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No new taxes necessary for Medicare Single Payer Insurance because taxpayers own it

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Hey, I'm right there with you. We incurred 39K at Mayo in Jax (a really, really good provider that I highly recommend), last year and still do not have a diagnosis for what look like seizures. I always request itemized statements for ER or In-patient stays. The amounts billed for something have absolutely nothing to to do with the actual cost of that item. Billing is adjusted to make the bottom line work. The first thing, the absolute first thing that needs to happen is to put real costs on a ledger. What it really cost to buy that pill and a nurse deliver that pill and document the delivery of that pill. That is what that pill cost. That needs to happen throughout medicine. Your damn Dodge dealer can do it regarding a brake job.

Thank you! Most of the time, people don’t get it... or don’t believe it’s a problem. And the paperwork? It’s unbelievable.
 
The operative words are “approved charges.” Here are some examples right from my Explanation of Benefits...

Dr. Visit....doctor billed $290. Medicare approved $114.72, of which they paid 80%. You’re right with that %.
Drugs...hospital billed $17,268.00.Medicare approve $6,341.00.
Lab Service...hospital billed $20. Medicare approved $3.
Therapy billed at $488.00. Medicare approved $147.
Lab services billed at $55. Medicare approved $10.
Dr. Visit billed at $290. Medicare approved $114.00.
Chest X-rays billed at $578. Medicare paid $48.17.

Without cost shifting, which your opinion piece clearly indicates goes on, Medicare would be out of business, as would doctors and hospitals all over the country. It’s smoke and mirrors. Try calling your hospital and asking how much it will cost to set a broken arm. They will laugh at you. Depends if you’re Medicare, Blue Cross, Humana, American Family... but the cheapest of all, without doubt, is Medicare. And every other company pays their freight.

Makes sense....Thanks
 
I see you're posting the same thing verbatim in multiple places, so I'll repeat what I said in the other thread on the assumption you'll see it somewhere.

In my mind after having been associated with the Medicare Single Payer Insurance movement for a few years my speculation suggests no new tax should be necessary.

- Moving funds from medicare as we know it, Medicaid, VA healthcare budget, native American health care and a budget for government employees to Single Payer should provide a substantial contribution.

Those funds are already paying for health care, so it's not as though they're being re-allocated. The trick is to finance care for the 200+ million people not already covered by those programs. We've got $1.1 trillion flowing through private insurance today--that's what has to be picked up by Medicare, even after you dump in all existing public expenditures on personal health care.

- Single Payer eliminates CEO salaries, golden parachutes for CEO's, eliminates donations to political campaigns, eliminates all commercial advertising, eliminates bonus checks and will reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals.

Seems hard to believe health care CEOs won't be paid anymore.

- Single Payer Insurance will also eliminate 8 lobbyists per elected official and all of the money they sling throughout the halls of capitol hill..

Why would it do that? With all health care financing ultimately originating in Washington, that makes lobbying even more important. It's not as if Medicare doesn't already generate a lobbying frenzy today. Throw an extra trillion into Uncle Sam's share of the pot and the ante gets upped considerably.

- There is no reinventing the wheel. It's all in place waiting to be delivered. There should be no co-pays and no deductibles.

Add the ~$350 billion currently paid out-of-pocket to the $1.1 trillion in private insurer revenue I said above you needed to come up with. You've now got to come up with about a trillion and a half dollars a year. Even if you assume the entire ~$200B in net cost of insurance disappears and isn't reabsorbed anywhere else, and maybe you assume an equivalent amount of administrative cost disappears from the provider side of the ledger, you've still got to come up with over a trillion dollars per year. Hard to see how you do that without new tax revenue.

The promises here are getting way out of line with what can actually be delivered.
 
In my mind after having been associated with the Medicare Single Payer Insurance movement for a few years my speculation suggests no new tax should be necessary.

- Moving funds from medicare as we know it, Medicaid, VA healthcare budget, native American health care and a budget for government employees to Single Payer should provide a substantial contribution.

- Cut corporate subsidies 50%. Cut War Budget 50%

- Single Payer eliminates CEO salaries, golden parachutes for CEO's, eliminates donations to political campaigns, eliminates all commercial advertising, eliminates bonus checks and will reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals.

== https://www.healthcare-now.org/docs/spreport.pdf

- Single Payer Insurance will also eliminate 8 lobbyists per elected official and all of the money they sling throughout the halls of capitol hill..

- As we speak the government is shelling out more than $2.5 trillion tax dollars to cover health care costs annually for government connected budgets.

- Leaving Medicare for ALL under a government umbrella will allow the $2.5 trillion tax dollars to cover the nation if my memory serves me well. It is simply more efficient use of tax dollars.

== https://www.healthcare-now.org/docs/spreport.pdf

- Among the most fiscal responsible attributes is everybody pays in no matter what which reduces the cost to all of us across the board.

- There is no reinventing the wheel. It's all in place waiting to be delivered. There should be no co-pays and no deductibles.

- Nobody will ever be late paying for their insurance and all of us will be helping each other.

- No more bankruptcies due to medical bills and such.

== https://www.healthcare-now.org/docs/spreport.pdf

I stand by this position .......
 
And no more medical breakthroughs nor R&D. The ONLY country that has that is the US now.

You are very gullible. That is the industry propaganda. Drug companies take research paid for by the US government and profit from it, and tell the public how if they aren't allowed to gouge the country then there won't be new drugs, while the fixate on lower priority long-term drugs over actually curing things.
 
Nope. 100% through the private sector.

And Santa Claus brings you presents every year. Got proof that of your claim, that you make so loudly when told the truth?
 
Private HMOs are required by law to pay 80% of premiums to cost of care leaving 20% to run their business. Do you think the Federal governement can run medicare on only 20% ? Lol. No.

The government's administrative costs are about $132 per person compared with over $700 for private plans. One reason Medicare's are so much lower is that it reaps economies of scale. It also benefits from not needing to do much marketing, and it doesn't earn profits.Oct
 
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Necro'd thread closed.
 
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