In the spirit of transparency and accountability, the national health care debate must include an open and honest analysis of Single-Payer Health Care. We need a thorough analysis of Single-Payer and how it would affect the quality and costs of our health care system, compared to other proposals being discussed.
In 2003, Barack Obama stated: "I happen to be a proponent of a Single-Payer universal health care plan. We may not get there immediately, because first we've got to take back the White House, and we've got to take back the Senate, and we've got to take back the House."
Source: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/watch2.html
But today, now that "we" have in fact taken over the White House, Senate, and House, Single-Payer advocates are being shut out of the discussion. Only two Single-Payer advocates were invited (reluctantly) to the recent White House forums on health care reform, and they were not allowed to speak. The recent Senate Finance Committee hearings chaired by Senator Baucus did not include *any* representative for Single-Payer, and advocates who attended this hearing were arrested.
Congressman John Conyers supports Single-Payer, and his bill HR 676 has 93 co-sponsors. Bernie Sanders has introduced his own Single-Payer bill, S 703, in the Senate. Polls have shown that many Americans, including doctors and nurses, support Single-Payer health care.
Nurse Donna Smith describes Single-Payer as public financing and private delivery, combined "together in one system that takes out the waste and the abuse that's really happening, which is where all the money goes into the health insurance. Up to 30 percent of the [current health care] costs have nothing to do with health care at all and everything to do with fueling the health insurance [companies]."
Source: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/watch.html
Comments (44)
I like the idea of single payer health insurace if it is the government being the single payer. That way there will be real cost controlls on everything from office visits to prescription drugs. Single payer is long over due.
Sign these petitions for single payer
http://bit.ly/single_payer_baucus
http://bit.ly/single_payer
The best resource for single payer health care information is located at the “Physicians for a National Health Program” (PNHP). Link to this organization: www.pnhp.org
I highly encourage you to visit Bill Moyers Journal Online for the May 22, 2009 airing of "Single-Payer: Is Nationalized Health Coverage the Way to go?" Watch the episode clips but be sure to read the comment section, that section is gold in understanding single payer and the publics wants associated with this topic. Link: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/05/singlepayer_is_nationalized_he.html
If you want to kill innovation, slow down health care for everyone, and slaughter the finest health care in the world and replace it with mediocrity, then this is a good idea.
If you want better health care this is a terrible idea.
Fear is the mind killer
Cashman57 -- I suggest you do an Internet search for the best health care in the world. The results might surprise you.
According to the most recent WHO report, the United States ranks thirty-seventh!
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
cashman we already have mediocrity in our health care system. We pay more than any other industrialized nation 7,129 per capita and still pay out of pocket co-pays. We Americans need to stop listening to the healthcare industry and our legislators and start embarcing change. It will be good for our health!
lindatift and Brett- figures don't lie but liars can figure.
The figure for the "most expensive" includes all advertising, research,
and development of everything from timed released aspirin to the type of neck operation that saved my life.
Only in this country and under this health care could I have been injured so severely and still survive.
NONE of the socialistic health care systems you can NAME have better trauma facilities than we have.
NONE of the socialistic health care systems operate without wait times in the months to see a doctor and years to see a specialist.
An orthopedic surgeon and brand new procedures at that time were used, you don't get that type of innovation from any socialistic health care system.
The London newspapers are filled with stories of ambulances being used as waiting rooms because the hospitals are so short staffed even emergency care is put on hold.
If you think waiting for hours in an ambulance is preferable to the cutting edge syteme we now have, by all means move to the U.K. where they have the perfect system for you.
Just don't try and find a dentist while you are there, and don't injure yourself severely.
Oh, and don't get sick either.
The problem with medical hostpitals and private practices is that they have multi rates depended upon the form of payment. Lets say an $100,000 operation billed to an individual without insurance, if that same person had insurance it would cost roughly 25% of the list price, or $25,000 to the insurance company. Do you start to see the problem now?
“Bill Moyers Journal”, May 22, 2009, Washington's abuzz about health care, but why isn't a single-payer plan an option on the table? Public Citizen's Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Physicians for a National Health Program's Dr. David Himmelstein on the political and logistical feasibility of health care reform. “One out of fourteen people think that the medical insurance industry is honest and trustworthy.” Link: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/05/singlepayer_is_nationalized_he.html
Read the blog section and really find out the depths of the health care problem from first hand experience. The major pushers of single-payer is coming from the health industry itself. And again, it is a sin to profit from the pain of another, that is the health insurance industry we have today.
