(no subject)

[violachic]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my previous post.

I want to clarify my skepticism. I'm not skeptical of universal health care- indeed, even before I had chronic health problems and no insurance, I was firmly in favor of some kind of National Health Care system.

What I'm skeptical about is that, even if the US implements such a plan, that it would be done in such a manner that it actually helps the health care crisis in our country.

Any other analyses of this are welcome.

Comments

[andelku.livejournal.com]

IMHO, we don't even have to have a single-payer system to achieve near-universal coverage and much greater health care equity than we have today. We simply need to do something that is even less popular with industry than single payer ... regulate the current private system.

A lot of this can be done using existing laws ... for example, seriously prosecuting insurance companies that renege on their contracts, or sell fraudulent merchandise. Fraud is not new scary Big Gummit law. Fraud is fraud.

Then we regulate the way insurance companies refuse people or drop people. Back this up by subsidizing the poor and unemployed, or by having a strong affordable public option ... basically a government health care plan (Illinois has a public option, but it is hugely expensive.) And have lots of regulation of what health care options may be covered and not.

IMHO the insurance companies would almost rather we keep the conversation on nationalizing the system. They don't want it brought up that the inequities of health care are not *merely* the cost of having a private system in the first place, but due to their reckless price gouging and often barely-legal business practices.

[ironheadjane.livejournal.com]

I think the reason I'm so pessimistic about it is that it all comes down to money. I think that there's a very good reason for single payer to be more viable for the country. For one thing, just think if the UAW backed single payer healthcare? Think of how much money the automakers would have saved not having to pay for healthcare (including for their former employees). Would single payer have saved the Big Three?

The current system is crazy because it doesn't allow the ideals of capitalism to work. There is no price adjusting due to supply/demand. You can't call up a hospital and say, "I need an appendectomy. How much is that going to cost?" and choose accordingly. If you try to ask when the nurse comes into your room, "How much is the pain reliever going to cost? Is there a lower cost alternative?" you won't get an answer.

In my recent battle with the nearest ER to me, it's become clear that should someone be so unfortunate as to get hit by a car nearby, and be insured with the LARGEST INSURER IN THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, their emergency care by the nearby physicians will be out of network, despite being at an in-network hospital.

ANNNYway, the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals ("nonprofit"), some doctors -who all have a LOT OF MONEY at their disposal, will fight this, and try to convince everyone that the lack of a new paint job, furniture that looks like the local welfare office, and less choices are too horrific to ensure that people get healthcare.

I don't know. (gee, I'm ranting.) It costs so much for people who are uninsured to seek primary care through ERs. There's so many ways our current system not only makes a huge amount of profits for a few, but bleed money in other ways.

America is a weird and wonderful country. I don't see change coming soon.

[andelku.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, actually the supreme irony is that the major corporations will lose just scads of money if we don't go to single payer, or have a public option so strong that it may as well be single payer because it out-competes the private insurance options. They have to compete with major companies in other countries who do not have to give their profits to the insurance companies by the shovelful. And small business even more so. The US rate of entrepreneurship is below Europe's now.

Yet often the business community are the ones buying into the free-market uber alles mentality.

I can only assume they can't do math.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

More and more corporations are stating that SOMETHING has to change. They're not committing to single payer (not all of them) but they're not happy with having to pay 1k a month in insurance premiums. I wish I could remember where I saw it, though.

Also, violachic, that guy Mark on my Facebook, is a lawyer (ex?) getting his PhD in economics in MA, and is very pro single payer and besides linking to a lot of Middle East sort of stuff, he is a good source of info on economics, particularly health care stuff. (As you can imagine, he's from a more radical school of economic thought.)

[grahamwest.livejournal.com]

I agree with this.

The people who make the most money out of the current system, which is mostly insurance companies followed by large healthcare providers (ie. people who sell goods or services that the insurance companies then pay for), are the people who have the most influence in Washington. Neither stands to gain from a single-payer system. They also would be hurt by the appearance of a large non-profit insurance provider (eg. something run by the UAW with a gigantic risk pool of members).

Unless something very unusual happens, the normal influence-peddling/bribery in politics will kill this initiative.

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

What I'm skeptical about is that, even if the US implements such a plan, that it would be done in such a manner that it actually helps the health care crisis in our country.

Much depends on who gets to define the crisis.

Pretty much everyone who covers this in the conventional media, are themselves insured, with no major health issues. They might interview the occasional victim of the system, but you can bet the story is edited by someone who's being taken care of.

If the government could be made to listen to the vast majority of those whose needs aren't now being met, (don't laugh, it's called democracy) then it might begin to serve them at *least* as well as it serves the corporate fat cats now. Maybe, some day, slightly better.

Like the QWERTY keyboard, you could pretty much build a system at random, and it would work better than what we've got now.