We love the ACA but we will definately love single payer more. People ask why their insurance costs more now. They still think the ACA is insurance. Why can't they understand it is not insurance but a group of regulations designed to keep insurance companies from duping us out of our money. It's going to cost more for them to sell us something they cannot cancel when we need it! The new regulations state that they can only keep a certain percent of our premium as profit, so...hmmm, wonder why they are making us pay more??? I can promise you they aren't going to give up their lear jet or one of their summer homes, so they charge us more for the policy. When people realize there is no bigger predatory industry than health insurance, they will happily support a single payer system.

We love the ACA but we will definately love single payer more. People ask why their insurance costs more now. They still think the ACA is insurance. Why can't they understand it is not insurance but a group of regulations designed to keep insurance companies from duping us out of our money. It's going to cost more for them to sell us something they cannot cancel when we need it! The new regulations state that they can only keep a certain percent of our premium as profit, so...hmmm, wonder why they are making us pay more??? I can promise you they aren't going to give up their lear jet or one of their summer homes, so they charge us more for the policy. When people realize there is no bigger predatory industry than health insurance, they will happily support a single payer system.

The Many Failures of Single Payer

From Vermont to Britain, it’s not working out.

Vermont’s incumbent governor, Peter Shumlin, wants his state to become the first to launch a government takeover of its health-care system. But the results of last month’s election could give him pause. He was unable to secure a majority of votes this November — after winning 58 percent of the vote two years ago. Now the state legislature will determine whether to send Shumlin back for another term. What happened in between? Vermont botched the launch of its state-run insurance exchange. By 2017, the exchange is supposed to serve as the “infrastructure” for a single-payer system, with the state picking up the tab for just about every resident’s health care. That exchange hasn’t even gotten off the ground, and state officials have no idea how to raise the $2 billion a year they’ll need to operate a single-payer system. Vermont’s struggle to implement single-payer health care shouldn’t be a surprise. Such systems are failing to deliver affordable, quality care all over the world. And ordinary citizens are starting to notice. Shumlin’s administration announced last month that it would shut down the state’s Green Mountain Care exchange for repairs that could take weeks. One state senator said its rollout “has been pretty much a disaster” and “has shaken a lot of people’s faith in the ability of state government to put together something that would work.” Even if the state could figure out how to operate a single-payer system, it wouldn’t be able to afford it. A 2013 University of Massachusetts study commissioned by the state concluded that Vermont would have to come up with $1.6 billion in new revenue every year to pay for the plan. Now the state estimates that single payer will take $1.7 billion to $2.2 billion in additional annual revenue. Vermont collects $2.7 billion a year in taxes. How does it expect to boost its tax take by 80 percent to pay for single payer? Vermonters should be thrilled that single payer has false-started in their state. For evidence that single payer doesn’t work, look no further than the United Kingdom and Canada. Britain’s National Health Service is projected to face budget shortfalls of 30 billion pounds — nearly $47 billion — annually by 2020. The government is responding to this fiscal squeeze by effectively rationing care. Last year, the number of family-practice doctors who appealed to the National Health Service to stop accepting new patients doubled. Between April and June, nearly 16,000 scheduled operations were canceled for non-medical reasons. That’s the highest such figure in nine years. As care has become scarce, British patients have taken matters into their own hands. The number of patients paying for treatment on their own has increased tenfold in the past two years. That’s because paying out of pocket allows patients to jump ahead of the interminable waiting lists for care. This winter, the NHS is actually calling on the Red Cross to “stave off an NHS winter crisis as waiting lists reach a record high,” as British newspaper The Telegraph put it. More than 3 million people are on waiting lists for treatment — the most since January 2008. In June, more than 32,000 patients had waited at least 18 weeks for treatment. If Britain’s health-care system has to be rescued by the same folks who deliver emergency care in war zones, perhaps it’s a sign that single payer doesn’t work. Confidence in single-payer health care is also eroding in Canada. An August poll commissioned by the Canadian Medical Association found that 78 percent of Canadians over 45 are worried that they won’t be able to access care when they need it. Eighty-one percent of older Canadians say they are worried about the quality of care they will receive. Countries without single-payer systems are doing their best to keep things that way. Last month, Swiss voters rejected a plan to scrap their private insurance system for single payer. Nearly two-thirds of the country opposed the measure — significantly more than polls conducted before the vote predicted. Vermonters would be wise to note the failures of single payer abroad — if the Green Mountain State completes its journey toward single payer, waiting lists, budget-busting costs, and rationing await. And to avoid this single-payer outcome for all Americans, Obamacare must be repealed and replaced.

The false promise of single-payer healthcare

Government-run, single-payer health care is back in vogue. It’s the left’s favored fallback as ObamaCare fails. And the Senate just held a hearing on single-payer systems in other countries — with no shortage of witnesses touting the supposed benefits.

