What is single payer universal health care?

[Cleita]

Answer:

As simply as I can put it, it's socialized health insurance but not socialized medicine. The single payer, usually a government, collects the premiums and some taxes to pay for those who can't contribute. Doctors, hospitals and other care givers are private businesses competing with each other. I mean it's the definition of capitalism. The government pays them for their services from the premiums and taxes. There is no middle entity siphoning off profits like private insurance. Why it's such a boogeyman to the right, I will never understand? Most businesses should actually be on board because it will solve the big problem that they have of providing their employees with health insurance. The only industry missing out will be the whiney insurers because all their big profits will no longer be there.

BooHoo. :nopity:

[eleny]

1. That's an easy to nderstand description - thanks

K&R

[Mythsaje]

2. Very nice. Kick and Rec n/t

[mmonk]

3. Yep. It's just that simple. The rest is propaganda.

[stray cat]

4. I pay $10,000 per employee for health care - how much will each of us pay

in a single payer system, what will be covered, how will it be payed for and who will make the decision. Who will pay for those who can't pay say $10,000 per year. What if someone doesn't want to pay will the be forced to enroll - how will that force be carried out?

I won't promote any plan that lacks any details - the devil is really in the details...

[Cleita]

5. If the numbers crunched are correct, the premiums collected would

probably drop to two thirds of that once the initial costs of the program are met. However, if it's done right, Social security will probably be raised so you and your employees will probably get an increase in that but since you won't be paying that $10,000 premium per employee, it should impact your bottom line a lot less. Also, since you will be paying only a percentage instead of a full premium, the larger corporations will probably be paying a lot more since they would have far more employees. As far as details, hit the first link on my signature to John Conyer's website. He has a complete breakdown of his plan HR 676, extending an improved Medicare to all and how it could be payed for. This is the plan we need, but it's also the plan that Nancy Pelo$i refused to bring to the floor of the House to be debated. She's a darling of the insurance companies I believe.

[rhett o rick]

8. Because the private insurance companies won't be scrapping off billions

off the top, the $10,000 will be considerably less.

[Creideiki]

18. Roughly 40% of your 10,000 is overhead (best case)

So we're talking a base cost of 6,000. Medicare, from what I've heard, has an overhead about 10% (high side estimate). That puts the total cost per person at 6,600. It would be a large expenditure, don't get me wrong: 6,600x300 million Americans is about 2 trillion per year. 144.3 billion this year in Iraq/Afghanistan alone. Medicare is 737 billion. If we go to single-payer universal healthcare, we won't need Medicare any more, right? That's half the cost right there.

This isn't hard. It took me less than 3 minutes to google the information.

Single-payer universal health care (or any government policy work, really) isn't "hard work". Hard work is farming, mining, industrial manufacturing, teaching unruly children whose parents don't care if they learn or behave.

[theoldman]

6. I don't think it is quite that simple.

In lieu of having many insurance companies we just have one government run insurance company. More like an HMO except there is only one HMO. Someone has to handle the paperwork. What if the government employees are incompetent and cannot be fired? No system is perfect.

[Cleita]

9. Excuse me but Medicare has been zipping along for forty years now and the

only incompetence has been seen from the parts of it that has been privatized, like the Part D and the Medicare Advantage plans that no doctors want to accept. It's nothing like an HMO because like with traditional Medicare you are free to choose any doctor and even a specialist if you want to without having to get permission from your primary doctor first. If you have an emergency you don't have to get permission to go to the ER first, especially if you are on vacation and not in the state your HMO is located in. It happened to my husband because we were out of state and I had to get him to the ER. Because I didn't get permission first (he had a stroke) they refused payment. That would never have happened with Medicare nor should it with a national health insurance.

[Dragonfli]

14. Actually it simplifies the paperwork considerably

As it stands now, there are several very contorted simultaneously competing methods of submitting paperwork where for profit insures are concerned. Including a great deal added to help them deny valid claims.

It is the simplicity of the paperwork that will save much of the money (and huge amounts of doctors administration costs) if a single payer rather than profit payer system were to be put in place. http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php

[alarimer]

15. Medicare has a 4% overhead.

Private insurance companies are upwards of 30% overhead. In addition, they make their profits BY DENYING CARE, not by cutting costs.

[Hepburn]

7. Bookmarked....n/t

[elocs]

10. Medicare is a well known example of the single payer health care system

for those who qualify for it and the government is the single payer.

VA health care is a well known example of socialized medicine for those who qualify where the government owns the hospitals and clinics and all of the doctors, and nurses, and others are government employees.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Cleita.:thumbsup:

[Dragonfli]

12. K&R as always you are clear and to the point /nt

[krispos42]

13. Everybody is in the insurance pool from conception to death

Because of this fact, there is heavy incentive for preventative care, as it is usually far cheaper to prevent or discover an illness in the early stages than to wait until it's ER-worthy. Under the currents system, most people have many, many insurance companies in their lifetime. Insurance companies say they are not responsible for pre-existing conditions, and try to put off treatment to gamble on the fact that they'll be able to pass the treatment costs onto your next insurer.


Part of what makes insurance companies exist is their work done to determine risk pools. They spend a lot of time and money chopping demographic data and determining specific risks and figuring out how much to charge a person. They also spend a lot of time and money figuring out how to NOT pay.

With a single pool of customers and a flat percentage charged to pay for health care, all the time and money spend on data-chopping is saved.

[slipslidingaway]

16. knr - money used for HC instead of profits and paperwork n/t

[Wednesdays]

17. K&R

:kick: