How Much Do You Pay Per Month for Your Health Insurance?

[Jaggy001]

Originally Posted by NSHL10

How in God's name will everyone be able to get free health insurance? Someone will have to pay for it. You got your free stuff on someone else's taxes and higher premiums.

There is no such thing as free health care. It is either paid out of taxes, through health insurance, through out of pocket or a mix of the three.

In the USA, we use a mix of taxpayer funded, private health insurance and out of pocket spending (co-pays, deductibles, etc.). Approximately 65% is taxpayer funded and 35% privately funded. However, because our per capita health care costs are about double those of other developed countries, we are paying out a lot more both privately and in taxes.

There is no point going to single payer or any other system until we can get health care costs down to the level of a Switzerland or a Germany. Cost is the main issue. How we fund it comes next.

[Voyager39]

Originally Posted by Jaggy001

There is no point going to single payer or any other system until we can get health care costs down to the level of a Switzerland or a Germany. Cost is the main issue. How we fund it comes next.

There is plenty of benefit to going to a single payer system first and reducing costs while transitioning to such a system. Much of the cost of the U.S. system (about 1/3 or one trillion dollars per year from what I've read) is consumed by administrative costs. Going to a single payer system should lead to having a simpler and less expensive system. I don't see how our govt will reduce this massive bureaucratic cost if the current labyrinth of insurance systems is maintained.

Needless to say, the people prosperously employed in health care administration will oppose this with all of their political clout, which is why the needed changes will be so difficult to make.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Jaggy001

There is no point going to single payer or any other system until we can get health care costs down to the level of a Switzerland or a Germany.

Some of that is due to our profit driven health insurance industry. Older article, but interesting:
Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...=.9fbdbbb326f8