medicare instead?

The issue is who should sit in authority to ration health care. Currently, anyone going into an ER gets treated regardless of insurance. The only question then becomes, how much treatment? Those who cannot afford to pay are rationed as where those who can afford to pay are not rationed as much. Those in favor of a Single Payer system seem to wish for all to be rationed like those who cannot pay.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
My wife and I have medicare. If you don't also have some kind of supplimental policy you can still be in trouble if you have to have expensive proceedures done because medicare only pays 80% of the bill so if you have an operation that has a cost of 200,000 medicare pays 160,000 and you are still stuck with a 40,000 bill. My wife is in poor health and has ...[text shortened]... to donate an infinite amount of money to whomever they think will vote for their special bills.

Medicare must be for all.

Medicare must also be made better.