As ObamaCare continues to disappoint, some states are pushing for a single-payer replacement within their borders. Vermont is working to create such a system; Hawaii’s governor has singled out single-payer as the only potential replacement for his state’s failing exchange. And legislators have offered up proposals to institute single-payer in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Colorado.

Single-payer’s cheerleaders cite Canada as proof of the system’s superiority. It’s a foolish fetish: Our northern neighbor’s health-care system is plagued by rationing, long waits, poor-quality care, scarcities of vital medical technologies and unsustainable costs. That’s exactly what’s in store for America if we follow Canada’s lead.

As a native of Canada, I’ve seen this reality firsthand. To keep a lid on costs, Canadian officials ration care. As a result, the average Canadian has to wait 4½ months between getting a referral from his primary-care physician to a specialist for elective medical treatment — and actually receiving it.

Mind you, “elective treatment” in Canada doesn’t mean Botox or a tummy tuck. We’re talking about life-or-death procedures like neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery or cardiovascular surgery.

Bostonians face the longest wait times for an appointment in America, according to Merritt Hawkins, a consultancy. That’s no surprise, given that Massachusetts essentially enacted ObamaCare in 2006, four years before it went national. Even so, the average wait in Boston is 45.4 days — about three months less than in Canada.

But you can bet the waits in Beantown are getting longer, as the effects of the government-heavy system continue to kick in. Canada’s wait times are certainly growing: That average 18-week delay for “elective” referals is 91 percent longer than in 1993.

There’s also a severe shortage of essential medical equipment. Canada ranks 14th among 22 OECD countries in MRI machines per million people, with an average wait time to use one at just over eight weeks. Canada ranks a dismal 16th in CT scanners per million people, with an average wait time of over 3.6 weeks.

The United States ranks second in MRI machines per-capita, and fifth in CTs.

Every Canadian is technically “guaranteed” access to health care. But long waits and the scarce resources leave many untreated.

When people aren’t treated in a timely fashion, their conditions worsen, which often means significantly more expensive and extensive treatments. The Center for Spatial Economics, a Canadian research outfit, estimates that wait times for just four key procedures — MRI scans and surgeries for joint replacement, cataracts and coronary-artery-bypass grafts — cost Canadian patients $14.8 billion a year in excess medical costs and lost productivity.

Nor is Canadians’ treatment close to “free”: Patients may only have to pay a nominal fee when they get treatment. But the typical Canadian family pays about $11,300 in taxes every year to finance the public-insurance system.

Vermont is learning this high-tax reality firsthand. One Democratic state representative has admitted that its single-payer system will “cost more” than the initial estimate of $1.6 billion to $2.2 billion a year. Avalere Health, a consultancy, estimates that the state will have to essentially double its tax revenue to pay for the system.

Because of the low quality of care and long waits in their home country, many Canadians come to the United States for medical attention — over 42,000 in 2012.

Many of these are part of Canada’s political elite. Single-payer may be good enough for their constituents, but it’s apparently not good enough for them.

In 2010, the premier of Newfoundland flew to Florida for heart-valve surgery. Questioned about the decision, he said, “This was my heart, my choice and my health.” Millions of ordinary Canadians would surely love to have that option.

Anne Doig, former head of the Canadian Medical Association, has called the system “sick” and “imploding.” Dr. Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon in Vancouver who runs the private Cambie Clinic, has quipped that Canada is a country where a dog can get a hip replacement in less than a week — but his owner would have to wait two years.

Canada’s single-payer system isn’t one America should long for — it’s one we should strenuously avoid.

Wonder why the Lame Stream Media is not reporting this?

Tribune News Service | Posted on June 3, 2015
WASHINGTON (TNS) — Nationwide enrollment in health plans provided through the Affordable Care Act slipped to 10.2 million in March as consumers dropped coverage or failed to pay premiums on policies they selected, the Obama administration announced Tuesday.

That is down from 11.7 million sign-ups recorded in February when the 2015 enrollment period closed.

The new data also underscored how many consumers rely on federal insurance subsidies made available by the law. About 85 percent of 2015 enrollees are getting assistance to buy coverage on the marketplaces.

Consumers making less than four times the federal poverty level — or about $97,000 for a family of four — qualify for subsidies.

How long that assistance will remain available is unclear, however. The Supreme Court is expected to rule this month in a challenge that claims the law prohibits these subsidies in states that are not operating their own insurance marketplaces through the health law.

The legal challenge before the Supreme Court may affect as many as 7.5 million consumers in 37 states.

There is also growing evidence that uncertainty over the case may be pushing up insurance premiums, as insurers prepare for major disruptions that would be caused by the elimination of subsidies.

Noam N. Levey
Tribune Washington Bureau