JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Sorry. Just re-read your post. Legitimate question of which there is no answer that we can trust.

buffalo Loc: Texas

The taxes it would take to fund a Medicare for All health CARE system would be a hell of a lot less than people (including self employed) and employers are paying now in premiums to private, for profit health INSURANCE corporations that extract $500 BILLION annually in profits that pays for no ones' health CARE. The wait times here can be forever because of the high costs of medical CARE, even for those that have health INSURANCE but cannot afford the high deductibles and co-pays. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/medical-bills/530679/

Canadians are not flocking to the US for health CARE. That is a myth, among many, put out by the private, for profit health INSURANCE corporations that fear a single payer system that would eliminate their ability to continue to rape the US people and businesses out of BILLIONS.

buffalo Loc: Texas

The "working people" are NOT having to pay for my health CARE and I do pay TAXES. Do you think people that are unable to afford health CARE should not get it? The government (taxpayers) is already paying 65% of the costs of health CARE in the US. That 65% of the costs of health CARE is generated by less that 10% of the population. Those that need it the most--the edlerly, disabled and poor. Why? Because those groups are NOT profitable to the health INSURANCE corporations without giant subsidies paid by YOUR and MY tax money! LOL I would rather MY tax money go to pay for MY and others health CARE than their health INSURANCE. Health CARE and health INSURANCE are not the same thing.

Don't assume what you don't know a fucking thing about, asshole.

kankune Loc: Iowa

No...its not a myth. I happen to know many Canadians. 2 words: Charlie Gard....

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

I believe that individually the direct cost of coverage might go down as you say. I also do not see without sweeping changes, from the cost of College, Medical School and prescription Drugs that you will ever entice a sufficient number of doctors to give everyone quick access to health care. There will necessarily be rationing. Like wise you still have a middle man between me and my doctor. Government bureaucracy. I for one don't want that.

Mr Bombastic

The Federal Government is incapable of providing healthcare at a reasonable cost. Healthcare is something that should be handled by the States. Also, we should make an effort to include natural remedies in healthcare. There are many that work and are inexpensive. We need to give the Pharma companies the boot. They do more harm than good.

Nickolai

Obama care was an idea put forward by the insurance industry through the right wing think tank The Heritage Foundation as an alternative to Hillary Care in the early 1990's but disappeared until it was reborn in Mass as Romney Care in 2006. When the Democrats took over congress they were encouraged to adopt the plan and I became Obama care in 2010. The insurance put up $80 billion toward closing the donut hole in Medicare prescription drug plan in exchange for the Democrats dropping the public option. A one payer system is the only answer to the cost of the nations health care hat cost double per capita than the next country. Over 17% of our GDP

Mr Bombastic

We used to have the best, most affordable healthcare in the world. All we need to do is go back to what worked.

buffalo Loc: Texas

Your wrong on both accounts. Did you not see the pie chart of actual Canadians coming to the US for medical CARE? I happen to know many Canadians, also. My doctor brother's wife is a Canadian RN. She would dispute the claim of Canadians flocking to the US for medical CARE.

"But the best-available research shows it's simply not true. Canadians are not fleeing en masse to the US seeking medical care."

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/10/no-trump-canadians-do-not-flee-en-masse-for-us-health-care-commentary.html

There is some serious hypocrisy in the anti-single payer health CARE crowd, especially by the monkeys in DC for the health INSURANCE corporation organ grinders with regards to the Charlie Gard case. Don't want the government involved in health CARE? In the case of Charlie Gard it wasn't. Health CARE should be between physicians and patients, but it was Charlie’s own doctors who were pushing for a palliative CARE-only approach. Ultimately, it wasn’t government bureaucrats, but rather Charlie’s health CARE providers who decided that his condition was beyond treatment. The British courts just happened to agree with the doctors.

To be clear, there would have been no debate — and no controversy — whatsoever if Charlie’s physicians and parents had been in agreement: The physicians would have already proceeded to withdraw life support some time ago, and we would never have heard of the case. This happens in ICUs in the United States every day. In other words, this case was never about what many people thought it was about. It was not about “euthanasia.” It was not about “death panels.” It was not about the “value of life.”

And it damn sure was never about “single payer”. The means by which a health CARE system is funded neither creates nor resolves these difficult situations: They are instead the inevitable consequence of the mid-20th–century invention of the ICU and of life-support tools like ventilators. I would wager that most, if not nearly all, critical-CARE clinicians have found themselves in scenarios where they felt they were doing a true disservice to another human being — performing invasive procedures, maintaining life support, prolonging suffering — because they were compelled to push ahead by a sick patient’s family. But, what in the hell has that got to do with a single payer health CARE system?

You think what dickhead Speaker Ryan and the republicans are trying to do by dismantling the health CARE safety net, which helps ensure that people don’t die simply because they are poor will be better? Think again. There is simply nothing to suggest that the hospital was motivated at any point by anything other than what it saw as Charlie’s best interest. This was never about cost-cutting or rationing; Charlie is simply not, as the headline of Washington Examiner put it, “a baby … condemned to death by socialized medicine.” He is a baby tragically condemned to death by a fatal illness, which would be true in any country. What would you do with parents that wanted to deny their child life saving treatment for religious reasons? They can and should be ignored.

