MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Single-Payer
By barefooted on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 12:25pm |“It proposes, in just one stroke, to cut away so many of the pathologies of our health care system. And you can look at that and say, ‘The shocks to society this would produce would be crazy — too crazy to actually pull off,” Harold Pollack, a health expert at the University of Chicago, told me. “On the other hand, the bill forces us to confront how pathological our system is in the first place. And it does so in a breathtakingly ambitious way.”
URL:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/28/16114436/john-conyers-single-payer-insurance
- 3753 reads
Comments
A smart idea to start pushing this right now. It will fail but it will help the progress. I am optimistic, I see progress. So many more people understand the complexity. Obamacare helped precisely because it was very imperfect change. Even the GOP threatening to screw it all up helped!
The main thing, though, that will make something big happen: providers are fed up, just fed up, ready to blow., dealing with the huge mess of all the insurance cos. (The few that aren't fed up aren't in real medicine but some big money making racket like dental implants.) Boomers will soon all be on Medicare and GenX and millenial providers will prefer them as patients because Medicare takes the complex nightmare away: one set of rules.
by artappraiser on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 12:45pm
Two big problems:
1. US healthcare outside of VA and Indian Health Service, is almost all fee for service.
British NHS is salaried, doctors on salary. Government runs the actual hospital. The number and specialties of docs needed is coordinated through the national government medical education system. US medical education has no such linkage.
2. Fee for service with private doctors and tens of thousands of private groups, facilities covering the entire population with no copays would be rife with unending fraud as to number, type, need for expensive services, kickbacks to referring docs, phantom patients, patients getting kickbacks etc
The linked article does not mention either of these issues.
by NCD on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 3:25pm
I really think a national health system is the best of all possibilities for the reasons you cite and others. I would love to see it.
But do you really think it would be wise for Dems to push for that right now?
Even though there is the example of England's National Health Service satisfying the public more than any other system (yes, despite all the gripes and problems), most other countries decided it politically impossible to do it.
The article is about the Conyers bill, not about all possible health care systems. He's got 117 House Dems to sign on. I actually think that's in itself is a miracle in this climate. I think it's a smart move to keep the discussion moving forward at a time when people are understanding more. But given that it's Conyers, it is of course going to be considered what is far left at this point in time. I think it will help to move the Overton window. Then next year, the next Conyers can move on to the benefits of national health over single payer.
by artappraiser on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 11:08pm
Most 100% national coverage nations have "government" doctors on "government" salaries in "government" hospitals. Salaried doctors at no point have an incentive to do any unnecessary referrals, procedures, diagnostic tests to pad their incomes. It works if you have a government that is competent at doing its job, and doesn't constantly play partisan politics, enhanced by a "horserace" corporate TV News media that makes more money from division, controversy, eyeballs and government chaos.......their worst nightmare being an informed unbiased electorate seeking reasonable government stability, compromise and effectiveness.
On the other hand, government paid universal fee for service would ramp up this stuff to the stratosphere.
Practical national health like Germany/Australia, Britain will never happen in "government is the problem" geographically, socially, politically and racially divided America.
It's fine for Dems to run on anything that can get them elected, whether or not it's practical or will ever be implemented, as long as they do as big a thing as they can that moves things in the right direction like Obamacare did.
by NCD on Tue, 08/29/2017 - 10:49am
Meanwhile surprise surprise (NOT) look at this Trump admin bullshit on Obamacare. What's going on here is they are going wait and see what comes out of the Congressional committee so they can play politics with whatever it is. Meantime they are anonymous, didn't say nothing bout no Obamacare! You can ignore most of the article, all you need to read is this one outrageous excerpted sentence:
Trump Administration Wants to Stabilize Health Markets but Won’t Say How
By Robert Pear @ NYTimes.com, Aug. 30
by artappraiser on Wed, 08/30/2017 - 10:41pm
Trump, anti-Medicare/Medicaid/Obamacare HHS Tom Price Big Decision
by NCD on Wed, 08/30/2017 - 10:51pm
Governors stepping in and doing the work of submitting proposal to Congress for the here and now, some things a decent White House should be doing if we had one:
Kasich, Hickenlooper release plan to stabilize ObamaCare markets
@ Politico.com, Aug. 31
let's cross fingers and hope that Trump decides it's like a third rail and he should just shuddup on it.
The particulars in the article suggest they have a decent grip on what's needed and being bipartisan, it shouldn't alllow for much screamin except with nonsense blather from the Freedom Caucus.
What I am not clear about is how Dems.Bernie-Harris single payer bill(s) will or won't interfere with the work of stabilizing Obamacare for the next year. It's one thing if they are talking about implementing down the road, if they are talking about interfering with this process or making it a hostage, it's a whole nother thing.
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/31/2017 - 1:26pm