It's reckless for progressives to dismiss concerns over funding single payer as 'trolling'...

[NurseJackie]

Last edited Sun Sep 24, 2017, 02:09 PM - Edit history (1)

Readers React
Letters to the editor and readers' opinions.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-ol-le-single-payer-healthcare-funding-20170924-story.html

Opinion It's reckless for progressives to dismiss concerns over funding single payer as 'trolling'

To the editor: Call me a nitpicker, but yes, I am concerned about who will pay for single payer. I would love to see such a system in this country, but which Republican members of the House are going to vote to raise taxes or borrow money to pay for it? (“There are 3 types of single-payer ‘concern trolls’ — and they all want to undermine universal healthcare,” Opinion, Sept. 21)

Adam H. Johnson notes that Congress approved a 13% increase in our already bloated military budget from 2017, an $80 billion increase that could cover college tuition for every public university student for a year.

This is a great point, so I’ll use it to make a great suggestion: Let’s take that money out of the military budget and put it toward single payer.

Larry Arnstein, Santa Monica

ETA: Added link.

[Voltaire2]

1. Shoe fits.

[Me.]

2. K&R

[leftstreet]

3. It's reckless not to call it Medicare For All

(Not you, the opinion piece writer)

Medicare For All is what people recognize and already understand. No one writes to newspapers asking how we can pay for their elderly parents' healthcare

[frazzled]

5. We do understand how Medicare works

Maybe you don't understand the difference between Medicare and Medicare for All so well.

Currently, everybody who works pays into Medicare their entire working life. Current workers pay for the healthcare of older Americans who qualify for Medicare insurance (those over 65). (When these workers become eligible for Medicare later in life, it will be the younger workers who are paying into the system to pay for their care.) To extend the Medicare program to all, there would have to be a lot more money in the system ... a whole lot of lot more, since the amounts being paid in now cover only a segment of the population (about 12.5% of the population, and that's the highest level ever, due to the baby boomers). That's fine, but where that money comes from to fund care for 100% of the population is open to a lot of discussion, and probably a lot of controversy.

A bill that sets out Medicare for all but does not include the specific ways in which the costs will be paid for (as the ACA did) is not a bill at all; it's an aspiration. Passing it would not enact the program, because the funding would have to be passed separately, by tax increases or any of the other means suggested in the white paper. And you know how that goes. There can be no Medicare for all without the agreed-upon and sustainable funding. (It's like Trump promising his supporters that he will build a wall, but there is no agreement--and probably never will be--on how to pay for it.) So yes, it's a concern. But not at all a false concern.

[brer cat]

6. Maybe it is reckless to call it Medicare for All

since it is not the Medicare that we recognize and already understand. If you must nitpick about terminology, maybe you should start with your own. Or maybe we could discuss issues and the reasonable concerns that people have without digressing into such nitpicking.

[leftstreet]

7. I don't think it's 'nitpicking'

The framing of this issue is very importanta politically

People want single payer healthcare
GOPers convince people single payer healthcare is evil

Say 'Medicare For All' and we'll get there. Just ask the tons of GOPer voters who showed up at town halls this spring, angry at their own GOP representatives and demanding healthcare "like YOU'VE got"

The time is now

[brer cat]

8. I agree that framing is important.

It should be both honest and transparent. Republican plans are neither but that doesn't mean we should aspire to that level. People want universal healthcare; single payer is ONE way to achieve that. Over 150 million people have employer-provided health insurance and I have seen no studies or polls that indicate that most, many or any are clamoring to have their current coverage replaced by Medicare. Many people have concerns about how M4A would be funded, how it would be administered, who would be determining what is covered and would that be subject to change with every change in control of Congress, and how we would deal with such a major disruption in that huge segment of our economy. Those concerns are legitimate and they deserve an airing. There are also many people, including Democrats, who think it is unrealistic if not laughable to assume "the time is now."

[leftstreet]

9. That's because they don't ask

Over 150 million people have employer-provided health insurance and I have seen no studies or polls that indicate that most, many or any are clamoring to have their current coverage replaced by Medicare.

Most people privately employed shoulder a percentage of their employee-provided insurance. And it keeps going up. Right now it averages about 25-30% for family coverage and 15-20% for individual. And as I said, it keeps going up

It's no surprise the media doesn't cover that aspect

[brer cat]

10. I don't see the supporters of M4A covering it either.

[leftstreet]

11. That's very true

Not sure I get the silence from all corridors

[Boxerfan]

4. Of course because paying less is bad because....

Oh fudge...