Cashman, you seem to be saying that the USA has the best emergency care. I don't know if that's true, but in any case it's absolutely not the same as the best health care.
Our health care system does have many successes, and I'm glad that your neck operation was one of them. Unfortunately, our system also has many failures.
Emergency care is the one area where health providers are required to provide care regardless of the patient's ability to pay. This system often forces the uninsured to delay seeking health care until their situation reaches emergency status. In many cases, the health provider is not reimbursed for providing this care. And in many cases, the the bills for this care force the patient into bankruptcy. A health crisis becomes a financial crisis.
In terms of health care and costs, a Londoner visiting our country without insurance has a lot more worries than an American in London. Besides, we've all heard stories about people waiting months or years for treatment in our health system, so in my view your argument is moot already.
By the way, when I googled "ambulance as waiting room" and "emergency waiting room", I mostly got stories about long waiting times right here in the USA.
Right or wrong, all of these issues should be part of the national health care debate. I stand by my strong belief that Single-Payer should be part of the discussion and it should be "on the table" as a viable proposal.
As far as England goes, their health industry used to work. What they are experiencing now has more to do with the missmanagement of their government. I do not pretend to fully understand their situation, but England is now faced with some serious liquidity problems. Most likely to do with housing bubbles and fraudulent secruities from United States.
Brett- you don't improve a health care system by ending innovation and competition and letting some DC pencil pushing geek decide what care you will get.
We need LESS government not MORE government.
Before the federal government stepped in 80% of Americans paid for their own health care and could afford it.
Government intervention has increased cost and decreased service.
More governmental interferance will increase costs MORE and we will end up with LESS service and lose the best trauma care in the world!
You pourposefully limited your search so you could come up with something you wanted because the treuth is in the U.K. ambulatory wait times are in the HOURS.
Perhaps you should seek out newspaper articles in the U.K.?
Like this?
Patients forced to wait hours in ambulances parked outside A&E departments
Ambulance chiefs have warned that lives are being put at risk "on a daily basis" by long delays allowing patients into Accident and Emergency units.
An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has found that thousands of 999 patients are being left to wait in ambulances in car parks and holding bays, or in hospital corridors – in some cases for more than five hours – before they can even join the queue for urgent treatment.
Experts warn that hospitals are deliberately delaying when they accept patients – or are diverting them to different sites – in order to meet Government targets to treat people within fours hours of admitting them.
The extent of the problems have been revealed in correspondence between senior health officials, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which also show their serious concerns about the dangers the delays pose to patients.
A letter by Sir Graham Meldrum, chairman of West Midlands Ambulance Service, sent to hospital chief executives last November warns that patients are "being put at risk on a daily basis", with 7,600 patients a month facing delays of more than 30 minutes – a situation which has since deteriorated, with more than 8,000 such delays in March.
The documents also reveal an investigation into the death of a patient who waited three hours to be seen by A&E staff after being taken by ambulance to The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals Trust.
On two occasions in January, ambulances took more than five hours to unload patients at Queen's Hospital in Romford, Essex.
In the same month, journeys to Weston-super-Mare hospital in Somerset were repeatedly held up, with more than a dozen waits of two hours, including delays of four and five hours.
Dozens of A&E units refused all 999 arrivals for periods of several hours, on hundreds of occasions, forcing crews to take desperately sick patients on lengthy journeys, and shifting pressures to other hospitals, the documents show.
In the course of six months, hospitals in the West Midlands ordered a "divert" on more than 450 occasions, closing A&E units to all 999 arrivals for hours at a time.
During a six-week period last autumn, hospital chiefs in the north east of England closed casualty units to 999 arrivals on 34 occasions, for up to 19 hours at a time.
Internal documents from the London Ambulance Service reports of extensive delays throughout December: "Ambulances have queued in large numbers for up to five hours to unload, and two hour delays were relatively common," it says.
The briefing note, written in January, says hospitals were so short-staffed that ambulance staff were regularly forced to look after multiple patients simultaneously, so that colleagues could respond to 999 calls.
Delays to patients arriving to A&E by ambulance are increasing in many parts of the country as hospitals struggle to cope with a massive increase in the number of emergency hospital admissions since family doctors stopped providing routine out-of-hours care.
Since the changes were made five years ago, the number of emergency hospital admissions has risen by 30 per cent, while the number of beds fell by more than 20,000.
