2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumMedicare for All can be attained
In her Feb. 16 column, Cynthia Tucker claims that many health experts say a Medicare for All plan which includes dental, vision coverage, mental health care and long-term care cant be done while saving money. Yet many health experts say it can.
Furthermore, its more than politics that keeps us from having Medicare for All; its the insurance companies that have spent millions of dollars lobbying to keep it from becoming a reality. The current Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was designed by the insurance companies with their own interests (profits) placed first and the health care of Americans second.
Gerald Freedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, told the Huffington Post in January that he estimates a single-payer system would save about $600 million in its first year alone. Single-payer savings would come from reducing the money and resources that currently go into administering the private health insurance system, such as eliminating the enormous dollar costs that are faced by every medical office for maintaining staff needed to decipher the cost of procedures, and what and how much the insurance companies will reimburse.
Savings also would come from eliminating overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments, as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay. Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs to deal with the bureaucracy. As a result, administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans health dollars, most of which is waste.
According to Physicians for National Health Plan (PNHP), Single-payer financing is the only way to recapture this wasted money. The potential savings on paperwork, more than $400 billion per year, are enough to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone without paying any more than we already do.
http://www.pressconnects.com/story/opinion/2016/02/23/guest-viewpoint-medicare/80802016/
bkkyosemite
(5,792 posts)Go Bernie and his supporter....forward marching......
revbones
(3,660 posts)Jackie Wilson Said
(4,176 posts)reality of the current system.
Folks like you have decided NOW to draw a line in the sand, which is not just suicide but reflects a lack of perspective.
This silliness of purity voting, you wont cast your vote for a corp friendly person
Good luck then, because other than Bernie, they ALL are to one degree or another.
revbones
(3,660 posts)and "reflects a lack of perspective". Excellent point we should all try to remember.
Perhaps one could suggest to you, that when you use phrases such as "folks like you" or attempt to paint with such a broad brush of negativity, that you consider whether it's really your own point of view that is where the problem is...
Jackilope
(819 posts)Is it even possible to fix the rigged system within the system? It it time to just tear it down and start new? Either way is painful, but this seems inevitable.
pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)Does that mean they think that America is the most stupid country in the developed world?
vintx
(1,748 posts)They're the same as all the others who came before them who said things we've done since then were impossible.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)You'd have to expand the coverage it currently provides, build an entire infrastructure for processing claims, and of course raise taxes not only to cover everyone, but also to enhance the coverage it currently provides.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)it is nice to see that view has grabbed your support............
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Medicare is not a single payer system right now--it covers only part of the out of pocket expenses.
the government doesn't even process Medicare claims.
Medicare for all would be an incremental step towards single payer, but it would not be single payer
Uncle Joe
(58,268 posts)Thanks for the thread, UglyGreed.