Everything you say is true. Yet here I am begging for a public option as a last resort. Gee. do you think you've been duped?

Oleeb, I'm a broken record on this but with so many blogs on this subject, I can't help it.

We need to find some leadership and get organized. I was just thinking that we locate an existing council or create 'one' that all organizations that support single payer can be a part of. We attract and locate leadership for that council and a National spokesperson who will see this all the way through to the end. We need to speak with a unified voice and have crowds showing up like they were for Obama.

It is a wast of our time, energy, and money to be buying into the garbage they are slinging on the hill right now.

As Miguel pointed out it may very well be that the reason they are in such a hurry to pass something is to keep us from having time to organize.

Agreed.

There's no leadership on the issue because there's no demand for it. 70% want healthcare reform, not welfare checks for healthcare.

Amen.

And just because you don't demand it doesn't mean that a majority of us don't.

Maybe I have just gone to the wrong meetings on single-payor but to me the problem with advocates for single payor is that they seem to think the entire problem with health care in the U.S is caused by insurance companies but their really is plent of blame to go around. A public option might be more effective at showing the the problems with our medical system and giving people a chance to opt in to a system that looks at health outcomes rather than focusing on consumption as a goal within itself.

You can't have it both ways.

You can't simultaneously say that we spend too much on health care and that we should provide more of it to more people. To provide more care you need more doctors, nurses, lab techs, etc., who would demand higher salaries to drag the marginal health care workers away from other careers.

You can say there's waste, and I'll believe you. Maybe there's even savings to be had. But ultimately what makes health care expensive is not insurance companies (who got into the market in the first place as a means of controlling costs), but technology. Health care was dirt cheap in 1860; but there wasn't much health care. Or much health for that matter.

Single payer is a solution for the problem (if it is one) of the uninsured. It is not a solution to the problem of cost; it would make that problem immeasurably worse.

After all, even Medicare is going to break the bank (especially after Bush's prescription drug nonsense), and that's the model single payer advocates generally turn to. It's going to be absurdly expensive even just covering the geriatrics.

Ultimately, Americans are going to have to realize that health care is a product, not a right.

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

Did you try?

Private health insurance tacks on an immediate 30% (at least) to our health care bill. Given the fact that we spend more per capita on health care than any other nation, don't you think it's a good idea to eliminate that 30%?

Medicare has overhead of 3% a year. Actually, slightly less than that. It is far more efficient and cheaper than ANY private insurance provider for a ton of reasons. One of the biggest is also the most obvious:

Medicare doesn't have to make a profit. Private insurers do, and they make a fortune.

Private insurers pay their execs EIGHT FIGURE SALARIES.

Top pay for government workers is in the six figure range.

Right now, Medicare tackles the most expensive group in America, the elderly. Medicaid insures the least likely to be able to afford premiums. Medicare and Medicaid help make private insurers FAR more profitable because of that. Private insurers are left with the best pool of customers available. And they STILL have ten times the overhead that Medicare has.

If we extend Medicare for everyone, costs will go DOWN dramatically. Medicare would THEN be covering young, healthy people as well. They don't have that luxury right now and, AGAIN, their overhead is less than 3%.

Doctors, hospitals, etc. will save a fortune in paperwork, with just one source for payment. They will save a fortune.

And businesses? They won't have to cover their workers anymore. THEY'LL save a fortune.

We need Single Payer to fix this mess, and it should be 100% non-profit, government-run health care INSURANCE. That's the best possible way to lower costs dramatically, increase efficiency dramatically, and cover everyone.

And here's the best part:

No more copays, premiums or out of pocket expenses for patients. MOST bankruptcies in America are due to health care costs, and MOST of those bankruptcies were for people WITH health care insurance.

Single Payer will eliminate the vast majority of those cases.

"if it's not kneecapped by the insurance industry"

And what do you think the chances of that are likely to be? Hmmm? About 150% I'd say.

Did you look at how much we're spending for healthcare right now and how it is projected to grow under our current idiotic for profit system? We are spending far more than we need to spend right now. Because we are spending far more than is necessary already, the cost savings realized by dumping the for profit system along with the money redirected from the for profit system toward implementing single payer is more than enough to provide health care for all. The whole cost issue is only problematic if we maintain the rotten system we have. If we are not going to do away with this rotten system to begin with why are we even wasting time discussing the issue. It's absurd and foolish to be talking about all this unless we begin with the assumption that we are getting rid of the current system. It is the only way out of the mess created by for profit health care.

The difference in overhead is just one aspect. It's a huge aspect but it's just one. That's the difference for the systems themselves. As in, on the INSURANCE side of the ledger.

Single Payer, as I said, would dramatically reduce costs for health care PROVIDERS. Right now, they are swamped with paper work. They have to deal with hundreds of plans and dozens of insurers. Some regional, some local, some national.

