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This Is Medicare For All

Spare me the talking points.

Not talking points. Antifa's motives are nothing remotely approaching pure. They are violent anarchists.
 
  • Cover primary and preventive care, prescription drugs, dental and vision care, mental health and substance abuse treatment, as well as maternity, newborn and long-term care through a government-run plan
  • Let Americans see any doctor they want to with no deductibles or copays
  • Effectively end the private health insurance market

    linkypoo...

Bring on your next lie conservative.

Speaking of lies, Bernie Sanders is quite aware that what he is proposing would never pass and he is also quite aware that the nation would go bankrupt paying for it. Bernie is just hoping to stand out in the ultra alt left and draw as many primary votes as he can get. Then if he were to get the nomination, he would then tone his medicare for all fantasy down considerably.
 
Agreed. You are dead set on a Medicare for all type system. I am dead set against it as I know what the result would be. And it would not be the panacea that you think it would be. I respect that you want something better then the system that exists now. I do as well. Medicare for all simply would not get us there. And it would end up costing you more.

i agree with the former, and definitely not the latter.
 
Elderly couple found dead from murder-suicide after they couldn’t afford wife’s healthcare: ‘We will be in the front bedroom’


I thought Medicare for all was supposed to be the answer. Apparently it isn't all it is cracked up to be.

Uh.

You mean the Medicare for All that eliminates the point of payment expenses and affordability concerns this couple died over?

The same Medicare for All plan that came about and is motivated precisely by these sorts of preventable tragedies?

I'm honestly baffled by the sheer stupidity in citing this story as a retort of MFA.
 
The NHS is 'rationed' because successive conservative governments here have slashed funding for essential services, instead giving massive tax cuts to those who don't need them. Sound familiar? The private sector is doing fine with over 12% of our population using the expensive option.

First, the so called massive US tax cuts ended up creating tax more tax revenue, not less. That cannot be denied. As for slashing funding for the NHS, I suppose you think all British governments since Churchill have been conservative? Conservatism in the UK is not really conservatism. It's leftwing-lite. And the amount of funding is not really the issue. The UK could triple the funding and the government would still ration healthcare to control costs. When the government runs the healthcare system and makes all of the decisions, bean counting comes into play when staffing doctors, hospitals and high tech diagnostic equipment. The same would occur here if the US were to make such an insanely stupid move to Medicare for all.
 
First, the so called massive US tax cuts ended up creating tax more tax revenue, not less. That cannot be denied. As for slashing funding for the NHS, I suppose you think all British governments since Churchill have been conservative? Conservatism in the UK is not really conservatism. It's leftwing-lite. And the amount of funding is not really the issue. The UK could triple the funding and the government would still ration healthcare to control costs. When the government runs the healthcare system and makes all of the decisions, bean counting comes into play when staffing doctors, hospitals and high tech diagnostic equipment. The same would occur here if the US were to make such an insanely stupid move to Medicare for all.

Relative to what, exactly? Certainly not relative to federal spending or the defict would have decreased.
 
That gets paid more here than he or she would in any country on earth. I work in IT. My salary is not twice as much as it would be anywhere else on earth. If it was, the the IT industry would have a very distorting effect on our economy.

Let's say you have an individual market insurance premium of 14k a year for your family. Of that, about 800 dollars at the most is insurance industry profits. Where do you think the rest of that goes? It's providers. You have oncologists slowing down the rates of infusion just increase billing. You have plastic surgeons coming into ICU, doing a handful of facial stitches after trauma, and billing 20k for it. You got neurologists billing 5k for less than 5 minutes of their time glancing at a CT scan. You got an entire consulting industry that has cropped up in the last 20 years whose only purpose is to show providers how to increase their billing all the way to the legal line of fraud. My wife worked in insurance defense for nearly 20 years. She would pull records and billing all the time. You would not believe the kinds of things providers do when it comes to billing. If it were any other industry, we would call it fraud.

No one is arguing that specialists and providers should not be paid well. Of course they should be, but when you got orthopedic surgeons bringing in better than 800k a year when they would be making 400k a year in any other modern developed nation, someone is paying for that, and its you and me.

Everyone wants to blame insurers. I don't like insurance companies, but they are not the main problem here. People want to blame pharma, drugs are just 10% of over all health spending. Republicans push HSAs so you pay for your own routine care. I am all for HSAs, but routine care is only 7% of healthcare spending. Its nothing. That is why you can pay it out of an HSA.

