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I'm one of those people. Allow me to respond. I have seen people ruined with medical bills. There are many reasons why the system is dysfunctional, and I'm aw
by droithomme 14y ago
I'm one of those people. Allow me to respond.
I have seen people ruined with medical bills.
There are many reasons why the system is dysfunctional, and I'm aware of nearly all of them.
Did you know that a round of cancer treatment in the US can cost over $500,000, and even if you are fully insured with a good policy you can have a 20% copay required, meaning that with insurance you still personally have to pay $100,000 or more? That sort of thing is what is bankrupting people and is why most medical bankruptcies involved people who were fully insured.
That's assuming your insurance policy wasn't subject to "recission", which is legal retroactive cancellation of the policy as soon as you have any condition like cancer that would cost a lot to treat.
We have a for-profit medical industry, and a for-profit insurance industry and both are motivated to increase profits, and reducing care is often a way to do it. Even non-profit hospitals will price gouge. Non-profit status does not mean that the executives working there aren't paid large salaries, it doesn't mean that things are delivered at cost, or with minimal mark up.
The "reform" is mandating people buy insurance from for-profit insurance companies, with no cost controls. Thus we end up with policies that can cost a family $20,000 a year in premiums, while still having large co-pays that can bankrupt you. The parts of the law that would have provided socialized care for the poor were gutted by the Supreme Court review, and by the executive office rule directives interpreting the law.
The answer to the problem is single-payer. The reform system is a further bailout for industry and is already driving up costs and reducing the number of insured.
Your posts presents those of us who support a reasonable working solution of single-payer as a position of hypocrisy, inconsistency, and/or ignorance, because we don't accept a non-working solution that retains and increases out of control costs and profits for industry.
Not supporting a specific, bad solution does not mean one does not see there is a serious problem and reform is necessary.
- cpleppert 14y agoYou do realize that Obamacare makes it a lot more likely any single payer plan will be accepted in the future, right? If people are already forced to buy a private plan and medicaid has been expanded then it isn't a leap to just cover everyone and move to a single payer system. This is more true if the exchanges start covering lots of people, in this case, the government has a direct interest that private care is being provided efficiently. I would briefly point out that the $20,000 a year plans you refer to was an example number that the IRS used to illustrate how the law works and not a projection of the cost of healthcare plans in the exchange.
- chrisdevereux 14y agoYou may be right about this specific solution, but parent was talking about people opposed to any healthcare reform. Especially a single-payer system, I'd imagine.
- droithomme 14y agoYes, I am inferring, and I am sure correctly, that parent assumed that opposition to PPACA was opposition to any healthcare reform, which supported his preexisting prejudices about ignorant hypocritical Americans, as they are widely promoted in the press. The reason I am sure I am correct about is two reasons. One is that every time I explain problems with PPACA, I am labelled an ignorant health care reform bigot/hater/militant/republitard/teabagger even though I fully support and advocate for single payer. My support for single payer is deemed irrelevant though, all that is important in this debate with most people is that the all concerns with PPACA be dismissed with handwaving, and anyone opposing it is painted an enemy of reform. The second reason is that the majority of people I have talked to who have issues with PPACA also support or are highly positive towards the idea of a single payer system. Therefore I do not believe that every person he talked to who had objections to PPACA was opposed to reform, that was his own inference.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoI non-trolling Brit here. Single-payer seems from scan of Wikipedia to be "government pays the bills" - in other words an NHS like solution. Which seems to me a position the others in the thread are advocating (ie our current system is barbaric, bankrupts people we must fix it) So I am a little confused why your post seems to be defending itself from posts that as an outsider I would see as firmly in your camp?
- potatolicious 14y agoSingle-payer is a bit more nuanced than "government pays the bills". Single-payer means that health care institutions remain private, government does not run or employ any doctors directly, and everything works much like it does today, except pricing is unified and the government pays all bills. This is different from nationalized health care, especially on paper, where it can preserve market-style competitive pressure that a wholly nationalized system would not. Doctors and hospitals would still be on the hook for attracting customers.
- tptacek 14y agoIt's different from nationalized health care mostly on paper, because it gives the government monopsony power over the market. The single-payer administration can rule out treatments, mandate questionable treatments, and make for itself important value judgements about end-of-life routine care vs. mid-life cost of emergency care. We have hints of the problems that come from this now with things like the Medicare "doc fix". Beyond all that, single-payer fixes prices for an industry that represents a huge chunk of the total economy. No question at all that we badly need a new system of health insurance in the US (I'm hoping that Obamacare, carefully and aggressively executed, will be it), but single-payer health care is a radical change.