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If you lived in Colorado, would you vote for single-payer this year?

If you lived in Colorado, would you vote for single-payer this year?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 23 43.4%

  • No!

    Votes: 22 41.5%

  • I'm not sure, I would need to know more

    Votes: 8 15.1%

  • I would abstain

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    53
Single-payer wouldn't work very well on a state-to-state basis.
 
Near as I can figure, Massachusetts has a single payer system. I wonder how well it's doing.

As part of an attempt to control the state's health care costs, which have been the highest in the nation, the commission sets an annual goal for health care cost growth. The 2014 goal was 3.6 percent. But actual health care costs grew by a far higher 4.8 percent. Total spending on health care in Massachusetts was $54 billion – an average of $8,010 per resident.

The biggest increase was in MassHealth, Massachusetts' Medicaid program, where spending grew by 19 percent, to a total of $15.3 billion. Much of this was due to the technical failure of the state's Health Connector website, which led to the state putting more than 300,000 people on Medicaid in 2014, even though state officials did not know whether those people were actually eligible.

Hearings to probe Massachusetts' high health care costs
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I wonder when government dictated healthcare rationing, in order to control costs, is going to start. Surely after they've dictated prices which will cause the providers of the services, devices, and medication to all go bankrupt first.

So that means we need to replicate Massachusetts single payer failure all over the nation? :screwy
 
I don't trust Colorado to run anything without screwing it up. I sure as hell don't want to give them control over my health care. They can't get their stuff together now as it is.
 
apdst said:
In other words, the VA is cocked up and you can't prove otherwise.
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In other words, you can't require yourself to be objective enough to actually LOOK to see if maybe, just maybe the VA isn't nearly as screwed-up as you seem to think. You can't let yourself think outside the conservative bubble, and so whatever the VA does right...simply means nothing to you.

What's more, you made the statement that "Every government run medical system is a cluster ****"...but your only 'proof' is the VA...and that's it.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
In other words, you can't require yourself to be objective enough to actually LOOK to see if maybe, just maybe the VA isn't nearly as screwed-up as you seem to think. You can't let yourself think outside the conservative bubble, and so whatever the VA does right...simply means nothing to you.

What's more, you made the statement that "Every government run medical system is a cluster ****"...but your only 'proof' is the VA...and that's it.
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Vets are dying, waiting for care!! That's as screwed up as it gets!!!
 
apdst said:
Vets are dying, waiting for care!! That's as screwed up as it gets!!!
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Yeah. Funny how the libs never come out and say they are going to model a single payer system after the VA. Even they aren't that stupid.
 
digsbe said:
The reason the US seems lower than other countries is largely due to our rampant obesity epidemic and high rates of diabetes and heart disease coupled with those who smoke.
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If these numbers are the same or based on anything like the previously known numbers, the skewed output goes far beyond the factors you point to.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/healt...laws-world-health-organizations-rankings.html




Glen Contrarian said:
... the VA ...
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The VA is a contractual obligation. You know, something that is earned based on a persons choice of employment.
 
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Glen Contrarian said:
Hm, let me see here. You are so much in support of tort reform, I presented two solid examples where it was tried and did NOT work (Texas of today and California where it was passed under Reagan), and you still can't pull yourself away from the conviction that tort reform is some kind of great shining solution to all that ills our health care system.

I haven't discussed my solution, have I? Personally, I like Germany's system: single-payer for those who want it, and for those who decide to opt out of it, they're free to purchase private health insurance or health care on their own.

In other words, they have a freedom of choice that we don't have. AND - unlike your claim - it DOES work in the real world...Germany proves it every single day, ensuring ALL citizens have access to quality health care, at a much lower per-citizen cost than we already pay.

But wait! Let me guess - you're going to say, "well, just move to Germany, then!" Because that's the normal retort from conservatives whenever we point out how this or that nation is able to do something better than we do, with much fewer taxpayer dollars than we do. The problem with this is that it exposes a grand assumption that it's somehow unpatriotic to learn positive lessons from other nations, much less to copy one their ideas when that particular idea is a heck of a lot better than what we've currently got.
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Because tort reform doesn't magically work on its own. It takes genuine social change. It isn't something you can simply legislate your way into. The people have to genuinely want change. Germany isn't a legal nightmare like the U.S. is. The culture is completely different. So long as our culture is what it is, you'll never get a system like Germany's to work.
 