Fully half of all healthcare markets in this country are provider monopolies where one health system owns all the providers at all levels in that market. Insurers have no ability to even negotiate prices in those markets, the providers charge what they want. Now, I am not saying that all providers are out there gouging consumers. That isn't the case at all, but some are, and what are you going to do about it? You going to tell the cancer hospital, "No, I don't want to pay 80k a month for cancer treatment, just let me die a horrible death.". You going to tell the cardiologist "No, I don't want a 150k heart surgery, just me die.". Hell, you have severe trauma and spend better than 100k before you are even conscious. The normal laws of supply and demand do not work in such a system. It's not like going out and buying a car and forgoing the purchase if it is too expensive. If you need catastrophic or chronic care, which are the biggest drivers of high healthcare costs, the choice is either pay what the provider tells you and your insurer to pay, or die. That is why no one wants our system. No country on earth wants our healthcare system. Anyone else on earth could do it the way we do it here and no one wants to. There is a reason for that, and part of it is 800k a year anesthesiologists.

I work in the IT field as well, though I will retire at the end of the yearl. While the IT field is important, an IT professional does not have to spend 8 to 16 years of post K-12 to become qualified in their field. And as for your gripes about higher wages and profits for doctors and the insurance industry, America is an economic superpower, largely because of free enterprise capitalism. Our system for the most part works because the market sets the prices as well as the wages, rather then the government. On the costs of healthcare and health insurance, if the government would tinker much less and just allow the market to set prices, the competition would drive the costs down so fast it would make your head spin.
 
Relative to what, exactly? Certainly not relative to federal spending or the defict would have decreased.

You just supported my argument without realizing it.
 
Speaking of lies, Bernie Sanders is quite aware that what he is proposing would never pass and he is also quite aware that the nation would go bankrupt paying for it. Bernie is just hoping to stand out in the ultra alt left and draw as many primary votes as he can get. Then if he were to get the nomination, he would then tone his medicare for all fantasy down considerably.

Just gotta take the whitehouse... which will be done, and the senate. And that's looking pretty good. You can go ahead and start crying now.
 
There will always be outliers. Additionally, mental health was obviously an issue. Ongoing medical issues in the elderly often leads to suicide, blaming Medicare in this case just means you're drinking the kool-aid.

No one can get around the fact that Medicare by itself, with no supplements, sucks. And this is what the left want - MFA. But it ain't worth a **** without having to pay additional premiums for several different supplements, on top of the increased taxes you pay for MFA. That's not kool-aid.
 
Uh.

You mean the Medicare for All that eliminates the point of payment expenses and affordability concerns this couple died over?

The same Medicare for All plan that came about and is motivated precisely by these sorts of preventable tragedies?

I'm honestly baffled by the sheer stupidity in citing this story as a retort of MFA.

MFA isn't worth a **** unless you buy several supplements to go along with it. So, with MFA, not only do you have to pay increased taxes to cover it but, if you actually want good coverage you have to additionally buy several different supplements. MFA, without supplements sucks.
 
I work in the IT field as well, though I will retire at the end of the yearl. While the IT field is important, an IT professional does not have to spend 8 to 16 years of post K-12 to become qualified in their field. And as for your gripes about higher wages and profits for doctors and the insurance industry, America is an economic superpower, largely because of free enterprise capitalism. Our system for the most part works because the market sets the prices as well as the wages, rather then the government. On the costs of healthcare and health insurance, if the government would tinker much less and just allow the market to set prices, the competition would drive the costs down so fast it would make your head spin.

I think you need to read up on what a market failure is. I am a firm believer in markets, but necessary healthcare is by definition a market failure. If you are having a heart attack, and require surgery to survive, your choice is to pay what the provider demands of you, or die. That is the definition of a market failure. You can't shop that, you can't forgo it if it is too expensive. You have no choice but to pay, or you die.

Why do you think that no country on earth want's our healthcare system? There are lots of other market economies, but none of them want our healthcare system.

Also, you need to read up on what rent seeking behavior is, which is rampant in our healthcare system.

No one is arguing that a specialist should not be paid very well, but if a specialist would be making 400k a year in France, Germany, Japan and so on, why are they making 800k or 900k a year here other than what amounts to extortion? Why do we have hospital administrators here making exorbitant salaries compared to what they get anywhere else in the world? Why are half of our healthcare markets monopolies? It's not the government. Its because its a market failure.
 
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No one can get around the fact that Medicare by itself, with no supplements, sucks. And this is what the left want - MFA. But it ain't worth a **** without having to pay additional premiums for several different supplements, on top of the increased taxes you pay for MFA. That's not kool-aid.

