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Health care is expensive. Those younger, healthier folks who want cheap health insurance premiums are simply postponing the astronomic costs they will incur as they age and/or contract chronic illnesses. 70% of people in the US die from chronic illnesses and everyone, except the few who die from accidents or homicides, gets old. Yeah, you may not get a lot of use out of health insurance when you're young, but you will get a ton of use out of it later in life when you need it most and can least afford it.
Under the Trump care plan, when you reach age 60, an individual private healthcare plan with a $7000 a year deductible will likely cost you well over $2,000 or more a month in premiums. So, premiums and deductible combined will cost you $19,000 a year or more.
What the Republicans are offering you may leave you more beer money when you're young and healthy, but later in life, you and/or your spouse will most likely not be able to afford healthcare insurance (nor healthcare).
Ahh, but I'm not talking about a Republican plan. I'm talking about a report put out by Democrats that claim they can't make single payer work in the state without some serious sacrifices to other parts of the budget. Let's stay on point here. So what is it you're willing to give up?
At some point, perhaps they'll be honest and finally admit that its not equitable and simply a pipe dream. Even the Liberals in California can't make it work using math. It will simply bankrupt the middle class. There's no reason to even debate it anymore.
It cannot work at the state level as it is too expensive, and states cannot create money as can our Federal Gov't. It could happen at the Federal level. We would have to adapt and create a different sort of debt related to the funds needed.
Not incompetent; mercenary. We put our corporations and their profits ahead of our citizens.
A poster upthread stated that no system is going to work because our costs are so out of control--costs that other countries have regulated. Until we do that, yes, it won't work.
But it won't be done because our President and members of Congress side with the industry.
It sure happened with the ACA, so I think it's baked into the cake.
It's not so much a matter of corporations I think, but that any smaller, highly dedicated group can defeat a larger one that isn't watching out for it's self interest.
There's a reason that drug companies, teachers and public safety unions, the Walt Disney Corporation, the SPLC, agribusiness, and Lockheed have an outsized footprint for their numbers. They are highly motivated and organized towards policy goals.
The average schlub who needs healthcare, food, or a place to live doesn't stand a chance.
It cannot work at the state level as it is too expensive, and states cannot create money as can our Federal Gov't. It could happen at the Federal level. We would have to adapt and create a different sort of debt related to the funds needed.
Unless you live in a world made up of perpetual high growth, incurring debt will just put off the inevitable.
Obviously,states are large enough to run their own system, but would need to seriously increase their cash flow (triple it maybe?). Of course, then you run into that pesky problem of borders.
Single Payer only works if taxes are cranked up to ridiculous levels to pay for it. How'd you like to pay a 70% tax rate?
Your in-built premise is that healthcare in general always has to be astronomically expensive. If politicians would hop out of the bed that insurance companies and Big Pharma is in, that wouldn't have to be the case.
Because even as a medical tourist paying out of pocket, healthcare is much, much more affordable anywhere else than it is here. And that's because no other country allows their populace to be so blatantly exploited by big pharma/insurers the way the USA does.
Single payer healthcare wouldn't even be as necessary if the costs went down enough. But it'd also be much more feasible. The best of both worlds.
It sure happened with the ACA, so I think it's baked into the cake.
It's not so much a matter of corporations I think, but that any smaller, highly dedicated group can defeat a larger one that isn't watching out for it's self interest.
There's a reason that drug companies, teachers and public safety unions, the Walt Disney Corporation, the SPLC, agribusiness, and Lockheed have an outsized footprint for their numbers. They are highly motivated and organized towards policy goals.
The average schlub who needs healthcare, food, or a place to live doesn't stand a chance.
True. And this is where the government is supposed to step in and be "for the people." Not Disney, not Lockeed.
Your in-built premise is that healthcare in general always has to be astronomically expensive. If politicians would hop out of the bed that insurance companies and Big Pharma is in, that wouldn't have to be the case.
Because even as a medical tourist paying out of pocket, healthcare is much, much more affordable than it is here. And that's because no other country allows their populace to be exploited by big pharma/insurers the way the USA does.
Single payer healthcare wouldn't even be as necessary if the costs went down enough. But it'd also be much more feasible. The best of both worlds.
This is what I was getting at earlier. There is an inherent flaw in this analysis because it's not really addressing the right question of our ever-increasing HC premiums...the cost side of HC is just not being addressed in any meaningful way.
I'll also say that if we did go down the UHC route (which I'm not necesarilly saying we "should" do), that doesn't mean innovation necesarilly dies. One could envision a system being possible where basic/tried-and-true medicines/treatments/procedures are covered for all, but experimental/new treatments are left out and available for some extra fee.
I realize that opens up a huge can of worms in regards to what is included/what is not included...but it does at least keep that part of the market satisfied.
Single payer reduces costs by removing the for-profit private insurance middle men trying to make a profit off sick people. Doctors can also reduce their overhead, billing staff and billing costs.
Read the report not the right wing spin. The report says that universal heath care would cost about $200 billion per year. Yes, taxes would go up but are offset by no longer paying private insurance premiums.
$200 billion / 40 million population is $5,000/year or $400/month per person. With employers paying a large part of that, as they do today, the monthly cost to workers is even lower. This compares favorably to private insurance premiums, plus co-pays, plus annual deductibles.
Question here - would employers be paying a large part of that? Since technically, health insurance at that point would no longer be reliant upon employment.
I don't mind paying more but $400 a month would be a lot more!
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