The term "single payer" is deceiving since the US citizens become that "single payer" (premium, military)

[ted08721]

Not only will single payer healthcare reduce overhead cost associate with doctor/hospital/ins companies the government can also bargain for pricing on drugs, artificial hips etc.

The cost for this medical plan could be from closing corporate tax loop holes, Robin hood tax on stock transactions, very nominal tax increase on those making say over $500,000., cuts to bloated military budget that accounts for over half of the budget.

If you do all the above not only will it pay for healthcare but also pay for college tuition, feed and house all of the poor, rebuild our roads and bridges and many more projects with many jobs created.
And in the end the rich will still be rich but the poor and middle class will have a great burden lifted off their backs

[workingclasshero]

Originally Posted by ted08721

Not only will single payer healthcare reduce overhead cost associate with doctor/hospital/ins companies the government can also bargain for pricing on drugs, artificial hips etc.

The cost for this medical plan could be from closing corporate tax loop holes, Robin hood tax on stock transactions, very nominal tax increase on those making say over $500,000., cuts to bloated military budget that accounts for over half of the budget.

If you do all the above not only will it pay for healthcare but also pay for college tuition, feed and house all of the poor, rebuild our roads and bridges and many more projects with many jobs created.
And in the end the rich will still be rich but the poor and middle class will have a great burden lifted off their backs

NO IT WONT


if you are a taxpayer you cant afford singlepayer

you (the taxpayer) cant afford singlepayer

singlepayer ( total government funding(taxpayer) and total government control) is NOT what we need...not if we EXPECT the QUALITY of care

when you look at the COSTS of ACTUAL care (not insurance) and the OVERHEAD costs associated with the care..the cost would be astronomical to cover 320 million people

look at the numbers from our own medicaid (a quazi single payer system),,,last year (fy10) it cost the taxpayers 320 billion dollars, just to cover 30 million people....do the math, to cover 320 million (our population) it would be over 3 trillion (possibly much more when you figure in the fact that seniors are a more costly demographic).......then look at what the IRS says is the number of 1040's filed...115 million (and nearly 50% of them get most if not all their money back)....now take that 3 trillion and divide by the 115 million taxpayers....you get over 25k (actually 28k) in taxes.......can the average taxpayer...the average worker afford that.....I don't think so


and lets look at the some other numbers

the ACTUAL cost just to help americans with Alzheimer's(forgive my spelling) is over 200 billion every year

and let's not forget: Obesity rates among OECD nations increased in recent years, with the highest rate in the U.S. at 34.3% -- which means one in 3 Americans is by definition obese.

number of americans getting cancer (new cases) per year 1.8 million for a total of 19 million people being treated (fighting) each year...each year at least 570,000 die from cancer

number of americans with heart disease: 26.2 million and of those..((Number of visits with heart disease as primary diagnosis: 16 million ))((Number of discharges with heart disease as first-listed diagnosis: 4.2 million))

number of americans in nursing homes: 2 million

More than 25 million Americans have significant vision loss.
(((hmmm more than 25 million americans are blind or going blind.....that's more than Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, and Austria COMBINED TOTAL population....)))

number of americans with diabetes: 26 million
number of americans with asthma: 20 million....Each day 11 Americans die from asthma.


while some of those may overlap...look at those numbers 19,26,25,26,20...that's 116 million with MAJOR health problem,,costly problems......we will ALWAYS be the largest spender in the world...we have the 3rd highest population in the world (next to china and India) and we have more people (total, not a percentage) with major problems than any other country in Europe.....I just showed you at least 116 million people with cancer, heart, blindness, diabetes, asthma.......that's more than France and great Britain COMBINED for their total populations.


singlepayer would cost between 3-6 trillion yearly (depending on whether it is a 80/20 program like medicare or a 100% program like medicaid) (and depending on how many government DENIAL OF SERVICE there are) and what is covered (minus the usual cosmetic.....and the funny thing is mediciad usually wont even cover braces, because they are considered cosmetic)

we have less than 100 million taxpayers in this country of 320 million people



most people (to include republicans) would support singlepayer....IF....