More than 100,000 ambulance journeys were delayed at casualty units by more than 30 minutes in the month of March alone – an increase of 18 per cent in 12 months.
Mike Penning, the shadow health minister, said: "Labour's tick box culture is forcing staff to prioritise the four hour target ahead of ensuring patient get the treatment they need.
"It is madness that all of this has happened at a time when the number of people being admitted to A&E units is soaring."
Ambulance staff and patients groups said hospitals were routinely ignoring NHS guidance which says the "clock" for the A&E four hour wait should start 15 minutes after an ambulance arrives on site.
Katherine Murphy, from the Patients Association, said: "We are hearing increasing numbers of stories of seriously-ill patients lying in pain in ambulances, worried out of their mind, while others are taken on long journeys because casualty units have been closed.
"The guidance may say they should not be delayed, but the A&E target is the one that comes with financial penalties attached, and it is the one hospitals care about."
Most ambulance trusts measure delays by "turnaround time" – the time between the ambulance's arrival at A&E and its availability for the next call.
It includes any time cleaning or restocking the vehicle, which should take no more than a few minutes.
Research by one ambulance trust found three quarters of delays occurred before the patient was handed over to staff, and that 84 per cent of those cases were connected to bed shortages.
Sam Oestricher, ambulance representative for trade union Unison, said ambulances were being treated "as mobile waiting rooms".
He said: "Our members are spending hours effectively babysitting patients, who have been rushed to A&E departments because they need to be seen urgently.
"It leaves patients and crews in a terribly anxious, frustrating situation, and it greatly increases the risks."
Jim Wardrope, A&E consultant at Sheffield Northern Hospital and past president of the College of Emergency Medicine said: "The whole system is running hot, so that when the pressure comes, it backs up quickly and we end up desperately searching for trolleys."
Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said "severe action" would be taken against any hospitals found to be keeping patients in ambulances in an attempt to cheat on the A&E targets.
He added: "The vast majority of hospitals up and down the country are meeting the four hour target without keeping people waiting in ambulances."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5412191/Patients-forced-to-wait-hours-in-ambulances-parked-outside-AandE-departments.html
Maybe you can look through all of your artiicles here in the united States and show me where they are trying to get the ambulatory care withing FOUR HOURS!!!!!
Right here, Cashman:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15817906/
Brett- didn't see anything there about patients waiting four hours in the ambulance before they are set to wait another four hours in the hospital waiting room.
Are you really trying to convince me that waiting LONGER and having FEWER qualified individuals in health care will make things better?
To me, having a trauma center with qualified individuals beats not having one at all.
Forcing me to comply with a DC mandate for my health care is not freedom.
If you can find that place in the Constitution where the federal government is authorized to be the doctor, show me.
Otherwise you should admit that the federal interferance caused the long wait times and we should rid the hospital from federal interferance.
So, put up or shut up. There are no Americans waiting four hous in an ambulance before being admitted to the hospital.
That will happen under the scheme you back, guaranteed.
Anyone taking odds that cashman57 works in the insurance industry, watches Fox News, and voted Republican. What gave him away was the term socialized medicine; this is a fox news idea. Certain news agencies who take opposite opinions often label ideas with connotations of evil; this prevents the public from critical thinking.
Socialization of services has been a staple of American life for years now, such as United Postal Service, Police, firemen, and local governments. They all add value to the American experience, because they are essential to a functional society. Single-payer medical policies take the view that people all experience medical issues and that should we pool our resources we can protect everyone in our society from predatory medical billing practices. The strength of many rather than one. And we the people of this United States are more than willing to pay extra taxes to ensure that health care is available and there when we need it or there to help prevent medial issues. Since our congress does not take the view of the people, but rather the view of money, power and special interests, we will never see single payer taken seriously. It is a sin to gain profit from the suffrage of our fellow citizens. For profit insurance industries label medical payouts as loss statements. Depending upon the fine print of your policy, which may change frequently, you will not know if the ailment you find yourself with will be covered until the insurance agency disputes payment. Then you are faced with liquidating all your assets to cover costs and legal battles with your insurance provider.
Yes, many patients in the USA have waited eight or more hours for emergency care. I think it is irrelevant to discuss whether that wait occurs in the ambulance or in the waiting room. The in-ambulance waits are the result of a specific directive that is unrelated to the more general topic of Single-Payer health care.