The question of how decisions about the cessation of life support are made is an issue that is separate from how we structure and fund our health CARE system. Attempts to link universal health CARE with one particular approach to end-of-life decision-making are disingenuous and dangerous. Charlie’s doctors have wanted to withdraw life support from him for months because they believe that is the best way they can help him. Those who denounced them are today fighting fervently to withdraw access to health CARE from millions to make way for tax cuts for the rich and continue to let private, for profit health INSURANCE corporations RAPE the American people.

THAT is the real moral travesty!

E

I admit, I did read that wrong. I read it as saving 95% of the money instead of 95% of the people and corporations saving some money no matter how little. But then we get to how much money for putting themselves under one more yoke of government control. One percent would qualify for making your statement correct. So, what would we have with single payer? A million bureaucrats passing through your claims on an antiquated computer system instead of an openly competitive system where insurance companies compete for your dollars by trying to run a better more efficient system. Thank you but open capitalism out does government waste every time. We just haven't had that, especially under ACA.

A shinning example of government control of Health Care is the VA. I know. I go there. I've had mostly good experiences, but I've seen the waste that goes on and on. I've read about how vets died trying to get care. I've read about the government not covering things like Agent Orange and PTS. Pathetic. And we paid into this system by putting our lives on the line for your freedom, and out rights to be free when we returned.

I also have other non VA health issues. Dental. Just had an emergency tooth extraction this morning. I picked my own dentist, based on Internet evaluations and cost and personal recommendation. My choice. I also picked my own dental payment plan. My choice. They studied for years and now make a decent living. No problems. How many would be there under government controls and the inevitable price controls? How good would they be when many excellent students go elsewhere rather then spend all of those years only to be under government control? It is your choice, the drill and fill dentist in a cheap storefront or a good dentist in a top flight clinic with the best dentists around. Or you can wait for government control and get that drill and fill guy whether you like it or not.

Thanks, but I'll take free and open competition any time. We just haven't really had it for a long time and ACA just made everything worse and single payer will be the bottom of the barrel with no way out. Think Cuba.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

I agree. I don't care how many graphs and studies Buffalo shows. Government is inherently inefficient. By the way we can show just as many graphs and studies showing the opposite conclusion of a single payer system. My biggest concern is you are replacing one middleman (Insurance executive) with another (bureaucrat). In a truly competitive health care system profits would be tied to performance. Government doesn't need exemplary performance. Hell they are fine with mediocre, since none ever lose their job. With profit taken out of the equation what incentive is their to spend money efficiently? Especially when it's not their money.

kankune Loc: Iowa

Sorry Nikki...totally disagree. This is Obama's health care plan that he forced on us. Remember the guy that designed it. Americans will never know they're too stupid to understand it. Single payer IS NOT HAPPENING...

kankune Loc: Iowa

Shove the pie chart!!

buffalo Loc: Texas

What we would have with single payer Medicare for All would be 3-5% administrative costs instead of the current 20-25% administrative costs in the "competitive free market" that does not and did not ever exist in the health INSURANCE or pharmaceutical industries. Health CARE is NOT a market. People need health CARE quite differently than the way the way they desire a quality TV or fine automobile. An insurance-funded medical care system means abandoning an unregulated free market for health CARE. The insurer-model creates a three-party managed market in which the patient has surrendered their buying power and much of their discretion to an entity whose interests are not aligned with their own. Insurance companies don’t bleed. Insurance companies don’t get pregnant. Insurance companies don’t get cancer. Insurance companies have certain needs and interests that will never line up squarely with their customers'. Less government does not necessarily mean more freedom, especially with regards to health CARE.

Is a tax cut for the rich and continuing to let private, for profit health INSURANCE corporations RAPE the American people worth excluding millions of Americans from the health CARE they need. That is exactly what the monkeys in DC for the corporate organ grinders favor--screwing the middle class a working poor all for lower taxes for the wealthy and more profits for health INSURANCE corporations all under the guise of "freedom" and "choice".

Your "shining example of government "control" of health CARE" comparison to a Medicare for All system is like comparing apples and oranges. The VA is what socialized medicine looks like. The doctors and medical personnel work FOR the government and the VA hospitals are all OWNED by the government. Even the current Medicare system is not socialistic. All the doctors I have taken my 88 year old Dad to have been in private practices and the hospitals have been privately owned, at least the 2 he has been in. Medicare for All would be the same, only every man, woman and child would be covered. No government bureaucrat dictates what doctor he chooses to see or what hospital to go to or what care he needs. Medicare for All would just a method of paying for health CARE, just like Medicare now. Medicare for All would also cover dental and vision care.

Just like the myth of Canadians flocking to the US for health CARE, Canadian doctors are not flocking to the US because of the Canadian Medicare for All system.

The last time there was "free and open" competition in medical care one could pay the doctor with chickens and he got his medical education from a book to supplement his income from barbering.

Mr Bombastic

There is a little something called faith based healthcare. It is affordable and people get the treatment they need. And the government has nothing to do with it. If the government would simply get out of the way, we could come up with something better. In fact, someone already has.