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Its not what "those countries count". Statistics comparing the total health care costs of all countries show that America spend 18% while other developed countries are in the 10.5% ballpark. Lots of international research has been done on this. Private expenditures are of course included in these figures for all countries to make it comparable. This is the reality. America's health care costs are far higher than other countries. I dont believe that all international health care researchers are doing accounting errors to make America look less favorable. I trust official statistics from the OECD, World Bank and countless other reputable international organizations and international health care research which shows that America's health care costs are 18% of GDP while other countries typically are 10.5%. No other country is even close to the level in America.
When 80% of health care is publicly funded like a typical single payer system, that means people will get more support for home health aides and nursing home costs. Not saying everything will be 100% covered for anyone with no out-of-pocket expenses, but it would be significantly better than today. It can be paid for by a 5% general federal sales tax and a 4% Medicare tax on employers and a 2% tax on employees (or 5% on the employer and 1% on the employee for example) to replace insurance premiums and co-pays. That will generate $900 billion a year. What's so bad about this?
Do you know that the income limit for getting help to take care of the elderly at home is lower than the income limit for qualifying for the nursing home. Yes, it's ass backwards. Yes, there are people who could stay at home with a little help but are forced to go into nursing homes because they don't qualify for help at home yet they qualify for medicaid in the nursing home. I know this for a fact. Please know what you're talking about before posting.
That's the problem, government does things ass backwards, they also do one size fits all and many people fall through the cracks because of it. Why anyone would want or trust government to do the job right is naive or has never had to deal with the mess.
Wrong, It's called Aging Waver / Nursing Home Transition. Yep, I know all about it and it's not for the working class who fall into poverty because of their health, it's for the uber poor who've been taken care of from cradle to grave.
On a side note, I worked in healthcare for 20 + years and just because you're a healthcare worker doesn't mean you know a thing about taking care of or the financial costs of keeping the elderly at home.
So you are against more support for the working stiffs because....why exactly? You seem to be against any support for ordinary salt of the earth Americans because the uber poor get more support now than lower middle class people. Instead of "if I dont get any support they should get nothing", how about "ordinary tax payers should get support as well". Whats so bad about this? I dont get it.
I'm talking about covering 100% of the people at current Medicare rates. You are aware, I'm sure, that Medicare does not cover charges at 100%, and that Part B (Major Med) requires a premium, no?
You have not told me how all this money will be saved. I know most lay-people think we health care providers are either sitting around eating bon-bons (waste), or working hard committing fraud and abuse, but really, I'm not buying your pig in a poke. You are naive if you think all plastic surgeries, dental care, etc is covered in these single payer/UHC systems. All of these systems have their exclusions. I don't know if any of them pay for nursing home care.
You're also naive if you think that nursing salaries will be $40/hr in 3 years. They haven't changed much in 10.
National healthcare should be part of our nations infrastructure like freeways and the national labor board and part of the budget like defense spending.
You're looking at this wrong.
Keeping the nations people healthy and strong and everyone in the work force instead of trying to struggle to care for elderly and sick the best they can is just, ethically wrong.
(and the current system just isn't working for too many people. so many are excluded, or just avoid care because the costs are prohibitive until it is unavoidable and then, its really expensive- I went out and got my own Kaiser plan this year- and the deductible is over $7,000, and doesnt even cover a basic Doctors exam or physical- which I was blown away by, I thought Kaiser was about preventive healthcare, but I guess not in the current insurers market- yea capitalism and keeping people healthy, its not a congruent set of goals.)
Do you know that the income limit for getting help to take care of the elderly at home is lower than the income limit for qualifying for the nursing home. Yes, it's ass backwards. Yes, there are people who could stay at home with a little help but are forced to go into nursing homes because they don't qualify for help at home yet they qualify for medicaid in the nursing home. I know this for a fact. Please know what you're talking about before posting.
That's the problem, government does things ass backwards, they also do one size fits all and many people fall through the cracks because of it. Why anyone would want or trust government to do the job right is naive or has never had to deal with the mess.
I am against means testing the public safety net. No income limits. The current system was set up by people funded by big money donors and special interests. In countries with a proper safety net, it doesnt work that way. Everyone get the benefits. Its not means tested. Its universal. The American system was deliberately set up to rile up the middle class against the poor, making sure tax payers get very little benefits so working class Americans can direct their anger towards the poor instead of the donor class.
Its not what "those countries count". Statistics comparing the total health care costs of all countries show that America spend 18% while other developed countries are in the 10.5% ballpark. Lots of international research has been done on this. Private expenditures are of course included in these figures for all countries to make it comparable. This is the reality. America's health care costs are far higher than other countries. I dont believe that all international health care researchers are doing accounting errors to make America look less favorable. I trust official statistics from the OECD, World Bank and countless other reputable international organizations and international health care research which shows that America's health care costs are 18% of GDP while other countries typically are 10.5%. No other country is even close to the level in America.
Single payer systems cover 80% of all health care costs in a country as a rough estimate. Stuff that is not covered at all are typically cosmetic plastic surgery, various marketing costs for private health care service providers and other stuff. They also have some co-pays. Lets say everyone pays a maximum of $400 a year for health care in co-pays for doctor's visits, drugs, treatments, hospital stays etc. Thats the private outlays. Co-pays in these systems are meant to discourage some people (a small minority) to go to the doctor every single week when it is not needed and abusing the system, so it might cost $10 or whatever to go to the doctor. But people dont go bankrupt because of cancer and people get support for their elderly relatives.
