explain the supposed benefits of single payer health care

SmarterthanYou said:
can you explain the financial aspect of cost shifting? how would that work as compared to what we have today?
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There have been volumes written on this subject, and I cannot do justice to an attempt to explain the financial aspect of cost shifting without devoting more that an week to such a project, but I will give it to you in a nut shell.

Historically uninsured (of which there are MANY less of) or those who belong to an insurance network that has negotiated a greatly lopsided payment scale with its providers such that its providers have not paid enough to cover the actual cost of providing medical care to the patients (plus profit margin) so... the providers turn around and charge significantly more for the patient who is paying cash or whose insurance company does not have as favorable of a negotiated rate.

I deal with it ALL the time. When I have resolved a clients case, I negotiate the medical bills based on how good a settlement they got. The theory is that if I was only able to recover a small percentage of my clients damages due to an external factor, that client should only have to pay back his insurance provider a reduced percentage of the bill. So, using this mornings example, I have a case that was resolved 6 months ago. The insurance provider (in this case the med pay portion of an auto insurance policy, not health insurance) fought over paying a portion of a bill. In the end they were forced to pay for one of two MRI's my client attained. They paid $1,800 for the MRI. A self pay client who asks for a reduction generally pays $400 - $600 for an MRI. So now, because there was a separate personal injury settlement the MRI provider is seeking to get paid $1,800 from my client for the second MRI. Had a health insurance company paid a negotiated rate, they would have likely paid $400. Had a patient who had no insurance gone in and asked for a cash discount he would have paid $400 - $600 for an MRI. My client, because they know he got paid from a PI suit is being asked to pay cash $1,800 for the MRI.

When I called them this morning and asked them to reduce the bill, Because I send 15-20 clients to this place for MRI's every year, they agreed to accept $400. So now, because there was auto insurance, some of which my client paid for, they will get $2,200 for two MRI's that they would have, under different circumstances, accepted $800 for.
 
Robo said:
America already has a "Single Payer System" it's called the VA. That's where the patients wait months to see the doctors. The bloated bureaucracy trashes scheduled appointments, and other records lay piled on desk of employees who are on endless paid vacations and many of the facilities are unreachable for patients and under-maintained and lacking the latest technology and the cost to taxpayers is outrageous.

And just think, this is only a small sample prototype of what an American Single Payer System would look like. Imagine the same catastrophe on a massive mandatory national scale as the sole American healthcare insurance program. Doctors will retire. Medical schools will beg for students. Doctors will become a rare commodity "OR" wast, fraud and abuse will be the system's norm costing and scamming taxpayers for billions by the medical and pharmaceutical communities. Patients will die in waiting for critical operations. The rich and powerful will buy their way to the head of the line or go to Mexico for medical services and politicians will pour more and more loot into the system and taxes will be doubled or the national debt will bankrupt America.

Those are the attributes of an American Single Payer System.

"If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait till it's free."
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BINGO!!

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I Love America said:
Single payor healthcare would run just like AMTRAK and the Post Office. It would be AWESOME and there would be free unicorns for everyone and there would be no poor and there would be no hungry and ISIS would like us. They would really, really like us.

I am always amused to hear an attorney wax poetic about the healthcare system of which he knows nothing about except what he is spoon fed
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If we continue to elect Republicans who's goal is to sabotage those systems, you might be correct.
 
Jarod said:
It would drastically simplify the medical payment system.
It would basically put all personal injury attorneys out of business.

The current system allows for all insurance companies to set "allowable payments" and to "negotiate payment" amounts to different medical and doctor groups.

What is happening here in South Florida is that insurance companies are controlling where and how doctors can practice medicine, they are offering favorable deals to large doctor groups or hospitals that hire up all local doctors, effectively putting out of business the small doctor groups or sole practitioners. It changed the way medicine is practiced from a patient oriented focus to a billing oriented focus, which is not good for the health of the insured.

While a single payer system would clearly not be perfect, it could be designed to offer a balanced playing field for Doctors who chose to provide a patient centered practice instead of a billing centered practice. Those running the payment processing and allowable amount for procedures would be focused on something other than profit, hopefully focused on the best interest of the patient. There would be no societal benefit, medically speaking, to being born rich.

Cost shifting, which costs the insured and those with money, lots of money would be eliminated.

I could go on, that's enough to start with.
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Yes you could go on, and all of it would still be a massive pile of loony leftist bile.

But then, if you had a brain, you wouldn't be a loyal unthinking Democratic constituent.
 
Jarod said:
There have been volumes written on this subject, and I cannot do justice to an attempt to explain the financial aspect of cost shifting without devoting more that an week to such a project, but I will give it to you in a nut shell.

