A new approach to Health Care that might work

[Perky]

I am suddenly bored talking about the election:

What about a Health care system in which

1. Children are covered until they are 21.
2. Seniors are covered.
3. Working Adults are covered by their employer.
4. Unemployed are covered under spousal policy if married but it gets piad by the spouse.
5. unemployed with no spouse gets covered by fed program

This approach woul put more money back in everyone's pocket since kids are covered and does not burden firms that hire teens.

[baldguy]

1. Not every employer can afford health insurance.

[porphyrian]

2. I like "everybody gets decent health care, period" better. - n/t

[aquart]

3. No. Crappy piecemeal and who, precisely is doing this covering?

One national single-payer healthcare system with EVERYONE in the pot is the only practical, feasible, economical solution.

Our businesses are being crippled by the unfettered rise in healthcare costs. Free them. Treat healthcare as a national security issue instead of a social one. It is vital to the defense of our nation that we have a healthy population.

[moc]

4. Single payor is the only way.

[zeemike]

5. I have a completely different idea

Open 2 or 3 new medical schools to crank out doctors. The government could pay the cost of sending poorer kids to school to be doctors in return for at least 4 years of serving the public in free clinics all over the country.
The same thing could be used for nurses and other medical fields.
Then health care would be truly available to all.
You could call it the medical core.

[bobbolink]

8. Cuba does that, why the hell not the US??

That's why Cuba has so many doctors that it sends them out to help in natural disasters!

As a matter of fact, there are now something like 80-some US students in Cuba, studying medicine FREE right now!

Whadda concept, eh??

[pnb]

11. Because the AMA won't let it happen

As it is now, there are plenty of more people in America who can and want to be physicians but the AMA pressures various governments to allow them to keep the doctor pool very small...keep supply down and costs go up, making more money for the existing physicians.

[bobbolink]

6. sigh..... why oh why aren't "progressives" ready for actual

Health Care?????

What is it going to take?????

Why can't we join the rest of the civilized world, and have REAL HEALTH CARE, instead of these half-assed "plans"?????

Really??? WHY?????

[bobbolink]

13. No reply? No thought on this at all???

There is a very GOOD, WORKABLE plan out there already... called HR676, with plenty of sponsors, but needing more.

Instead of putting in effort coming up with a new "plan", and posting it on DU, how 'bout getting behind HR676, getting people in your district to move your reps to co-sponsor it, getting your senator to work on a corresponding senate bill, and let's get this one passed!!

That would be a very good and effective use of your energy and time.

Any thoughts and response?

?????

[pinto]

7. I support universal health care, unequivocally, across the board.

[TheFarseer]

9. Anything you can think of is useless

unless we get health care costs to come down. We cannot have the government shouldering enormous-out of control health care costs anymore than we can have private citizens or corporation shouldering the burden. How do you do that? That's the two-trillion dollar question.

[bobbolink]

10. costs will come down when the corporations are taken out!!

[Gormy Cuss]

12. I don't see how this would put money back into our pockets.

We would need to pay for that care for kids and unemployed singles, just the way we pay for care for seniors now. The Medicare tax is 1.45% of earnings, so assuming the same cost level to ensure kids and unemployed singles would mean an increase of another 1.45% tax on earnings. The employer coverage you suggest for everyone else is not specified in terms of co-pays or deductibles. If we simple force all employers to cough up the full premium they would hold wage levels down to pay for the benefit, so it's not clear that we would see more money in our pocket there either.

Thanks for the topic -- a worthy one for discussion.