A simple fix for our ailing healthcare system, and it has the right-wing in a panic

C

Cypress

Well-known member
universal, single-payer, publically financed healthcare.

Simple. Easy. Cheaper.

Digging In the Right Place

By David Sirota

There is a simple fix for our ailing healthcare system, and it has the right-wing in a panic.

There's a memorable moment in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when Indiana Jones sees a rival's archaeological excavation and realizes the buried treasure is somewhere else.

"They're digging in the wrong place!" he exclaims.

The line could explain why our national elections leave us feeling empty. By expecting so much so fast from Washington D.C., we are digging for "change" in the wrong place.

Think about it: The White House can only be won by raising truckloads of cash from moneyed interests looking to preserve the status quo. Likewise, the U.S. Senate's filibuster rules allow 41 lawmakers, representing just 11 percent of the population, to stop anything. These are institutions designed to prevent change, not embrace it.

Thankfully, the same cannot be said for the so-called "laboratories of democracy" -- state legislatures. Amid pundits' breathless analyses of Hillary Clinton's tear ducts, these arenas quietly opened throughout America this month. And from beneath the rubble of celebrity-obsessed campaign journalism and the ruins of national political gridlock, change is being exhumed in two bellwether states.

In a move making health care lobbyists quiver, Washington state Sen. Karen Keiser (D), chairwoman of her legislature's powerful health committee, this week introduced the nation's most far-reaching universal health care proposal. Her legislation is the American West's version of a parallel Wisconsin initiative, and the replication suggests this model may begin building the universal health care system our country wants.

The plan is simple: Employers and employees pay a modest payroll tax in exchange for full medical benefits, with no premiums. Patients never lose coverage and pick the doctors they prefer. And for the spendthrifts, here's the best part: According to an analysis of the Wisconsin proposal by the nonpartisan Lewin Group, the plan would save middle-class families an annual average of $750 on their existing health care bills. In all, the state would save almost $14 billion over the next decade.

Seem too good to be true? That's because you're used to being bilked by an insurance industry that drives up premiums, drives down benefits and gives executives like former UnitedHealth CEO William McGuire $1.6 billion worth of stock options in one year. Eliminating that greed is precisely how the Washington state and Wisconsin proposals simultaneously save money and cover everyone.

Unlike the much-touted Massachusetts law forcing citizens to buy insurance from the private profiteers, the Washington and Wisconsin models pool all existing health care expenditures and then replace the middlemen with one publicly controlled, not-for-profit system. That structure attacks problems beyond the immorality of allowing 18,000 Americans to die each year because they lack health coverage.

For businesses faced with crushing health care costs, the Lewin Group predicts the plan will save private-insuring employers almost $700 million a year. For politicians looking to provide economic stimulus in the face of a recession, the nonpartisan Families USA estimates the proposal's investments will create 13,000 new jobs. Even tax reformers have something to like, as Wisconsin's version directs much of the system's savings into property tax relief.

The Royalist Right is distraught about the plan. When an initial draft passed the Wisconsin Senate last year, the Wall Street Journal's editorial board attacked it on the grounds that it "reduces out-of-pocket copayments" and "increases the number of mandated medical services covered" for patients. Wow. Sounds just awful.

The paper then criticized it as a tax increase and labeled it "government-run" -- as if patients are better served by paying even bigger premium increases to corporate CEOs whose paychecks grow with each coverage denial.

The screed showed how little conservative elites care, not just for the uninsured, but for the working-class wing of the Republican Party -- the roughly 40 percent of GOP voters who, according to the Pew Research Center, tell pollsters they "favor universal health coverage, even if it means higher taxes."


continued

http://alternet.org/columnists/story/74256/
Click to expand...
 
So very very simple... enjoy it America!

The same bureaucracy that fucked up Katrina and Iraq will soon be responsible for you healthcare as well!
 
I pay 11k a year for the wife and I, and I still shutter at the thought of sending this government another dime. Get the house in order then I could go along, not until. But that will never happen will it?










As the DNC says PARTY BEFORE PEOPLE.
 
Colt Commander said:
I pay 11k a year for the wife and I, and I still shutter at the thought of sending this government another dime. Get the house in order then I could go along, not until. But that will never happen will it?










As the DNC says PARTY BEFORE PEOPLE.
Click to expand...

Then why do you support an inneficient system that steals your money?
 
Epicurus said:
So very very simple... enjoy it America!

The same bureaucracy that fucked up Katrina and Iraq will soon be responsible for you healthcare as well!
Click to expand...


there's some problems with that analysis.

One, FEMA was a generally well run and effective agency, until the Shrub fucked it up and destroyed it.

Two, under the single payer health care programs envisioned, the government doesn't provide healthcare. All the government does is pay the bills. And if there's one thing the government does pretty well, it's paying bills and cutting checks. I've never, not once, had a problem getting a tax rebate check from the feds; I've never met a senior citizen who had any significant problems getting their SS checks on time; and I've never heard of Medicare having significant problems cutting checks to pay doctors and hospitals for services rendered to medicare recipients.
 
There is no "simple fix"...there is, after all, that briefly mentioned payroll tax, not to mention the impact universal health care seems to have (waiting lists so long you will die before you can receive treatment).
 
gonzojournals said:
There is no "simple fix"...there is, after all, that briefly mentioned payroll tax, not to mention the impact universal health care seems to have (waiting lists so long you will die before you can receive treatment).
Click to expand...

Only nations that have fully nationalized healthcare ever find any need to employ waiting lists. The vast majority of nations with single payer healthcare - like Australia and France and Germany - do not employ them, because they don't need to, and they pay less IN TAXES for their entire healthcare system than we pay FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID.
 
uscitizen said:
Strange that I have to wait 8-12 weeks for my back surgery then....
I have self paid insurance.
Click to expand...

Well, you see we live in a world that is controlled by this magical thing called time, so there is waiting regardless of health care system...however, you could always have a good time waiting for that same surgery in Canada for 8 months or more.
 
Cypress said:
The plan is simple: Employers and employees pay a modest payroll tax in exchange for full medical benefits, with no premiums. Patients never lose coverage and pick the doctors they prefer. And for the spendthrifts, here's the best part: According to an analysis of the Wisconsin proposal by the nonpartisan Lewin Group, the plan would save middle-class families an annual average of $750 on their existing health care bills. In all, the state would save almost $14 billion over the next decade.
Click to expand...


this is the most interesting paragraph

modest payroll tax doesn't tell me much. Are the details of her plan available? Estimated costs, year over year increases, etc..
 
Colt Commander said:
I pay 11k a year for the wife and I, and I still shutter at the thought of sending this government another dime. Get the house in order then I could go along, not until. But that will never happen will it?
Click to expand...

Not until "We the People" do something about it and refuse to vote for another who will spend like it isn't your money.
 
gonzojournals said:
Well, you see we live in a world that is controlled by this magical thing called time, so there is waiting regardless of health care system...however, you could always have a good time waiting for that same surgery in Canada for 8 months or more.
Click to expand...


Perhaps...but perhaps not.
translation.

I do not believe all the right wing spin about how bad it is in countries with socialized varieties of health care.
 
Yep I mean right wing spin, Like WMD's, mushroom clouds, Pill bill only costing about a billion, etc....

The right wing chicken little fear filled dudes have lost my ear.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top