That would change with Single Payer. One source. One place to send all of your bills.

Other cost savings:

We pay far, far more for drugs than they do in Canada, Europe and in much of Asia. Big Pharma rips us off constantly. Single Payer would have tremendous power in negotiating lower payment rates. Medicare did this before Congress meddled with it and helped Big Pharma yet again with Part B. Get rid of all of the privatization in Medicare, make it 100% non-profit, and it has the power to force lower prices, at least to normal rates seen in MOST countries.

As for that "transfer of wealth" you speak of. That's being done under the current system. Private insurance companies make ginormous profits by adding zero to the quality of our health care. They are totally unnecessary and parasitic. They suck up trillions of dollars that should be going directly for health care, and not for their eight figure salaries, yachts and lavish homes and vacations, etc.

You also "transfer wealth" when you send them your premiums each month. If you're young and healthy, especially, you're paying for the health care of the older and sicker people who need coverage from your insurance company. The insurance company collects premiums, copays and out of pocket expenses into a huge pool. Many people pay in far more than they ever use. Many other people use far more than they ever pay in.

There's virtually no difference between that model and paying taxes for insurance. Except for the most important one:

Single Payer would be non-profit. You wouldn't be paying for eight figure salaries. You wouldn't be paying to make an unnecessary middleman filthy rich. Your tax dollars, minus less than 3%, would be going toward HEALTH CARE. Unlike with private insurance.

Also. The government has no incentive to deny coverage. Private insurers do. They lose money when they cover people, which is why they're invested in "recission" and "purging" right now.

Private insurers also keep jacking up their rates, year after year after year. Their profits have soared for decades.

The government doesn't have to worry about pleasing greedy executives and stockholders. It just needs to run an efficient department. Medicare is already massively more efficient than any private insurer. If it covered everyone, it could easily increase those efficiencies.

with singlepayor you would still get the overtreatment and needless specialists only they would bill the government rather than an insurance company.

The whole system is screwed up not just the insurance side.

A few things.

First, you know nothing about me, and whether or not I even have health insurance.

Second, pointing out the practical effects (transferring money from healthy people to sick people, with no regard for ability to pay, let alone lifestyle choices, etc.) is hardly the cave man's thinking. It's rational thinking, full stop. Something rarely encountered in health care debates to be sure, but it is what it is. I make no moral judgments; I'm just pointing out the actual effects of policies.

Third, one of the main reasons I don't support government involvement in health care is precisely that I'm worried that someone I love will get sick. I do not want Rahm Emanuel or Mitch McConnell deciding how much care my loved ones shall receive.

I'm honestly surprised that anyone does.

That's true; by assailing the usual and flawed arguments for government sponsored care, I don't mean to imply that the current system is ideal, or even that it is reasonably decent.

I just mean to imply that government isn't the solution to the problem.

To my mind the problem is that we're thinking about the problem th wrong way; we're thinking of health care as a risk rather than a product. Health insurance isn't really insurance at all; the vast majority of the expenses incurred are not a matter of risk, they're a matter of choice, or a matter of time.

Here's what I mean:

1. Insurance is a way of preventing low-probability, high-impact events from causing disproportionate effects. By spreading the risk, we gain a net benefit; we all get to stop worrying about it.

2. Health insurance doesn't do that. The vast majority of health costs are either inevitable at some point (think of nursing home care or vaccinations), or lifestyle choices (obstetrics, lung cancer related to smoking, heart disease, etc.). This means that moral hazard is a greater concern (smoking sure ought to be illegal if the government is paying for the chemo), and that risk really isn't the problem.

3. The problem, such as it is, is that some people can't afford health care, or, more accurately, that some people would like to buy more health care than they can afford. We've papered over the problem, partially, by calling health costs an insurable risk. As a result, the people who fall into the above category ae now called "uninsured" rather than "poor".

4. The result is that we have a system with all the barnacles but none (well, few) of the benefits. All the yelping about managed care now is by the by; managed care was introduced as a way of reducing costs, and for some years it was successful.

5. Government run health insurance wouldn't solve any of these problems, it would just ensure that everyone suffered from them.

6. The real problem is not distribution, it's desire. Health care is important to people. People will, if permitted, consume a virtually limitless amount of health care, because nothing (God aside) is likely to be more important than continued life. This means that health care can and will break the bank - any bank - with the ongoing march of technological advancement and the commensurate training rquirements of health professions. We can do more, but it costs more. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

7. "No republic has long outlived the discovery by a majority of its people that they could vote themselves largesse from the public treasury."

Alexander Tytler

That should about sum it up.

This is the problem with arguing with Liberals; they only have emotional reactions that aren't based on reality.

I can back my assertations up, and when I can't, I have the ability to admit that I'm wrong.

You guys can't admit that stealing from anyone for the sole benefit of another person is wrong.