Again, my point here is not to prove that Single-Payer is the best option. I am simply stating that it should be "on the table" until or unless a serious, unbiased investigation proves that other proposals are superior.
The United States have many victims in this health care system from long waits in the E.R. to wrong diagnosises, to operating on the wrong body part, being sent to another emergency room becuase over the last 30 years more and more hospitals are being bought up by the bigger health care profiteers. I think if you just pay attention to the news you will find we are not in much better shape then any other country when it comes to the need to give better patient service. If cashman57 likes his health care he should be able to keep his for profit health care. As for me I would like the choice of a single payer option. Why is that so intimidating for those for profit health care supporters?
"Anyone taking odds that cashman57 works in the insurance industry, watches Fox News, and voted Republican. What gave him away was the term socialized medicine; this is a fox news idea."
Wrong all the way down the line. I don't even believe in health insurance because the insurance company then gets to make the decisions.
I took the amount of my monthly premium and instead bought gold coins.I was able to pay for my health care directly.
I have never voted for a Republican ever.
Not one time.
In fact I was a member of the Democrat Party until the early seventies and I saw the corruption all over that party and I have been a member of the Libertarians Party ever since. My TV line-up does not even include fox news and I could only get it if I pay extra.
Now that we have dispensed with your off base comment, we should get back to the question.
Whay would I want to trade what we have today for a system that costs more, delivers less, and kills innovation?
Please explain to me how making it worse is a better choice.
I won't hold my breath.
Not one of you can find a better system on the planet.
Not one single solitary government run health care system is on the cutting edge of innovation in procedures and treatments.
So, please tell me why you want to kill innovation.
Please.
I would rather wait eight or more hours for socialized medical assistance than have to liquidate all of my assets to pay for care that my insurance provider fails to cover.
Move to the UK
"I would rather wait eight or more hours for socialized medical assistance than have to liquidate all of my assets to pay for care that my insurance provider fails to cover. "You would rather die waiting for care than have to start over again in America the most prosperous place there is?
You would rather my wife died for lack of care so you can avoid some financial pain? You would rather end the innovation and the trauma centers and push us back? You want some pencil necked geek in DC to decide whether you or your kin are worth a procedure? You want medicine turned over to the lowerst bidder?
Cashman, I think it's great that you were able to pay for your own treatment out of pocket, but unfortunately there are many Americans who simply cannot do that. I believe that Single-Payer delivers more and costs less than our current system, leaving plenty of funds for innovation, but I respect that you have different beliefs.
Oh I know there are many Americans who cannot handle their finances, one need only look at the huge credit card debt to figure that out.
How can you believe that single payer costs less when all of the evidence points the other way?
Look at the other places this has been tried. Even our own government showed us with Walter Reed and the horrible conditions there that when they do it it costs more and delivers less.
Show me where I can find any single payer system anywhere that works and delivers at least the level of care we currently have.
I am not attacking you personally, but the idea that a single payer system will work here in this country is simply a baseless assertion.
There's no proof it works and that's why I oppose it.
I don't want to have a situation like a buddy of mine had where he traded in his car because it sucked gas and ended up with one that won't run.
Likewise, to say that Single-Payer cannot work here is a baseless assertion.
There's no proof that it doesn't work, and that's why I support some serious analysis to determine if it can work.
One reason I think Single-Payer will cost less is because we currently have the *most* expensive health care in the world.
http://www.google.com/search?q=most+expensive+health+care+system
I have looked at other places where Single-Payer has been tried, and I think their system looks better than ours. I respect that you do not agree.
(Single-Payer refers to public financing with private delivery, which does *not* describe Walter Reed.)
There is one issue that few people are taking into consideration when looking at this polarizing issue. We will eventually be unable to convince sufficient American students to enter the health care field. Currently they are graduating with hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan obligations.
Private practice for family practice physicians is rapidly becoming a quick route to loss of practice and even more debt. Chasing down insurance reimbursement is an unecessary drag to many practices and Medicare reimbursement while it is faster and more trouble free to collect is insufficient to rely on. The elderly are fortunate to have a physician willing to take them into a practice because the reimbursement rate set by Medicare drives down the co-pay on the supplemental insurance plans and few physicians can afford to staff an office, pay rent and also take many Medicare patients in their practices.