You are going to have to provide some documentation for that claim. Gallup polling indicates that Americans with government plans are more satisfied with their health plans than those with private coverage. So yes, I can get around your statement because it is an opinion unsupported by truth.
 
Agreed. You are dead set on a Medicare for all type system. I am dead set against it as I know what the result would be. And it would not be the panacea that you think it would be. I respect that you want something better then the system that exists now. I do as well. Medicare for all simply would not get us there. And it would end up costing you more.

You have no idea what Medicare for all would result in. There's a reason why France with universal, nationalised, healthcare ranks #1 in the world for quality of healthcare, and there are many reasons why America, the wealthiest and most advanced nation, languishes in an embarrassing 36th, just above Costa Rica but lagging behind tiny Slovenia. Can you guess what that reason is? It's because your system is rubbish; you're fleeced by venal insurance companies who have no interest in your condition other than how much they can shaft you for the minimum of cover.

You can also explain to me why my NHS treatment costs me more, because the last time I had hospital treatment it cost me nothing. The very small contribution I make to National Insurance as a component of general taxation is still far, far cheaper than what you pay. And why is that? Because everyone pays, thus the cost is spread across the population and works out cheaper for everyone (Communism, obviously).
NI contributions also include provision for unemployment benefit, dentistry, optical, paid maternity leave, doctors appointments and, at my age, free prescriptions. What a terrible system, I'm sure you'll agree.
 
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It is rubbish, but it's rubbish because of the liberal regulatory state which has destroyed any semblance of an actual healthcare market.

'Market'. That's the problem; once you introduce the profit motive and near-monopolies, you're screwed. Universal healthcare works well in every advanced nation, yet America routinely performs badly in global quality rankings, and lags way behind.
 
'Market'. That's the problem; once you introduce the profit motive and near-monopolies, you're screwed.

Prior to 1973 healthcare in the US was cheap and affordable. That was the year of the first big piece of government intervention into the healthcare market: the HMO Act. Ever since then it's been more government intervention and more government regulation until we have a situation where hospitals don't even give out prices but charge sick people $12 for a dixie cup.
 
Prior to 1973 healthcare in the US was cheap and affordable. That was the year of the first big piece of government intervention into the healthcare market: the HMO Act. Ever since then it's been more government intervention and more government regulation until we have a situation where hospitals don't even give out prices but charge sick people $12 for a dixie cup.

And yet the countries with state run universal healthcare all perform much better than the US. I honestly can't understand the objection to UHC; all I ever hear from conservatives is 'why should I pay for him?', completely missing the point.
 
You are going to have to provide some documentation for that claim. Gallup polling indicates that Americans with government plans are more satisfied with their health plans than those with private coverage. So yes, I can get around your statement because it is an opinion unsupported by truth.

I don't need documentation. Americans buy several different supplemental policies to add on to Medicare because Medicare part A only sucks. That's why supplements are sold. If Medicare by itself was so great it wouldn't need all of those supplements.
 
I don't need documentation. Americans buy several different supplemental policies to add on to Medicare because Medicare part A only sucks. That's why supplements are sold. If Medicare by itself was so great it wouldn't need all of those supplements.

If universal healthcare was adopted and you shut for-profit insurers out, guess what? Every gets richer-and healthier-and healthcare, overall, is cheaper for everyone.
 
MFA isn't worth a **** unless you buy several supplements to go along with it. So, with MFA, not only do you have to pay increased taxes to cover it but, if you actually want good coverage you have to additionally buy several different supplements. MFA, without supplements sucks.

Clearly you haven't read the actual bill.

MFA represents an expansion of existing Medicare services as well as an expansion of coverage.
 
If universal healthcare was adopted and you shut for-profit insurers out, guess what? Every gets richer-and healthier-and healthcare, overall, is cheaper for everyone.

Nonsense. I can't believe you guys still spiel that ****. And, you are NEVER going to shut for profit insurers out. It's total fantasyland. But, even if you did, the economy would go into total chaos. And the government, red tape bureaucracy and all, would be even worse than the insurance companies.
 
Clearly you haven't read the actual bill.

MFA represents an expansion of existing Medicare services as well as an expansion of coverage.

I know what Medicare is and I know what "for all" is. And, I know what Medicare supplements are.
 
Nonsense. I can't believe you guys still spiel that ****. And, you are NEVER going to shut for profit insurers out. It's total fantasyland. But, even if you did, the economy would go into total chaos. And the government, red tape bureaucracy and all, would be even worse than the insurance companies.

It wasn't a fantasy for every other nation with universal healthcare where private insurers don't get a sniff. Poor America, left behind again.
 
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