1. it wouldnt be like the CRAPCARE of the health department clinics (death traps)
2. and there was a fair way of funding it......replacing the personal income tax, the estate tax, the corporate tax with the fair tax (a consumption tax) is about the only way to fund it...but the liberals will never go for it


comparing costs to other countries....kinda apples to oranges

yes our cost are higher...but that is because EVERYTHING is higher

look at the second part of that slide checkup cost 59 (omg its double what it is in Canada)

so what are we saying we should FORCE docotrs and nurse to work for minimum wage. and have offices in huts

when you pay that doctor $59 ,, its not $59 dollars going into his pocket...there are lots of other COSTS

how are you going to control the cost of medical equipment(mri or x-ray machines, etc)??????most xray machine are made in Denmark

how are you going to control the cost of the rising electric bills the doctors/hospitals are facing????

how are you going to control the rising property tax/rent/mortgage that doctors face?????

how are you going to control the cost of supplies(gauze, plaster, silk, rubber, polystyrene( a oil product)?????especially some supplies that aren't even american

how are you going to control the cost of people salaries???? a maximum wage???

how they are going to control the employment costs for Doctors, nurses, technicians, hospital food operators, hospital linen cleaning service, custodial services, medical transcribers........are you going to 'nationalize' every profession that is even remotely connected to medicine????

how are they going to control malpractice INSURANCE COSTS?????

don't you get it... medicine (like anyother SERVICE) costs money,,(,money that our government doesn't have)

want to know A BIG REASON why its lower in those other countries.??? salaries.....a nurse in France(actually most of europe) makes about 1500-1800 a month(in us dollars)..that's 18-20000 a year.....meanwhile according to payscale.com the average Rn makes 40-78,000 in the usa


is that what you want??? do you want to have medical PROFESSIONALS be forced to work for nearly minimum wage



AS I SAID EARLIER...I would be all for single payer...except for two things that the "pro singlepayer" people cant answer..I want a GUARENTEE of QUALITY care (not health dept horror clinics)...and the COST (which the prosinglepayer people never address)

[finalmove]

Originally Posted by GregW

The main advantage of a government single payer system is it would eliminate private insurance administrative, executive and profit costs. Another advantage is the rest of the private sector parts of the system such as huge medical complexes would eventually be absorbed so their excess costs would be eliminated. Direct medical staff would be very well paid with some of the money saved by this plan. The result would be a modern well staffed medical system and a whole bunch of very unhappy insurance company executives and stockholders.

The system would be funded directly by the Federal Government through an “All income from all sources with a 90th percentile deductable progressive income tax".

First, thanks for keeping your post reasonably short, so I can refute it quickly.
Your first sentence uses the word advantage, as if use of that word makes it so. Next you mention eliminating a neccessary business and its profit. Somewhere in your formative years you were led to believe that profiting was a negative.
Then you state that this iron fist from government will result in a modern well staffed medical system. Says who?
Thank goodness you are still in the minority! It is shocking how many people think like you do. It is called socialized health care. You think that you have a right to a service simply because you want it!
I disagree and I'm not alone.

[cgregor]

The US spends over $8,500 per person per year for health care. And that is computed by "purchasing power parity," which means it is adjusted so that another country's expenditure for that same service or good is priced according to the American dollar, so our care doesn't cost more relative to other countries; it costs more than other countries absolutely.

While the 2011 tax revenues might have been $2.17 trillion, the 2012 health care expenditures for every American were $2.7 trillion. Of that, a minimum of fifteen percent was reserved for "administrative expenses" for the insurance companies, under the terms of the ACA. Another $8 billion annually was profit guaranteed to the drug companies as well. In effect, Americans were taxed $4.87 trillion so pharmas and insurers could make over $8 billion in profits that year.

