Bernie Sanders unveils universal healthcare bill: 'We will win this struggle'

Battle lines have been drawn as Bernie Sanders launches his latest attempt to establish a healthcare system that covers all 323 million Americans.

Standing in opposition to Sanders’ plan are what he calls the “most powerful and greedy forces in American society”: the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies, Wall Street and the Republican party.
“The opposition to this will be extraordinary,” Sanders said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office, prior to the launch of his universal healthcare bill, known as “Medicare for All”.

“They will spend an enormous amount of money fighting us. They will lie about what is in the program. They will frighten the American people,” he said.

Sanders has no illusions about the bill’s fate in a Republican-controlled Congress, where it has little chance of passing. But he says the time has arrived to have a debate he believes is fundamental: is healthcare a right or a privilege in America?

Sanders will formally unveil the bill at a press conference on Wednesday, with the backing of nearly a third of the Democratic caucus in the Senate – a record level of support for a bill he introduced just four years ago with only one signature, his own.

The Sanders plan would radically reform the American healthcare system, transitioning it over the course of four years to a federally administered insurance program. The new system would be underwritten by an increase in taxes.

Sanders’ “single-payer” bill would provide comprehensive coverage for everything from the cost of hospital services, prescription drugs, mental health, maternity and newborn care and dental health.

The proposal would gradually expand Medicare – the federal health insurance program for people who are 65 or older and some younger Americans with disabilities and other illnesses – until it covers everyone.

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Hawkeye10 said:

Bernie needs to go bend the knee to Trump.















*MIC DROP*

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Lafayette said:

Also from Bernie and worth a read: Most Americans want universal healthcare. What are we waiting for?

Excerpt:

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Lafayette said:

Also from Bernie and worth a read: Most Americans want universal healthcare. What are we waiting for?

Excerpt:

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ttwtt78640 said:

The problem with the idea of comparing what the richest have that the poorest don't have is where (if anywhere) does it stop? As we keep placing "just one more thing" into the right to receive from the government at no charge column it soon turns out that few things are left in the what folks have the responsibility to provide for themselves and their dependents column. At some point we have to say that there is a limit as to how much the top 50% must contribute to the government so that the bottom 50% can get free goods and services.

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Hawkeye10 said:

For sure.....according to the immoral treasonous elite lots of people are disposable.
"The sooner they die the better"...now where have I heard that..

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RabidAlpaca said:

Likely you read that in the GOP healthcare plan. One of the dozens of dumb ideas that costs more, covers less people and provides worse coverage than that of EU nations.

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Hawkeye10 said:

Bernie needs to go bend the knee to Trump.

*MIC DROP*

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Oborosen said:

Unless he develops a strange case of Parkinson's before the next dinner, I don't see that happening.

This whole new healthcare bill is stupid, because I bet he hasn't changed it since his last pitch.. or even reworded the damn thing.

People are already praising this move on twitter, but for some reason.

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Hawkeye10 said:

Well then again Bernie does not exactly have a recipe for success.

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ttwtt78640 said:

The problem with the idea of comparing what the richest have that the poorest don't have is where (if anywhere) does it stop? As we keep placing "just one more thing" into the right to receive from the government at no charge column it soon turns out that few things are left in the what folks have the responsibility to provide for themselves and their dependents column.

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ttwtt78640 said:

At some point we have to say that there is a limit as to how much the top 50% must contribute to the government so that the bottom 50% can get free goods and services.

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Hawkeye10 said:

For sure.....according to the immoral treasonous elite lots of people are disposable.

"The sooner they die the better"...now where have I heard that.

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Lafayette said:

From the Guardian newspaper: Bernie Sanders unveils universal healthcare bill: 'We will win this struggle' - excerpt:


I write from France, in the European Union (EU). Where 735 million souls - living in 28 countries (so, demographically comparable to the US) - are covered by National HealthCare Insurance because it is a condition for joining the EU. That number (735M) is more than double the US-population, and far, far more than the percentage of Americans with bonafide low-cost HealthCare Insurance. (Note that I am not saying that National Health Coverage is 100% free, gratis and for nothing throughout the EU. Some EU-countries do have private insurance that compensates the National Healthcare coverage - but that family insurance costs rarely more than 150/200€ a month - the dollar and euro being at about parity nowadays).

