Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: U.S. Voters Back Medicare Expansion but Not Eliminating Private Insurance [View all]ehrnst
(32,640 posts)Which is something very different indeed.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/05/voters-who-like-medicare-for-all-may-not-like-single-payer.html
And you feel free to lecture people on M4A, even though you haven't looked at the bill, nonetheless. Because you lived in Canada, you know a lot better than anyone who's actually looked and the bill does. Not only that, you claim to know the funding mechanisms, and that money that 'was once spent here will be simply move over there' with no impact whatsoever on patient experience, in a health care system that has been baked into the economy for 70+ years, that employs more than live in France.
So, then of course you know that Canada is primarily administered at the province level, and that M4A will presumably be administered from one federal office, yes?
And you know that Canada didn't have a national plan until all of the provinces developed their own systems independently from each other, starting in the 1950's and that took way, way more than two years, as M4A promises, yes?
And that it was nearly 20 years after all those plans were given a federal layer, tweaking in 1977 to give more control back to the provinces, until the Canada Health Act in 1987 gave Canadians what they have now - which cost controls necessitate that Canadian citizens buy a private insurance plan, or pay out of pocket for dental and rx, yes?
And you are aware that the state that sent Senator Sanders to the Senate, did not have the political will to get Green Mountain Care off the drawing board, because the final numbers crunched meant that Vermonters would have to face an 11% hike in taxes, which was unacceptable to them? Interestingly, Senator Sanders gets prickly and brushes it off when someone asks him about lessons learned from that, and hasn't indicated that he's even interested in knowing, or understands why it didn't get off the ground. That doesn't bode well for his ability to accept new data that might actually help him to refine his plan. I think he doesn't take well to people telling him that he has something to learn about health care.
But in any case, Green Mountain Care didn't make it off the ground, Coloradocare was voted down soundly in 2016, and California's attempts to go single payer stalled as well.
So, no, we're not going to get where Canada is, the way Canada did, from a very different expectation of medical care from patients in Canada (or anywhere) had in the 60's, from where we are now, covering way way more services for way way less money, in 20 years let alone two.
Here is an interactive tool that allows you to see a simplified overview of all the current public plan proposals. I suggest you take a look at it before "correcting' anyone else on M4A:
https://www.kff.org/interactive/compare-medicare-for-all-public-plan-proposals/
BTW - I lived in the UK for years, and know a thing or two about that system, but would never consider that a license to lecture anyone else about a US health care proposal that I hadn't even read.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden