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Yes, many people who advocate for "single payer" intend that to mean eliminating any private-pay option.
by ams6110 8y ago
Yes, many people who advocate for "single payer" intend that to mean eliminating any private-pay option.
- pjc50 8y agoDo they? Are you sure? Who? The UK's single payer system coexsists OK with private care. It's not a necessary part of the process.
- ncallaway 8y agoI don't believe that's true. What serious single payer proposals have been put forward that would eliminate private-pay, private insurance, or private care? I've never seen one. In fact, almost all "single payer" health systems that exist in other countries have private care and private insurance options. For example, such options are available in both the UK with the NHS and in Canada. I've never once spoken with an advocate of single payer who wants to eliminate private pay, private insurance, or private care. I am also an advocate of single payer, and I wouldn't advocate eliminating any of those things.
- ams6110 8y agoBernie Sanders, for one, has advocated for the elimination of private health insurance by essentially putting everyone on Medicare.
- ncallaway 8y agoThat's simply false. Both Medicare for all and Medicare buy in plans wouldn't eliminate private health insurance. Private health insurance would still exist under both plans as supplemental coverage that people could buy that would cover things that were not covered by medicare. The markets would be potentially reduced (drastically with medicare for all, moderately with a generally available medicare buy-in), but it's totally false to say they would be eliminated under those plans.
- fencepost 8y agoSaying that Sanders is advocating the elimination of private health insurance because he favors Medicare for all is just as inaccurate a saying that anyone who advocates for improving public transit is trying to eliminate all privately owned vehicles. I'm sure there are plenty of things to dislike about Sanders or anyone else whose political leanings tend toward things like publicly-funded healthcare coverage, it should be possible to come up with a few of them without blatant misrepresentation
- conanbatt 8y agoIt most definitely means banning private insurance (not private care). Thats why its "single". IT has to, because otherwise it would have to compete on the market as any other plan, and it would fail because all private insurance would dump the expensive patients on to medicare, which will need to either increase prices or increase taxes to survive. Plus the whole point is to eliminate dealing with the adminsitrative burden of claims and billing. IF you just add another insurance, you just make it worse.
- pjc50 8y ago"Single payer" means the state pays through the tax system. It doesn't mean banning private insurance, which coexists happily with the NHS. Whoever told you otherwise has been misleading you.
- conanbatt 8y agoThere is nothing single about adding a payer to a set of a dozen that already exist.
- swish_bob 8y agoThis is quite evidently rubbish, as demonstrated by the fact that I live in the UK, receive most of my healthcare for free, on the NHS and also have private medical insurance (provided by my employer).
- conanbatt 8y agoThe problems the UK has and the US has are completely different. Starting with the fact that the model of providing both a public and a private insurance system in the US will not save a single buck.
- namdnay 8y agoNo, the single payer portion doesn't have to compete with other plans. The other plans supplement the single payer insurance. E.g. single payer will cover everything up to a certain amount, and then you can buy a private plan to bring that amount higher, or maybe cover non-essential extras.