Our health care system is broken with too many people showing up at emergency rooms with life threatening diseases and much more difficult to treat illnesses because people cannot afford to see a physician and turn to the emergency room as a last resort. That drives up Malpractice rates because when the outcome is bad, every physician that was even peripherally involved gets sued. Those patients and/or their families will be billed the full price for services rendered, not the prices negotiated by insurance companies that use the finese of the mob in negotiating reimbursement rates. Too often those people will be unable to pay even over a long term payment plan, the debt incurred, this is why they are in the emergency room to begin with. Their next option becomes the malpractice attorneys advertising to the desperate on televisions and in throw away advertisements. This vicious cycle plays out repeatedly and has accelerated in large cities often burdened with large homeless, mentally ill and underserved veteran populations.
Hospitals are going out of business due to unpaid bills; remember the federal government mandates that many of those cases have to be seen and treated. It has become a rapidly deteriorating health care emergency that only requires a public health emergency, such as an epidemic or another attack on our nation to bring us all to our knees. It is long past time to take the profit out of keeping this nation healthy and optimally functioning. Single payer has to be given an opportunity, Americans are not looking for a handout, they need a handup.
Bravo!
If the Clintons past single payer health care what would Bush have done with it? bet he would have cut coverage it offered. That is why I do not want single payer.
I would like to share my ideas regarding national health care with you.
I believe that someone such as the Surgeon General or someone else should determine what a basic health plan (driven by public health care policies) should be. Once such a basic plan is determined all health insurance companies will be required to provide the provisions of such plan to any United States citizen. Insurance companies would be allowed to charge whatever price they determined is equitable but they would have to charge all of their customers the same price, though each company would differ in price. Everyone would get a tax credit that would cover most of the cost for buying the basic plan and be required to buy the basic plan before buying any optional health insurance. Along with this basic policy for everyone, the paperwork would be standardized across all insurance companies, hospitals and health care providers.
Since the insurance company has to charge each one of its customers the same price they can advertise the price on radio, television, print advertising creating a competitive market. Since the basic plan is the same, consumers will be able to compare the base rate and optional coverage easier. This would eliminate insurance companies from refusing people for insurance for the basic plan. However, insurance companies could charge accordingly and set their own guidelines for optional insurance. Also government can help the poor with their premiums. The government also should set up an insurance plan for the insurance companies that thay all pay into, so that smaller insurance companies could offer health insurance, so if a insurance company has a person with health cost of over a million dollars thay could collect from the government plan. Also make medicare and mediaid cradle to grave plans so to make insurance companies to keep you healthy for your whole life and not just keeping you healthy till you get on medicare. And to make every one get health insurance give a tax credit to everyone that buys health insurance that will pay for most if not all of the cost of the health insurance, the tax credit would be base on the number of people insured for the household and not the cost of the health insurance, but it still should cover most if not all of the cost of the health insurance. For people doing unhealthy acts, I say tax them, tax smoking, tax unsafe cars, tax unhealthy food, and use those taxes to help fund health care.
I posted my plan under
uncategorized
please read all of it and tell me how to make it better and vote on it
my email is debdaveandpets@gmail.com
if you want to contact me, I think my plan would be easier to do than most other health plans.
David McDonell
E5273 Airport Road
Ironwood, MI 49938
Make basic health insurance like milk, you do not see huge difference in milk prices because milk is milk someone charges to much and people will buy it elsewhere, but for the free market to work well people have to be able to compare the different plans, and by making the basic plans the same across all health insurance companies people will only have to compare price and service for the basic plans and what optional insurance is offer by the health insurance companies. If the Clintons past single payer health care what would Bush have done with it by cutting coverage it offered. That is why I do not want single payer. By having sick people pay the same as healthy people, employers would not have to pay more for workers with medical problems and those people can change jobs and find work easier. Unhealthy items and acts would be taxed. Insurance companies can not use paper work to denied coverage and would get rid of most of it. Freemarket would keep costs down. people and retirement plans owning stock in health insurance companies would not lose a lot of value. Putting health insurance companies out of business would have costs.
I love that everyone thinks that health insurance should be treated like car insurance. Health care in my opinion should be a right. We should have had this basic need met a long time ago. Dave your plan on the surface looks good. What do we do with the disabled? Do we keep medicare and medicaid? The plan also looks to give those with money the oppertunity to have better coverage than the poor and working class. That is already happening. A real public option would give everyone the same coverage to live by. One for all and all for one. It will force institutions(hospitals) and corperations(drug companies) to hold down cost and quit making profits off from other peoples suffering. It would promote Best Practices for each disease and personal responsibility and stop wasting money on administrative and marketing. Dave your plan encourages waste in marketing, therefore taking those much needed dollars away from services. That is why we don't need a middle man.