Historically uninsured (of which there are MANY less of) or those who belong to an insurance network that has negotiated a greatly lopsided payment scale with its providers such that its providers have not paid enough to cover the actual cost of providing medical care to the patients (plus profit margin) so... the providers turn around and charge significantly more for the patient who is paying cash or whose insurance company does not have as favorable of a negotiated rate.

I deal with it ALL the time. When I have resolved a clients case, I negotiate the medical bills based on how good a settlement they got. The theory is that if I was only able to recover a small percentage of my clients damages due to an external factor, that client should only have to pay back his insurance provider a reduced percentage of the bill. So, using this mornings example, I have a case that was resolved 6 months ago. The insurance provider (in this case the med pay portion of an auto insurance policy, not health insurance) fought over paying a portion of a bill. In the end they were forced to pay for one of two MRI's my client attained. They paid $1,800 for the MRI. A self pay client who asks for a reduction generally pays $400 - $600 for an MRI. So now, because there was a separate personal injury settlement the MRI provider is seeking to get paid $1,800 from my client for the second MRI. Had a health insurance company paid a negotiated rate, they would have likely paid $400. Had a patient who had no insurance gone in and asked for a cash discount he would have paid $400 - $600 for an MRI. My client, because they know he got paid from a PI suit is being asked to pay cash $1,800 for the MRI.

When I called them this morning and asked them to reduce the bill, Because I send 15-20 clients to this place for MRI's every year, they agreed to accept $400. So now, because there was auto insurance, some of which my client paid for, they will get $2,200 for two MRI's that they would have, under different circumstances, accepted $800 for.
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volumes written on it? it sounds like the benefactors of single payer are trying to inundate the public with tons of useless info in order to hide the one true negative of single payer, which is enriching insurance companies.
 
better how? because of more control over the masses?


Asoka said:
Yes, he would be. Remember the Republicans openly admitted they fought so hard against the ACA public option because they knew it would be better than private insurance.
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what would drive costs down is allowing the insurance companies to compete across state lines. But the government doesn't want that. They want to control who gets what type of health care.


Asoka said:
Single-pay health care is superior because you cut away all the administrative machinery required to run a for-profit health care system. For one thing, obviously, there is no class of people extracting profit from the system, so you save that money. Then, as Obamacare has already done, you stop paying people to deny health insurance claims (which is totally fucking stupid).

Really it is obvious that single-payer systems are more efficient. The US spends more of its GDP for worse outcomes than all other developed countries.
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SmarterthanYou said:
volumes written on it? it sounds like the benefactors of single payer are trying to inundate the public with tons of useless info in order to hide the one true negative of single payer, which is enriching insurance companies.
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Please describe, in detail, and using specifics, how a single payer system is going to enrich insurance companies?
 
Jarod said:
Please describe, in detail, and using specifics, how a single payer system is going to enrich insurance companies?
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when you put a single payer, i.e. government regulated, plan in to place, the corrupted party of politics is going to regulate insurance companies for them to excel at profits. it is inevitable, as all power corrupts.
 
SmarterthanYou said:
when you put a single payer, i.e. government regulated, plan in to place, the corrupted party of politics is going to regulate insurance companies for them to excel at profits. it is inevitable, as all power corrupts.
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The single payer system I advocate cuts the insurance company right out of the system. Medicare recipients don't have to have insurance companies involved at all.
 
SmarterthanFew said:
when you put a single payer, i.e. government regulated, plan in to place, the corrupted party of politics is going to regulate insurance companies for them to excel at profits. it is inevitable, as all power corrupts.
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So you have no actual examples, just conjecture and surmise?
 
Jarod said:
The single payer system I advocate cuts the insurance company right out of the system. Medicare recipients don't have to have insurance companies involved at all.
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^^ Are they any real-world examples of single-payer systems that retain private insurance? I know of systems where private insurance is regulated to be not-for-profit, but those aren't single-payer systems.

It is very strange, a particularly obvious and direct example of how the right has somehow been convinced that policies which are for the public good are somehow going to magically enrich a corrupt oligarchy.

I'm sure that SmarterThanYou also fervently believes the deregulating the economy, abolishing the minimum wage, and running a budget surplus is "inevitably" going to help the man in the street.
 
Jarod said:
The single payer system I advocate cuts the insurance company right out of the system. Medicare recipients don't have to have insurance companies involved at all.
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just out of curiosity, but how long do you think insurance companies will deign to do business with the US government if they are not allowed to make the profits they deem necessary?
 
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