The average GP in the US earns more than $200K per year. (Verify that fact by looking it up at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Code 29-1060, "Physicians & Surgeons" here.) The average EU physician earns about half as much - see that fact demonstrated here. Why?

Because Healthcare in the EU is not a "free market". The profession is considered so important to well-being that it must be managed by a National HealthCare System.

PS1: Which is also the reason why pharmaceutical companies barely break-even in Europe, and go off to the US to gouge their clients ...

PS2: NB: Which is why lifespan and total healthcare costs are so remarkably different between the EU and the US. See that fact infographically here.

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Moot said:

Medicare for all. If it saves out of pocket money and provides basic health care in exchange for a small tax increase, then why not?

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In macroeconomics, the guns-versus-butter model is an example of a simple production–possibility frontier. It demonstrates the (tradeoff) relationship between a nation's investment in defense and civilian goods. In this example, a nation has to choose between two options when spending its finite resources

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joG said:

As you say, you right from France. But it is false to imply that the French system is like the ones covering 700 plus million people. As a matter of fact it is so far from the truth that I can hardly believe you don't know it. I don't know how often you visited a Romanian hospital and paid a brib

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joG said:

France, Holland and other rich countries have medical care and finance systems among each other and that are very different to others in Europe.

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Despite US legislation in 2010 that moved the country closer to achieving universal healthcare, costs have continued to rise and nearly 26 million Americans are still uninsured according to the Congressional Budget Office*.

As Republicans decide whether to repeal or replace the struggling healthcare policy, how does the existing US healthcare system compare with those in other countries?

Broadly speaking, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines universal health coverage as a system where everyone has access to quality health services and is protected against financial risk incurred while accessing care.

The US was comparable to other developed countries until the early 80s, when healthcare expenditure accelerated and life expectancy rates fell behind ...

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joG said:

As to the nasty pharma, hospital or Wall Street companies argument one might want to point out that it is much more complex than simplifiers like to talk about. They do not want to have the greater focus of companies on r&d for treatment on markets that are lucrative. They try to help Americans more, look for drugs and techniques that can be sold in the premium market, that the trickle down is to Germany or France that in effect is a kind of free ride. This is true for European companies too. They research more for the large and high margined market more than for countries that ration the goods.

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LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. prices for the world’s 20 top-selling medicines are, on average, three times higher than in Britain, according to an analysis carried out for Reuters.

The finding underscores a transatlantic gulf between the price of treatments for a range of diseases and follows demands for lower drug costs in America from industry critics such as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The 20 medicines, which together accounted for 15 percent of global pharmaceuticals spending in 2014, are a major source of profits for companies ...

The United States, which leaves pricing to market competition, has higher drug prices than other countries where governments directly or indirectly control medicine costs.

That makes it by far the most profitable market for pharmaceutical companies, leading to complaints that Americans are effectively subsidizing health systems elsewhere.

Manufacturers say decent returns are needed to reward high-risk research and prices reflect the economic value provided by medicines. They also point to higher U.S. survival rates for diseases such as cancer and the availability of industry-backed access schemes for poorer citizens.

In recent years, the price differential has been exacerbated by above-inflation annual increases in U.S. drug prices at a time when governments in Europe have capped costs or even pushed prices down.

In fact, U.S. prices for top brand-name drugs jumped 127 percent between 2008 and 2014, compared with an 11 percent rise in a basket of common household goods, according to Express Scripts (ESRX.O), the largest U.S. manager of drug plans.

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“DRUGS have been marketed at such extraordinarily high prices that many people will simply not be able to afford them,” wrote a top cancer doctor in a scathing editorial in the Washington Post. That was in 2004. More than a decade later, the cost of drugs in America is still soaring—the most recent uproar was sparked by the price of Mylan’s EpiPen allergy medicine, which has jumped by about 600% since 2007. Despite the furore, drug companies continue to charge exorbitant prices in America. Why?