HealthCARE not healthINSURANCE!!! And let's talk about it - any administration which says "all ideas are on the table EXCEPT for -insert name of idea - in this case it has been 'single payer- has just told us how
terrified it must be of whatever idea it is - terrified that the idea really is a popular one that people want.
If 'single payer' publicly funded healthcare is such a lousy idea, then it should easily be shot down in an HONEST (i.e., where single payer advocates get to participate as WELL as the big money usual voices and the congresspeople who are well insured and well funded by their sugar daddy h insurance contributors) debate/discussion.
I agree. Everyone I talk to wants single payer except my Senator. They know that with single payer their money well will be dried up. In this country every special interest group except their contituents are listened to. We need to make the next election about one issue,HEALTH CARE for all! Anyone in office that doesn't support universal health care needs to go! Our elected officals have a full array of health care services paid for by us. If they are not willing to give us what they have we don't need them representing us any longer.
How many of you who support governmental interferance in health care again are currently under the thumb of an HMO?
You people drone on and on about how we have a right to health insurance. We don't. That is not something the founders wanted.
If the government makes all of the decisions regarding health care, what happens if they decide you are not worth it?
ALL of you "single payer" people seem to be drunk on the same wine.
If the federal government could fix health care the HMO model would have worked.
They don't, it didn't and trying to paint this as anything other than another theft of freedom is ridiculous.
Go back and look at the arguments for HMO. The Democrats were slapping themselves on the back because they fixed health care, solved the problem of increasing cost and would give health insurance available to low income and blah blah blah.
History is repeating itself and government is no smarter today than they were when they invented the HMO.
So, please, some one who thinks this single payer is a good idea, why is it the same idea that gave us HMO and why do you want to steal my health care freedom?
?
cashman57,
First no one is asking you to give up your health care if you want to stay with the private insurance company please feel free to do so. Secondly if you think that your private insurance company wont tell you what services you can and can not have have get a disease or a catastrophic condition and see how fast you are either thrown off your insuance or are left to bankrupcy because they will not insure all of your medical bills. The countries private insurance companies are alrady telling over weight people that they will have to pay extra do to the other illnessess that goes along with being over weight. Private or public health care you will be paying based on your life style. Some of us would rather see everyone insured and not just worry about our self. We have over 53 million Americans without health insurance and that is just unexceptable. Wake up man and while your at it get a heart.
Sorry friend, it appears that you have the "wrong end of the stick". The HMO model is still working quite well for some people. I know many people that belong to Kaiser and are very happy with the coverage. At this point, I do not belong to Kaiser or any other HMO. It was not an invention of the government. It actually began as the idea of a physician interested in providing "wellness" care for his patients, to keep them from developing chronic illnesses. I believe Kaiser was the first, followed by Ross Loos (two physicians) somewhere in the mid 1930's. When my children were young our family was given the option to join Ross Loos; it was a welcome change to the private insurance policy for which we dutifully paid and then were denied coverage when a hospitalization was required. Ross Loos provided excellent care, both wellness and when hospitalization was required. Ross Loos was bought out by Cigna and then by some other company. With every change in owner, quality declined and the expense of the policy increased. That old profit motive at work; stockholders have every right to expect a good return on their investment.
Which takes us to the issue of single payer or universal health care coverage. The bottom line is the profit has to be removed from health care. People are dying because they can't afford insurance or to pay for their own medical care. At this point, a chronic illness or a cancer diagnosis can be a death sentence, not a pleasant death. As Americans we need to be concerned about this. Health care Administration costs have increased exponentially, driving physicians from their practices and closing hospitals due to uncollected payment for services. The number of providers has not begun to keep up with administrative costs.
We no longer live in the "old west" where it was every man for himself. An epidemic could destroy this nation from within, with our neighbor's health care problem quickly becoming yours and mine. In the 1800’s my great grandfather made a trip to New Orleans where he became ill with cholera. He was treated in their hospital and lived to return to his small city. He then founded a hospital for his city. Civilization progresses when ordinary citizens understand that structure and order is required and that needed amenities are created by a community. We have moved beyond helping a neighbor to raise a barn. We belong to a nation made up of states and the cities and communities within those states. Everyone has fire services, not just those with the emblem on their dwellings. Police and the military keep order and protect the nation. All those amenities are paid for by taxes.
