Can you argue with this defintion of single payer health insurance?

homegirl

New member
Single-payer health insurance is not socialized medicine as the Republicans and insurance companies would have you believe. It is single payer, without the middleman insurance company CEO and profit requirements that require denial of sometimes life-saving care to increase corporate profits.
 
Exactly. If We the People wish to establish good things for ourselves, like public library systems, public parks systems, not-for-profit health insurance providers or credit unions, transportation systems, and so on we have nothing to lose but the fat parasites sucking our blood and calling it profits. Health care = life. Life should not be a commodity.
 
I will have to check with Hannity and Limbaugh to see what the talking point for the day is regarding this subject.....


Single-payer saves time.

Imagine if all doctors and all hospitals in the US had just one type of form to fill out. And all patients had one insurance card. And all patients had health insurance by virtue of being US citizens. And now think of the savings in time, money, paper-pushing. Doctors would have more time to care for patients; everyone would have fewer headaches waiting to talk to their HMO to prove their coverage; nurses would be less frustrated with their work.

Single-payer saves money.

By having one organization handle all of the bureaucracy and all of the administration of the health care system (mostly consisting of paperwork and payments) paper-pushing greatly decreases in frequency and cost. More of each of our dollars that go toward health care would actually be used to care for people's health, instead of going toward managers and forms. Single-payer eliminates the bulk of paperwork duplication, and in the process, could potentially save hundreds of BILLIONS (that's 100,000 million) of dollars. As it is right now, American businesses are at an economic disadvantage, because their health costs are so much higher than in other countries. The Canadian branches of Ford, GM, and Daimler-Chrysler all publicly support Canada's health care system, because it saves them an enormous amount of money, compared to their counterparts in the US.

What's more, a single-payer system would mean fewer personal bankruptcies due to medical bills--and an end to patients actually receiving bills. In most countries with a single-payer system, patients never see a bill. The billing process doesn't even involve patients. (This saves money, too--think of how much work goes into itemizing each bill, sending it to each patient, following up on the bill if there's been an error... and on, and on.)

Most single-payer systems save a ton of money by buying prescription drugs for its patients in huge bulk quantities. You know the money you save for buying in bulk at Costco or Sam's Club? Think of applying that concept to buying prescription drugs for America's 290 million people. (Hint: this is what Canada does--it's what makes their drugs much cheaper.)

Single-payer saves choice.

Americans love choices. We love having options. With a single-payer system, patients could go to any doctor they wanted (try doing that with your HMO!). You could see the doctor that's closest to you, the one that your friends all recommend, or pick one that's your same religion, ethnicity, or race. It'd be a much different experience than getting a specific list from your HMO, telling you who you're allowed to see, if you don't want to pay an arm and a leg for it.

Even better, people wouldn't be tied to their current job for the health insurance it provides. People could find jobs they're happier with or even consider starting their own businesses. It would make employers work harder to make employees happy, and employers could be more confident their workers were a good fit for their jobs.
 
No, but some will.

First of all, Obama is not going to bring in universal healthcare. He wants to make insurance more available to all.

Second, of course universal health-cover sucks. That is why we in Western Europe have it. We think, hmm, our healthcare system sucks. I know, lets keep it. I guess that is the same with Japan and Canada as well.

FACT - the USA spends more on healthcare PER PERSON than any other nation on the planet.

FACT - the US has higher death rates for kids aged under five than western European countries with universal health coverage.

That means that a dead American four year old would have had a better chance of life if they were born in Canada, France, Cuba, Germany, Japan etc, all of which have universal health coverage.
 
It sounds like national health to me. It is no different than taking it out of your taxes except that the rich in your scenario have to give as much or as little as the poor and some poor would still not be able to afford it.
 
republicans know that single payer healtcare will work

but they work for the insurance companies who are gouging us with premiums and they make these phoney "socialized medecine" arguments to throw the Foxnews audience off who they REALLY WORK FOR
 
It is a fair enough description, but severely over-simplified in terms of the discussion currently raging in the country. Now can you argue that just because you do not have a for profit model that the costs are lower, the system is more responsive, or that it is better managed as a result?
 
It is a fair enough description, but severely over-simplified in terms of the discussion currently raging in the country. Now can you argue that just because you do not have a for profit model that the costs are lower, the system is more responsive, or that it is better managed as a result?
 
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