A Single payer system...

I posted this on myspace but did not get a response:

If we have a single payer system that everyone who works and pays into, does that make health care access a right as someone who has purchased access by putting money into said system?

I am a little confused

and I thought if we could use the argument that people who pay into the system of course should get health care. And going with a single payer system makes it cheapest.

sounds like a good argument. If a person pays he or she should be insured. Also, Single payer would be a lot cheaper...reduced transaction costs and big pool of people to spread risks

we basically pay for it already. The govt pays $4800 per person for health care in a year. In the next five years or so that will double.

Much of our cost is administrative. Single-Payer health care cuts a lot of administrative costs. It takes out that aspect of it. It has it's pros and cons, of course.

We look at health care in our country as a right. Politicians and insurance companies sometimes look at it as a luxury. By having a single payer system that everyone works and pays into then you are creating an essential service that becomes an inalienable right.

You will still have to account for two things. The people who can't pay into it, and the people who want to opt out. So, I think the wealthier people in our country and the upper middle class would more or less subsidize the ones who can't pay into it. Sort of like we do with Medicaid. And, you could build in an option for people to opt out and buy into private plans. This could still be done without wrecking the whole system.

Germany, for example, has Sickness Funds, in which everybody pays into. They still leave some leeway I believe for people to buy into private plans as well. It's a mix of free-market capitalism and government socialism. It works well for them.

The very rich do not need the insurance.

would engineer resentment (those who subsized the less fortunate would feel like they were unfairly taxed yet no one things that when talking about SS because everyone pays in, everyone gets some out). Those who wanted to opt out could go with what the Canadians do, anything not covered by their national plan is covered by private insurance.

German's plan is having some difficulties from what I understand.

And going with a single payer system cuts around 25% in costs from the streamlining of administration, and since Medicare/Medicaid has about 3% overhead, this would be a good thing.

with skyrocketing drug prices. That's killing them.

Canada doesn't even allow private insurers to cover anything that isn't included in their Provincial health plans. I find that interesting. So by law they have no service overlap.

The opting out problem is going to be a major hurdle, because you will always have a segment of society who will fight not having that freedom. Even if they never exercize it. There is also the perception that you will have long lines, short visits with doctors etc. Even if this doesn't prove to be true, some groups will still fight it beforehand. Single-payer health care is something that most Americans want, but politically probably won't ever happen. Not for a long, long time anyway.

what we can do to minimize the problems. Remember we (unlike Canada) can start from scratch. The Canadian system is more hodgepodge then they like to admit.

A single payer system with duel revenue streams for both employees and technological updates would do much to relieve the idea that we would not have any updates with both new technology and have enough workers to handle the inflow of patients. We would also have a transitional period over to the system with several badly needed fixes to Medicare done in the mean time.

that's a good way to put it. You should check out "Who Shall Live? Health, Economics and Social Choice" by Victor R. Fuchs and "Health Of Nations: An International Perspective On U.S. Health Care Reform" by Laurene A. Graig.

But most of the stuff I read showed that people would be happy if we had a gradual transition, it was broad based, and handled the "access" question.

Simple in the concept...murder in the details.

in County hospitals that service the poor and all emergency rooms?

if you bookmark this thread I might be able to find out for you though. I know my professor said that in class before. Sure of it.

I have tried, can't find anything yet

in which a nonprofit organization is set up and individuals and businesses can buy into it, much like they would a regular credit union. It would be overseen by a board made up of the people who are invested into it. It would distribute health care as a co-op and in an HMO type fashion. So this way, everybody pays in, shares the risk and people -not big companies - get to take control of their own health care. They aren't subject to certain risk factors that they may be denied health care for and so on.

Clinton wanted to do more with Regional plans like this. Never was able to fully do it.