In other words, if you are concerned about Socialism then focus on the bail-out of Wall Street, subsidies to the Oil industry and big Agriculture (CONAG, etc.) they come much closer to socialism than offering all Americans affordable healthcare, whether through taxes or as part of an insurance plan.
mr. cashman,
Please don't address people as "you people" - if anything, you lead folks to simply dismissing your opinions as condescending, conceited, self-righteous, and judgemental. You won't win anyone over that way & do you sincerely think you are going to win anybody over here in this thread with your arguments?
A few notes on your posts - we've tried it your way and the freemarket way in general. It has failed miserably. Other systems which are single payer based have been successful. I know - I actually DID receive care IN a single payer system (Canada) and cared for a sister their in that system AND I cared for family in the system in the US. I've worked for both the health insurance co's in the states AND providers so I actually have first hand experience and expertise in this area. A single payer publicly funded universal healthcare system is the ONLY financially viable system - we see the proof over and over and over and over again in the statistics by reputable sources including our own congressional office analysts as well as leading universities and researchers. 59% of MDs want a single payer system and the majority of nurses throughout the US want it.
And the argument about what the "founding fathers" wanted is pretty weak - the "founding fathers" may have wanted slavery to remain intact and for more than 1/2 the population to continue being denied the right to vote. This is 2009 - a civilized society LEARNS from history and grows and EVOLVES and mostly, echoing what we see in nature itself, LEARNS FROM ITS PAST AND CONTINUES TO IMPROVE ON IT. Ok, we tried privatizing medicine and healthcare. it was nice for a while but it doesn't work any more. And wake up - you don't live in a vacuum - mature people care about others besides themselves and try to leave the world a better place for those others including their own children. The self-centeredness and selfishness, which would lay at the core of your idea and your suggested indifference towards others, is fine at the age of 3 but as grown up adults, it's time to move on.
Patients' Choice Act:
http://www.house.gov/ryan/PCA/index.htm
If the HMO solved the problem it was designed to solve, why are we looking at more governmental interferance.
When I refer to "you people" I mean people who don't understand that what they want necessarily negates what I want.
Look at Canada where it is against the law to pay for your own health care, you must use their system with weeks long wait for your doctor provided you can find one.
The "founding fathers" knew what the federtal government would do if not constrained and now, today, the problems in our health care are ALL rooted in governmental interferance and you people want more governmental interferance. You want your health care decisions to be made by a committee in Congress.
So, you people who want to finish of what decades of government meddling has made sick are going to be sorry.
Your pipe dream has no reality.
You either need to address the issue up front and amend the Constitution or find another way to solve the problem.
The only thing the government has done so far is increase costs and increase paperwork and increase the very things it said it was going to get rid of.
If you want to wait for weeks to see a doctor and months to years to see a specialist and you want cookie cutter rationed health care there are plenty of other countries you can move to.
Cashman,
Your the one living in a pipe dream thinking that the insurance industry is going to police it's self, bring down prices, and offer real competition. If that is all we were waiting for they had thirty plus years to do that in. We want real competition and that will only happen if those of us that want a public option get it. As for your cookie cutter rationed health care, were living it. It takes a long time to get in to see your doctor when you call for an appointment thats why many end up at the walk-in clinic or the emergency room. It's obvious you haven't been sick lately.
Posting here to counter the urban legend and BS thrown around on this post about rationing in Canada and all of that nonsense about long waiting times and dyng while waiting for urgent care. I actually cared for SISTER in Canada under Canadian system. She had cancer (passed away in 2004). I also went through same with family in US under privatized system in US. So please don't tell me what you think, what your frined says, or what you heard; I've actually been in Canada and received and provided care myself there so don't try to convince me of what I already experienced. The Canadian system was FAR better than the US system. Most medical tourism today, by the way - to all of you people who just can't stand the idea of people receiving healthcare who aren't wealthy like you, is for going OUTSIDE of the US to receive care since care is so expensive and unavailable to the middle class now here in the US. XM/Sirius's POTUS has a call in show where they frequently have asked Canadians (who are big listeners) to call in to complain about their healthcare. NOBODY ever calls in except to call in to say how much they prefer their healthcare system.
Only folks who are pretty ignorant at this point are believing this nonsense and fear tactic re socialized medicine/rationing/wait times, and all the rest of this usual load of cr_p about single payer publicly funded healthcare.