The simple answer is because they can. European governments control prices in various ways—Britain has the strictest system, refusing to pay for medicines that fail to meet a threshold of cost-effectiveness. But in America companies set whatever official price they like. Insurers and the government then whittle down that price using methods that vary from one type of patient to the next. (Like so much of American health care, this system is hard to understand, to the delight of the firms that profit from it.) Private customers—usually employers—hire third parties to negotiate discounts. Medicaid, the government’s programme for the poor, receives a mandated discount. But drug firms’ single biggest customer is Medicare, which in 2014 spent $112 billion on medicines for the old.

Rather than lower prices, rules for Medicare help raise them. Medicare rewards doctors for prescribing costly intravenous drugs—medicines that can account for up to 30% of an oncologist’s revenue. Medicare’s rules for pills, inhalers and so on are equally nonsensical. And it is illegal for Medicare to negotiate with drug companies. Private insurers do so instead, but the government binds their hands, for example by requiring them to pay for six broad categories of drugs, without exception. This suits pharmaceutical firms. Their biggest client is required to buy their products and prohibited from negotiating the price. These high prices support innovation, they argue—not just for America, but for the world. But it is unclear if firms’ profits need be so high to sustain research.

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Lafayette said:

What "free goods 'n services"? Where?

Come to Europe - talk to any European. Ask them if they wouldn't prefer the "better" American HealthCare system.

Watch them laugh in your face ...

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Lafayette said:

Goodness, how spurious can a person get to rebut an argument?

Let's allow, shall we, the investigation results of numerous other entities that asked the same question, "What is the value, given certain key criteria, of comparative HealthCare systems".

This is the answer*:

Give it up, will you ... ?

*The higher the Overall Ranking number, the lower in rank of the healthcare system!

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Lafayette said:

Medicare for all will not REDUCE the cost per capita of HealthCare. In fact, Bernie does not address that point at all.

Because, the cost of education for a Medical School degree is tremendous - $278,455 for private schools, and $207,866 for public schools. So, practicing doctors simply think they are recuperating their "investment costs". (The average revenue of a GP today in the US is a bit more than $200K per year.)

Bernie then Hillary had the right idea - also borrowed from Europe as is National Health Care - that of schooling-grants to all families earning less than the median wage ($100K per child, per family) at state run institutions of higher learning. Meaning vocational, 2 & 4-year degrees and beyond.

Education and HealthCare are priority objectives in all developed nations. The more educated and the more healthy is the nation, the better off its members become in terms of well-being.

And that WILL NOT HAPPEN if the country does not make the necessary investment. Meaning what?

Meaning that we are confronted with the Guns-or-Butter trade-off riddle. Whazzat?

This:
- as shown here:

And this IS the very nature of the question. In a country where 54% of its Discretionary Budget is spent upon the DoD, America must answer the question, "Given other priorities, namely HealthCare, should we be spending soooo much money on the DoD?"

NB: The Federal Discretionary Budget Pie.

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Polar Bum said:

I'm not European, or even French.....I'm an American, and I like my current health care that I pay for here in America, and do not expect the government or the tax payers ( which are one and the same in case many forgot) to finance my healthcare

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Measuring the potential impact of the 142-page Republican bill on people’s actual health is difficult. Those who could afford to keep their health insurance under the bill, for example, could nonetheless find that rising costs force them to choose cheaper options or forego certain treatments altogether.

Understanding the likely impact of the Republican bill on the availability of health insurance itself is much easier. In part, that’s because there is strong evidence that the target of the Republican bill, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), has reduced the number of Americans without health insurance.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan federal agency, estimated last month that 23 million people would lose their health insurance over the next decade if the Republican bill that passed the House made it into law. The CBO is yet to score the Senate version.

Various studies have looked at whether uninsured people have a higher risk of death. The most cited was published by the American Journal of Public Health in 2009 and found that nearly 45,000 Americans die each year as a direct result of being uninsured.

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Lafayette said:

Good for you!

When the fit-hits-the-shan and you are out of work, and you become really sick, we'll see how you feel about the "America Option" of healthcare.

From here, the Guardian (June, 2017): Will losing health insurance mean more US deaths? Experts say yes - excerpt:


Built-in automatic population regulator! Wow! Only in Amurika ... !

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