Moderate Right said:
Yeah. Funny how the libs never come out and say they are going to model a single payer system after the VA. Even they aren't that stupid.
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Probably because the VA is a provider system.

Whereas single-payer proposals are about, you know, the payer side.
 
chuckiechan said:
The demands of medicine are so high, as you cut doctors pay and then work them harder you will run out of doctors.

The are lots of baby boom doctors who are going to retire soon. Why? The "medical machine" treats them like crap.

Imagine operating on a 400lb woman or a 375 lb male body builder for the same fee as a normal condition 40 year old.
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The answer is to charge by the pound ? LOL or not ...
NOT harder , but smarter , with much greater efficiency . . of course , 'perfection' will exist not .. hence the overweight ..and guess who pays for this medical problem ?
***malpractice *** this must be worked on , the doctors must improve as well as the patients .. with a higher degree of knowledge, attitude, and tolerance , malpractice and its uber high costs can be beaten down .. to little or nothing .
 
chuckiechan said:
The demands of medicine are so high, as you cut doctors pay and then work them harder you will run out of doctors.

The are lots of baby boom doctors who are going to retire soon. Why? The "medical machine" treats them like crap.

Imagine operating on a 400lb woman or a 375 lb male body builder for the same fee as a normal condition 40 year old.
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Uh, those boomers work in our current system. So what you've just said is that our system now treats them like crap. I agree. So... in what way is that an argument against changing the system?

You do realize their expenses drop when they aren't forced to pay whatever insanely inflated prices the medical corporations are demanding, right? That's one of the benefits of single-payer. It actually gives the system some lobbying power to bring down those prices.

Single payer has been functioning well for decades all over the world, and they haven't "run out of doctors." In fact, the vast majority of them have much faster appointment scheduling than the US does.
 
Cephus said:
No. The problem with healthcare costs has nothing to do with who pays for it and everything to do with the litigious state of America. We sue at the drop of a hat. So long as that's true, doctors will have to continue carrying massive malpractice insurance policies. You will never solve healthcare costs until we stop Americans from being sue-happy.
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I forgot that the Democrats fight tort reform hammer and tong. Lawyers pay Democrats a lot for money not to touch it.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
In other words, you couldn't refute what I posted, so you go back to the tried-and-true method of making broad-brush accusations based on cherry-picked observations.

Some things never change.
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It all comes down to money. If you "take the profit out of it", what replaces it?
 
First, I'm vehemently against Single Payer (government controlled) Health Care on the federal government level and feel that the US Constitution does not give the federal government the authority to assume such a power over the people's lives.

Second, I support the US Constitution which recognizes that states have powers that the federal government does not. States, unless precluded or restricted by their own state constitution, can do whatever the people within that state allow the state government to assume as a state government power. That's why I can be for RomneyCare (internal state system) and against ObamaCare (federal mandate/control), see the difference in the two and laugh at those that don't or won't and that use RomneyCare as some sort of bastardized confirmation that Republicans should approve of ObamaCare.

Third, I have always been, and in the foreseeable future shall always be, against Direct Democracy because Direct Democracy is the surest way for the majority to enslave and/or oppress the minority. We saw this in my own state of NC with Amendment One to our state constitution which by a popular vote of 61.04% to 38.96% stripped the LGBT community of their rights. We are a Constitutional Republican Form of Government, not a Direct Democracy. Plebiscites should not be held to decide issues, even those of this level of importance, that's what we elect our representatives to do for us.

As for the OP question, the honest answer is - I do not know enough about the current proposal to be able to answer. I am not a believer in socialization or communal government control of what effects our most personal of choices in our lives, which my health care ranks near, if not at, the very top of items on that list.
 
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Funny how this poll seems to split almost precisely the same way everything does. 40'ish to 40'ish to 10'ish undecided.
 
apdst said:
Vets are dying, waiting for care!! That's as screwed up as it gets!!!
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Then you should be raising at least as much hell about the rest of our medical system, because you'll find people who die waiting for care in every city in every state. Or did you not get the news that came out earlier this year that medical mistakes kill about a quarter million Americans per year?

What's happening here is that YOUR boys went to war in Iraq and didn't pump up the VA's funding enough to handle the wounded vets who came home in addition to their normal workload...and now you're blaming Obama for the problem YOUR boys made.
 
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