Posting nonsense here from someone alleging to know about Canadian health care is someone who has never read the guidelines for wait times in the Canadian system.
An increasing number of Canadians have no primary care doctor, because of the shortage of professionals.
The economics of the medical system in the united States has been tinkered with since the 1960's creeping toward an ever more controlled system of health care.
What we need is to get the government oput of the health care business. It was never designed to do that and you only need to look at what happened at Walter Reed Army Hospital to see what happens when you put the federal government in charge of health care.
I am not talking about the insurance "industry" producing or policing anything.
They already suck which is why I carry only catastrophic coverage so I pay for my doctor visits and I get to choose my doctor and I don't have to wait for more than over the weekend and I have a clinic number so I can reach them if need be.
You are living in a pipe dream if you think our health care system will be anything other than cookie cutter rationed care.
Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.
This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely -- a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them -- the majority soldiers, with some Marines -- have been released from hospital beds but still need treatment or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned to active duty.
They suffer from brain injuries, severed arms and legs, organ and back damage, and various degrees of post-traumatic stress. Their legions have grown so exponentially -- they outnumber hospital patients at Walter Reed 17 to 1 -- that they take up every available bed on post and spill into dozens of nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army. The average stay is 10 months, but some have been stuck there for as long as two years.
Not all of the quarters are as bleak as Duncan's, but the despair of Building 18 symbolizes a larger problem in Walter Reed's treatment of the wounded, according to dozens of soldiers, family members, veterans aid groups, and current and former Walter Reed staff members
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html
Yeah, tell me again how much better our medical system will be when we put the federal government in charge of it.
Mr. Cashman,
I actually cared for my sister in the Canadian system. Don't tell me to go read reports. I actually experienced the system myself firsthand. That personal experience trumps your various reports, papers, hearsay, and propaganda. And as someone who actually has done the billing for providers, your rhetoric here just seems like reactionary right wing ignorance.
We've given the privatized model of no govt. interference/let the free market do it a long long trial in our United States. Compared to systems like Canada's, the US healthcare system is horrendous.
Also, your understanding of the single payer systems being proposed in the USA is clearly non-existent. For example, because you have not likely bothered to read the bills themselves before congress, you don't realize that in the proposed single payer system in the US, provider point of service is not touched and remains privatized; only the payer is govt. run - the payer being the govt. akin to our Medicare system and please don't go on to me about Medicare. I'm on Medicare and I've actually worked in the past for providers managing their Medicare claims so don't try your BS on me. Again, it's one thing to try to pull the wool over the eyes of those who actually have not used such systems or who aren't directly in the trenches managing the claims, billing, etc. but it just makes you look like a fool when you go on and on trying to convince people such as actual nurses or MDs or claims managers or patients in the Canadian system of things that you really just have no personal experience yourself with.
Why not find somewhere else to throw your air punches. It's just skipped over here by those with some actual credibility.
Facts don't move a man whose head is "made up" but here is another source debunking the myths about the Canadian Health Care System:
Published in the Denver Post on Sunday June 7, 2009 "Debunking Canadian Health Care Myths" by Rhonda Hackett and also posted on Common Dreams.org
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/07-0
It's cheaper. Read this article. Everyone talked about it when Kucinich ran for President. It's like it's a new subject when they talk about it today. We've been asking for over ten years.
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009062521/hey-moderates-public-health-plan-option-will-cut-costs-and-other-fun-facts
We need to press the Senate to request a CBO report that factors in a single payer public option and leaves out the Insurance Industry. The current CBO report was generated utlizing figures that leave the Insurance Industry in the equation. We need a comparison, otherwise we are shooting ourselves in the foot and allowing the minority party to continue to frame the debate, decide the experts that will be consulted and which 'facts' are relevant. This issue is too important to the citizens of this nation to worry about a bi-partisan approval of the debate.
From watching Senate proceedings, it appears that Obstructionism is the one and only tactic being utilized; it is childish, counter productive and keeps the Senate from getting the work of the people done. As Obama said, elections have consequences, of course the Democrats understood that all too well when the Supreme Court annointed Bush after a very questionable vote standoff in Florida.
The Senator's that do not want to support a government public health care option for the American people should give up their Federal government health care plan that the American tax payer has paid for them and their families since they were elected and go out and buy their own for profit health care plan with the big money we the payer pay them to represent us. Then maybe they might come around to our way of thinking. I have challenged my Senator to do just that.