Here's why creating single-payer health care in America is so hard

[SHRED]

I'm interested in what you all think of this article.
Being for single-payer and Bernie myself I understand what is being written here in terms of what we face.

We must continue forward towards healthcare as a right and not a privilege!


Here's why creating single-payer health care in America is so hard
To become politically feasible, an American single-payer system would necessarily replicate our current system’s most glaring defects.
Updated by Harold Pollack on January 16, 2016, 11:20 a.m. ET

The Hillary Clinton campaign is taking some hard knocks from liberals over its maladroit attacks on Bernie Sanders’ single-payer proposal. In one sense, the knocks are well-deserved. Even if single-payer markedly lowers medical expenditures, proponents such as Larry Seidman estimate that a tax increase of at least 8 percent of GDP would likely be required to finance it. That’s a heavy political lift. It’s about as much as the entire federal income tax on individuals.

Yet as proponents rightly observe, these taxes would replace many visible and invisible ways we now provide to support a health sector that consume more than 17 percent of our economy. The experience of peer industrial democracies suggests that a well-designed single-payer system would be more humane and markedly less expensive than what we have right now.

More:
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/16/10779270/pollack-single-payer-in-america


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[librechik]

1. "more humane and markedly less expensive," i.e., profitable

These two concepts are all you need to understand why our Naz.. I mean our bloodthirsty conservative trillionaire owners will never allow it. The notion we can "democracy" healthcare into place at any point is sadly delusional. In a way, that is why Obamacare was so clever. It tosses a bone to the snarling pitbulls out to stomp on the grave of the New Deal. And of course they will eventually turn that bone into a twelve course meal with bonuses for them and a trickle for the rest of us.

[HughBeaumont]

11. That and it encourages entrepreneurship and employEE's markets.

Benefits are one of the many ways they control us. If for-profit wealthcare were taken out of the picture, more people would leave shitty underpaying jobs or strike out on their own. Employers could likely be sued for age discrimination if the excuse that older hires cost more due to benefits didn't apply.

[Hoyt]

2. Lots of people are just too stupid to understand that tax will replace things we are already paying.

But, I think it will be more than an 8% tax on individuals when things are analyzed. Not saying we shouldn't pay it to ensure everyone has care and the health care system is improved, but it will not be cheap as Vermont learned when they tried to start a single payer system.

[SHRED]

15. I agree that lots of people are that stupid

Many don't even understand how a marginal/progressive tax rate works.
I've heard people say Bernie wants to tax you at 90% if you make over $150K. As if that were true they think it's on the whole amount.
American idiots.

[stillwaiting]

3. I ask myself will we be CLOSER to single payer after a Bernie Presidency or after a

Hillary Presidency.

I strongly believe we would be much closer to single payer after a Bernie Presidency for many reasons.

And, I also believe we would be FURTHER from single payer THAN WE ARE TODAY if Hillary becomes President.

That is very important to me, and it is worth fighting for Bernie because of it.

[Vinca]

4. When they talk about the tax increase necessary for single-payer, they always omit

the savings from not forking over thousands of dollars to insurance companies in premiums and more thousands of dollars in uncovered expenses because of deductibles. I can't imagine anyone would end up paying more for single-payer. One of the big reasons I don't get the reluctance to have everyone covered, no questions asked, is that insured people do not travel around in a bubble that protects them from illness. They can be in line at the post office and have a person with undiagnosed tuberculosis cough all over them. There are lots and lots of people still uninsured or who won't go to the doctor because of deductibles.

[R. P. McMurphy]

6. Well Said!!! nt

[SickOfTheOnePct]

9. Some people would pay more but not most

Anyone that currently receives free insurance from their employer would pay more, as would many high income earners.

Not a huge number of people by any stretch.

[treestar]

5. That was interesting

Good for thought.

Surprised Bernie has never introduced a bill. He gets credit as if he had

[PowerToThePeople]

7. American Health Security Act, S. 1782

http://www.healthcare-now.org/index.php?s=Bernie+Sanders+S.+1782

Introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The American Health Security Act of 2013 (S. 1782) provides every American with affordable and comprehensive health care services through the establishment of a national American Health Security Program (the Program) that requires each participating state to set up and administer a state single payer health program. The Program provides universal health care coverage for the comprehensive services required under S. 1782 and incorporates Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and TRICARE (the Department of Defense health care program), but maintains health care programs under the Veterans Affairs Administration. Private health insurance sold by for-profit companies could only exist to provide supplemental coverage.

Star Member treestar (61,028 posts)
5. That was interesting

Good for thought.

Surprised Bernie has never introduced a bill. He gets credit as if he had

[treestar]

10. Whoever wrote the article somehow doesn't think it counts

It’s telling that no fully articulated single-payer bill was ever drafted as an alternative to the ACA. Such a bill would have been no less complicated, and would probably have been more encyclopedic than the ACA was. A huge reform that creates millions of winners creates millions of losers, too.

Also note it did not pass. I suppose President Obama is to blame? Because it was put on the table after all. Didn't get enough support to go anywhere.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

18. I took that to mean

that no bill for single payer was drafted while the ACA was being drafted. Which is true, as Bernie's bill was proposed in 2013, years after the ACA was signed into law.

[TexasProgresive]

8. What are the stats of the total cost of U.S. health care?

Insurance premiums by individuals and companies
Out of pocket fees by insured and uninsured

My spouse and I are paying about $3,600 in premiums with other out of pocket costs everytime we need care. This is Medicare and supplement insurance. This year we paid about $950 in out of pocket costs not counting prescriptions. So that's $4,550 which is about 10% of our gross income- an 8% increase in tax would be a savings.

[SoCalDem]

12. We will need a filibister proof majority in the senate and

enough strong dems in the house to finally tell the insurance companies it'd time to get off the gravy train....and then shove them off the train..

We will have to enact laws that PROHIBIT companies from providing sweetheart coverage to their upper crusties..

Companies that once provided coverage will have to PAY THE EMPLOYEES WHAT THEY (employers) once paid ...in the form of wages (that should have been regular raises all along)..

Now that employees are making more money in their pockets, THEY will have to start ponying up more than they used to in the form of FICA.... They will still be ahead, because EVERYONE will be paying in based on their income..(the new limit should be $ 1 million).. They will no longer be paying for "employee share" on a policy that may or may not actually do much for them..

Employers will win because they will no longer have to do all that pesky paperwork, and their out of pocket will never increase..

Employees will win because they no longer have to stay in a job they hate because they like the insurance...they will be paid for the job they do, and any raise will not be immediately offset by an increase in insurance premiums.

Insurance will still have a function..they can sell policies to cover the "fancy stuff"..boob jobs..nose jobs..tummy tucks..and of course IF rich folks want concierge doctors or private clinics, insurance enter that market too..

They have ridden the gravy train right off the rails and there will be pain.. but we need healthCARE..not health care INSURANCE..

[annabanana]

13. Put some serious controls on the profits of Big Pharma.. The "Pharma Bro" was only notorious because

he was such a dick.

The massive profit margins for drugs are Standard Operating Procedure for the whole pharmaceutical industry.

[Hoyt]

17. Don't disagree, but drugs are only about 10% of total health care expenditures.

Gotta do something with the rest of the system that has been controlled fairly well by Medicare and private insurers ratcheting down rates.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

14. DU mostly, it seems, no longer cares about single payer. I wonder what changed. nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

16. Single-payer would wipe out the health insurance industry

So, the health insurance companies will dangle money and revolving-door jobs in front of a corrupt congress, ensuring single-payer never happens.