You are quoting the MEDIAN salary for nurses in 2014 which indeed was $66 640. Thats not the same as the average salary for nurses in 2016, which was $34.70 an hour or $72 180 a year. All of this is BLS figures. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#29-0000
Average salary for nurses in 2006 was $28.71 (scroll down to the table with "health care practitioner and technical occupations"):
That's a 21% increase from 2006 to 2016 during the great recession. $40 an hour on average by 2020 is perfectly reasonable to assume.
When 80% of health care is publicly funded like a typical single payer system, that means people will get more support for home health aides and nursing home costs. Not saying everything will be 100% covered for anyone with no out-of-pocket expenses, but it would be significantly better than today. It can be paid for by a 5% general federal sales tax and a 4% Medicare tax on employers and a 2% tax on employees (or 5% on the employer and 1% on the employee for example) to replace insurance premiums and co-pays. That will generate $900 billion a year. What's so bad about this?
Re: the bold-that is why I am skeptical. What are we doing that costs so much more? Some people foolishly think that if we just had a UHC, particularly a single-payer system, there would be no administrative costs. That's baloney! Of course there will be admin and billing.
My vantage point, or whatever you want to call it, is infant mortality statistics. These vary a lot among first world countries, and the US is at the higher end of these countries. However, when you look at how some of these other countries define IM, particularly neonatal mortality, excluding all sorts of things we don't, e.g. very low birthweight babies, very early gestation babies, etc, it's clear that it's not an "apples to oranges" comparison. When you exclude some of these very, very preemie babies from US computations, our rates are comparable to these other countries. Our rates are also comparable to Canada's, which is another country with lots of diversity and uses similar definitions as we do for "live birth". So no, I don't trust that the OCED statistics are measuring exactly the same things.
I'm not going to tell you what's so bad about "this" other than I don't think it will work.
I am against means testing the public safety net. No income limits. The current system was set up by people funded by big money donors and special interests. In countries with a proper safety net, it doesnt work that way. Everyone get the benefits. Its not means tested. Its universal. The American system was deliberately set up to rile up the middle class against the poor, making sure tax payers get very little benefits so working class Americans can direct their anger towards the poor instead of the donor class.
Well when the middle class is paying the bill all their lives and should they need help they don't qualify if over by one penny, what would you expect. Just like Obamacare, another welfare benefit the middle class pays way too much for and is paying for a catastrophic insurance. Did you notice above, how a forum member is essentially saying pay it and shut up. They would bleed the middle class dry and still demand more.
So you are against more support for the working stiffs because....why exactly? You seem to be against any support for ordinary salt of the earth Americans because the uber poor get more support now than lower middle class people. Instead of "if I dont get any support they should get nothing", how about "ordinary tax payers should get support as well". Whats so bad about this? I dont get it.
Then you obviously don't understand how the system works, worse, you vote regardless of your lack of knowledge.
I agree, our local MW is going to $15 so we are automating, and almost all of the force which would be affected by that increase will see their jobs eliminated.
Re: the bold-that is why I am skeptical. What are we doing that costs so much more? Some people foolishly think that if we just had a UHC, particularly a single-payer system, there would be no administrative costs. That's baloney! Of course there will be admin and billing.
My vantage point, or whatever you want to call it, is infant mortality statistics. These vary a lot among first world countries, and the US is at the higher end of these countries. However, when you look at how some of these other countries define IM, particularly neonatal mortality, excluding all sorts of things we don't, e.g. very low birthweight babies, very early gestation babies, etc, it's clear that it's not an "apples to oranges" comparison. When you exclude some of these very, very preemie babies from US computations, our rates are comparable to these other countries. Our rates are also comparable to Canada's, which is another country with lots of diversity and uses similar definitions as we do for "live birth". So no, I don't trust that the OCED statistics are measuring exactly the same things.
I'm not going to tell you what's so bad about "this" other than I don't think it will work.
Infant mortality is not really relevant when it comes to health care cost comparisons. Show me at least two credible articles that show that other developed countries really spend 18% of their GDP on health care and not 10.5% which is the typical cost in other countries. You are just speculating wildly with nothing to back up what you claim. Why do every single health care researcher in America and abroad claim that America spends far more on health care than other countries if you claim that this is not true?
What are we doing that makes things cost so much more? A for-profit system means lots of people postpone getting their health check-up. It costs alot in the long run. People use the emergency room as their primary care provider. Big pharma are ripping off the people with more than twice the cost of medicine as in other countries, too many hospitals in America are often profit-centers where unnecessary treatments are done, health care marketing costs in America is big business (do you think Medicare marketing costs are as high?), and yes, American hospitals have a lot more billing clerks than single payer systems with one single payer.
There are lots of reasons for higher costs in America. Even if your claim is right that we are not able to save a single dime and still have to spend 18% of GDP even as we move towards a system like the rest of the world, that's still only $1050 billion in new taxes instead of the $750 billion. We can raise over $900 billion from a 5% general federal sales tax and a 4% Medicare tax on employers and 2% on employees (or 5/1 split). I dont believe for a second that we have cant save a dime in a new Medicare-for-all system, but even if we still dont save a dime, its still a great deal for the American people to implement a 4/2 Medicare tax instead of insurance premiums. The peace of mind of not having to worry about going bankrupt because of cancer and other horror shows is also priceless.
I agree, our local MW is going to $15 so we are automating, and almost all of the force which would be affected by that increase will see their jobs eliminated.
That was the goal, right?
Nope. Lots of jobs cant be eliminated and yes, automation is a good thing. We would be living in caves without it. States with the highest minimum wage has not a particularly high unemployment rate at all.
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