Medicare for all should replace Obamacare

[babylonsister]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/01/06/medicare-for-all-should-replace-obamacare-marcia-angell-column/96160514/

Medicare for all should replace Obamacare: Column
Marcia Angell Published 12:18 p.m. ET Jan. 6, 2017 | Updated 10 hours ago
Republicans have no realistic alternative to the ACA. It's time for single-payer.

snip//

What will the Trump administration do? While Trump calls for “repealing and replacing” Obamacare, he has never said what he would replace it with. But isolated proposals have been offered by other Republicans: They would permit insurance to be sold across state lines, which means that companies in states with lax regulations would be able to sell substandard plans elsewhere; they would abolish the mandate that requires people to buy insurance, but keep the provision that requires insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions (an idea that would cause premiums to skyrocket); and they would promote health savings accounts, which are essentially tax-free savings plans that favor the wealthy. What is absolutely certain, given the Republican rhetoric and Trump's nomination of Rep. Tom Price for secretary of Health and Human Services, is that we will move very sharply toward an even more expensive, inadequate and unequal health system.

Bernie Sanders had it right. The best way to provide universal health care at a sustainable cost is to extend Medicare to everyone, while implementing some needed reforms. Medicare is essentially a single-payer system for those over age 65 — government financed, but privately delivered. Because it uses the same profit-oriented providers as the rest of the system, it would need some reforms. That would include shifting hospitals and other providers to a non-profit delivery system, admittedly a huge challenge that could prove as controversial as Obamacare itself. We could ease the transition by switching to universal Medicare one decade at a time, starting by dropping the eligibility age from 65 to 55.

Paying for Medicare for All would require an increase in taxes — perhaps an earmarked progressive income tax for the purpose — but that increase would be offset by the elimination of premiums and out-of-pocket costs, and the slowing of inflation that stems from our market-based system. As it now stands, some 65% of health costs are already paid by the federal government in one way or another. Health policy experts estimate this would increase to 80% with Medicare for All. Since employers would no longer have the expense of providing health insurance, they would be more competitive in global markets and would likely hire more workers.

We are now between a rock and a hard place. Obamacare is faltering and the incoming Trump administration has no realistic alternative. Paradoxically, this might be exactly the right time to push for a national health program. Yes, repeal Obamacare, but not without replacing it, and the best replacement is Medicare for All. Some polls suggest most Americans favor such a system; we should pick up our metaphorical pitchforks and torches and make that preference known.

[doc03]

1. But they want to eliminate medicare too. nt

[babylonsister]

2. So we need to fight back against them eliminating anything.

I think it's time to use our voices.

[SlimJimmy]

3. How so? Do you have a link. I'd love to research that.

[doc03]

5. It's been common knowledge for like 70 years the Republicans

want to do away with SS and Medicare ever since it started. I just heard that they have a proposal for balanced billing
on Medicare, that was on Thom Hartmann a couple days ago. If you are a Democrat you shouldn't require any links.

[SlimJimmy]

12. Nice snarky answer. But I have to admit, I'm not impressed.

Maybe you can take that act on the road. I asked a very straight forward question. But in the interest of fairness, I'll ask again. Do you have a link to a GOP plan that gets rid of Medicare in the foreseeable future. I realize that they want to privatize it, but that doesn't do away with it, it just changes how it is funded. A terrible idea, by the way, but not the end of it per se. So help me out snarky guy ... throw a Democratic brother a link.

[doc03]

14. I am not wasting my time hunting links down for you for things any Democrat should

know. Do you know what balanced billing is? Well that will gut Medicare. Privatizing Medicare isn't changing how it is funded it is
it is putting insurance companies in charge and destroying it. If you just stand by and watch you won't need any links you can witness
the destruction of Medicare yourself.

[SlimJimmy]

16. In other words, you don't have squat. Got it.

I am not wasting my time hunting links down for you for things any Democrat should know.

[doc03]

17. Why are you on a Democratic message board making a case for Republicans?

No I won't waste my time looking up links for someone that should already know Republicans have wanted
to destroy Medicare, SS, ACA and Medicaid ever since the day they were enacted.

[SlimJimmy]

18. Why don't you get it? I'm certainly not the only Democrat that wants the ACA to be fixed

so that the premiums and deductibles don't continue to escalate. But, you already knew that. Let me supply a link so you can become educated instead of politically ignorant.

When former President Bill Clinton suggested this week that President Obama’s signature health care law was “crazy,” it didn’t take long for Republicans to pounce.