So, going to a single payer plan for a nation that is spending $2.7 trillion would result in everybody saving $407 billion in health care costs. Assuming that the single-payer plan is run like the VA (which is justly regarded as the best health care system in America), the per capita cost would be at a maximum $2.3 trillion.

I say at a maximum, because the government has the power (when Congress grants it, which isn't going to happen under Republicans) to negotiate prices-- which it is forbidden to do in Medicare Part D, but which states do: My pharmacy benefit provider was ripping me off, and I didn't have the money to take them to court. However, because I have a medical benefit regulated by the state, the state took them to court for me and tens of thousands of others. It was fined and dropped from the contract. There's no reason the government won't do the same when we elect the right people. If you don't believe this, you probably vote Republican or tea party.

I think that going to single-payer nationally will do for America what it would do for my state: $800 extra in every payer's pocket annually-- a savings on medical costs of $288 billion, which would by itself reduce the $2.7 trillion to a little above $2.4 trillion-- and for $300 million more in taxes (less than $1 per American), everybody would have health care that would cover them even when they got laid off or became too sick to keep working; they would not have to worry about being bankrupted by medical expenses (a problem in 40% of bankruptcies); and they wouldn't have to choose between going to the doctor or buying food for the family.

On the other hand, as long as we, to paraphrase John Steinbeck, think of ourselves not as the screwed in the health care game but only as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, we're not going to demand anything better.

Finally, for-profit health insurance is not a component of a safety net. It is a casino. The company bets you will not get sick and does everything to make sure it wins the bet. You bet you won't get sick but can't do anything to avoid aging, getting sick from something and dying-- so the game is rigged, and the house always wins.

Real health care knows you're going to need it and makes provisions to make sure that the money you pay now, while you're healthy, will be there to help you when Mother Nature starts to win her side of the bet. Yes, even libertarians sometimes need chemo.

[nvxplorer]

Originally Posted by Backspace

That would explain a name like "single purchaser" but not "single payer".

Please. Purchaser and payer are synonymous. Why are you having such difficulty with definitions? Your question was answered on the first page. What point is there in nitpicking the language?

[nvxplorer]

Originally Posted by finalmove

First, thanks for keeping your post reasonably short, so I can refute it quickly.
Your first sentence uses the word advantage, as if use of that word makes it so. Next you mention eliminating a neccessary business and its profit. Somewhere in your formative years you were led to believe that profiting was a negative.
Then you state that this iron fist from government will result in a modern well staffed medical system. Says who?
Thank goodness you are still in the minority! It is shocking how many people think like you do. It is called socialized health care. You think that you have a right to a service simply because you want it!
I disagree and I'm not alone.

You refute a post by telling the member what he learned in his formative years? LMAO!

[bluesjuke]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

They base it on the "new fuzzy math".
They will even tell you it will be cheaper and "save" you money and cost less than what you have today so that your boss can give you a raise.

Hmm.............where have I heard this before ........and fairly recently within the past few years?



Oh yeah, "less than my cellphone bill".

[ALackOfCreativity]

Originally Posted by ted08721

Not only will single payer healthcare reduce overhead cost associate with doctor/hospital/ins companies the government can also bargain for pricing on drugs, artificial hips etc

The government already has this power with the amount of funds they spend on Medicare and Medicaid and for the most part fails to utilize it.

Why the heck do you think that with single payer, and no comparison prices available at much lower rates to shame the government into reasonable contracting practices, like what happened with DME, that the government would be less captured rather than more?

[pnwmdk]

Originally Posted by hammertime33

Single payer refers to a single insurance pool. What's deceiving about that?

Insurance is not a pool.

[pnwmdk]

Originally Posted by nvxplorer

Please. Purchaser and payer are synonymous. Why are you having such difficulty with definitions? Your question was answered on the first page. What point is there in nitpicking the language?

Actually, you are 100% wrong.

The difference between purchaser and payer is why health care costs are spiraling. The purchaser is not the payer.