“Finally, a leading Democrat speaks the truth on Obamacare,” said Donald Trump’s campaign in an advertisement released Monday. “Can you imagine what he went through after making that statement?” Trump said at a rally. “Going to have to agree with Bill Clinton on this one,” tweeted House Speaker Paul Ryan.

But despite the furor, Clinton’s remarks were not much different from what his friends and family have already been saying in recent weeks.

As health-insurance premiums rise and problems with the law become more acute, Democrats have become increasingly comfortable criticizing President Obama’s landmark health care law. Progressive members of Congress have openly voiced their concerns on Capitol Hill, and the calls for reform have spilled out onto the campaign trail.

To be sure, the words used by Bill Clinton — who also said some Americans are “getting killed” by rising premiums and expenses — were more jarring than others. But his daughter, wife and even President Obama himself have voiced concern about the law in recent weeks as news about rising costs dominates the headlines.

“We know we need to work on the ‘affordable’ part of the Affordable Care Act,” Chelsea Clinton said at an event on Wednesday in Iowa.

http://time.com/4522280/obamacare-bill-clinton-hillary-congress-democrats/

[Doreen]

4. People do not understand

that medicare is wrapped up with Obamacare. I am on medicare but when Obamacare started the good things that it had was put into medicare also. I needed knee replacements but medicare said I had to wait until I was 64 meaning I would have been a long time bedridden by then but when Obamacare came in it was added to medicare and made it possible for me to get my knee replacements. More places started to accept those on medicare because it went along with not being turned away from pre existing health problems. Do not relax in the thought that medicare and medicade is safe because it is wrapped up in a nice tight little ball with Obamacare.

[doc03]

7. They also added a free yearly physical to Medicare with Obamacare a Colonoscopy

every so many years depending on your health, an EKG every year and many other things.

[Doreen]

9. My medicare covers a full female checkup once a year now

because of Obamacare. That will be gone really fast.

[HassleCat]

8. What Trump said during the campaign

Competition. We'll remove the barriers and let insurance companies sell across state lines. Rates will go down dramatically, and we'll have health insurance that's "great." Everything is "great" in the new order.

[TreasonousBastard]

10. You're kidding, right? Leaving aside questions of the utility of Medicare for all...

these are the people who are defunding Medicaid and trying to privatize the VA health network.

Maybe, just maybe, politicians could be talked into expanding Medicare, but the thousands of people who work for or are invested in health insurance companies might have something to say about this. Doctors who cfurrently refuse medicare patients because of low payments might have something to say, too.

A simple fact is that we simply haven't actually worked out any sort of viable health care plan and haven't even explored getting away from fee-for-service.

When Medicare started, it had tons of problems. What we did over the years was worked them out year-by-year. We should be doing the same thing with Obamacare and eventually get to a better system. Eventually, we can merge all of these systems into one decent one, but it can't be done overnight and can't be done emotionally.

[JSup]

11. Well, soon Medicare...

...will be Gamblecare and there will be no tax revenue.

It'll take generations, if we have them, to fix the mess that will be made.

[still_one]

13. In 2008 they didn't have the votes for Medicare for all, Single Payer or the public option. The ACA

barely made through as it was.

republicans are now pushing to repeal the ACA immediately and deal without a replacement.

Under no circumstances should we suggest that the ACA should be repealed, and we should fight that it doesn't happen.

However, the fact remains that the republicans are going to try to repeal the ACA immediately, and to that end we should fight to prevent that from occurring without a replacement, and push for that replacement to be Medicare for all.

The reality though is the conditions today are a disaster compared to 2008, and there is no reason to believe that they will accept Medicare for all. We don't have the votes either.

[hollowdweller]

15. You know, I've been thinking that over and over

I mean the only way to truly address the complaints about the ACA is to go for medicare for all.

From the conservative standpoint it would be cheaper then the subsidies.

Here's a what if scenario.

What if we allowed everything to go on as it does now, but anybody under 25 could sign up for medicaid??

The deal would be you HAD to sign up before you were 25 to get it. Maybe with a premium based on income.

If you got a job with insurance, you could stop paying, and then if you lost it you would be able to get back on. But if you never signed up at all you had to go into the private market like now.

That would sort of leave the old system in place but start something difft. If insurance wanted to compete they could offer similar plan.

There's really no way any plan that relies more on the private sector can do anything but make it worse unless there are tons more money put in. If some tweaking of private insurance would work we would be doing it.