Correct me if I'm wrong but I think there is a difference between the VA and medicare/medicaid. Isn't the VA operated by the government like a truly socialized medical system in that the government owns the hospitals, facilities and the staffs and doctors actually work for the government? While medicare/medicaid are operated like a single payer system where the hospitals, facilities and personnel and doctors are privately employed and the government just pays the bills. I understand there are complexities to the system but I don't think you hear the issues of poor care and facilities with medicare/medicaid because it uses the same ones as the current private system. I would not support a socialized medical system but I could get behind single payer simply because it utilizes the maximum group size, everyone. I think my biggest concern with single payer would be dealing with fraud, not like the private system is just as full of it.
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frodo
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It is still government run, yes the people are civilians, but, the gubment
makes them follow their rules, they can not treat you like they want
I have medicare, medicare refuses meds my dr wants me to take
and they do stupid sh stuff like request a x ray when the dr wants an mri
exray shows bones not soft tissue
You are correct and the goal of ACA and all progressive programs is in the progressive ideal. The goal was not the ACA it was that was one step in the direction they want to move the ball. The next step was single payer and the next socialized medical.
They prefer the name Progressives to Liberal for that reason as that is the ideology.
The best way to prevent fraud and keep prices in line is free markets and competition is what I believe. It works in every other industry why shouldnt it work in healthcare. We are upside down in many of our industries now a days. It is mostly laws and regulations that overpower the idea of free markets and competition and yes greed. We stack the deck against free enterprise in this country in favor doing things someplace else with laws and regulations. It is already in the works in health care and it will be no time at all until the doctors here will stabilize you and you will be shipped off halfway around the world to have your procedure done. Who reads your MRI or Xray now? Those same people will be doing your triple bypass before long.
I have private insurance through my employer and I have the same problems with them. Doctor ordered a test for me back in February and the insurance company said no. Took a month to get it straitened out. Back a few years Doc says I need a shoulder MRI, he can do it in his office, insurance says no. I have to go somewhere else, the cost was 80% higher. Of course I have a high deductible policy so they don't even pay for it anyhow. So do even try and tell me your experience is anything unique to medicare. Not even close. You can talk long wait times, fraud, billing problems, too many tests, denial of services, whatever, its the same with the private system without except it comes with unaffordable premiums.
Well for one thing there hasn't been a free market the United States for a couple hundred years I bet. From the first tariff, tax, rule, or regulation we have been manipulating the market. A completely free and unregulated market that some folks clamor for is how kings are made, exactly what this country was founded against.
I also don't buy into the whole "slippery slope" deal either. Its a non sequitur premise. There have been many calls for a single payer system in the US or medicare for all, but I have never heard anyone say we should have or work toward socialized medicine. I know I would not support that idea nor I bet, would there be a flicker of a chance that enough people in the country would to ever make it happen. I'm not sure you could even get enough people to support single payer. I just know that insurance companies are making billions off our backs, we pay most of the bills out of pocket, they can decline to cover treatment any time they want, the outcomes of the insurance/healthcare industry here are no better than anywhere else, some may argue they are not even as good and we pay way more for it. I don't have the answer but its obvious what we've been doing doesn't work.
What will change with a single payer compared to a 1000 payers. There will be no competition is one thing and if you dont like the way they work there is nowhere to turn. Im assuming the single payer you would like to see would be the federal government. Do we all pay the same premium and do we all get the same level of plan. Or do we just pay nothing and let the government pay for it all. They can raise taxes or print money to cover the cost in both cases the person making more money will pay for more than their fair share.
If it is good for healthcare it should be good for all insurance. Right now if a poor guy and a rich guy buy the same $20,0000 car both the same age and the same risk will pay the same premium for auto insurance. We should have a government run single payer auto insurance where the coverage is taken from the tax base. The guy that pays no tax gets his car insurance for free the rich guy pays more because he can. Sounds good to me. lets do the same thing with home insurance.
Im assuming these billions the insurance companies are now making will go someplace as the government is not going to be a profit center. They will just try and break even. They will dictate what they will pay for what and what they will pay for at all. In effect, they will control the medical system thru the purse strings without taking hands on control. That is what socialism is all about. Given a finite amount of money to take care of everyones needs and being fair that everyone gets the same level of care decisions will have to be made just like they are now. When you grab the short end of the stick and are denied coverage based around whatever the rule is at that time it is not fair to you. If you can afford more it is not fair for you to expect more or better coverage. As long as we are at it controlling costs lets get the lawyers out of the picture there is quite a few more billion and limit what we pay these doctors. Might as well take it a step more and tell GE they are charging way too much for these lifesaving scanners they build they make billions off our backs also selling this stuff. Healthcare was actually a lot cheaper before we had all this technology people just died and we didnt know what they had or a method of treating them. All this diagnostic and treatment stuff was another downfall of capitalism. Without capitalism we wouldnt have all these cures and healthcare costs would go down.
nealtw
Contractor retired
It's easy enough study all the countries that have a successful free market system to see how well it works and why.
BTW, there are non.
BTW, there are non.
zannej
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Ok. I'll admit my ignorance here. I didn't research this (I probably should) and I thought that single payer just meant that you wouldn't need to have backup insurance plans. Is it something different then? (I know I can google it, but I'd like to hear how you guys explain what single payer is).
I do agree that it is problematic if they refuse to pay for things. The x-ray instead of MRI thing must be very common. Even without insurance when I last went to the ER they did an x-ray when they should have done an MRI.
I do agree that it is problematic if they refuse to pay for things. The x-ray instead of MRI thing must be very common. Even without insurance when I last went to the ER they did an x-ray when they should have done an MRI.
nealtw
Contractor retired
I can explain a little about ours. (Single payer) government run.
Ours has you covered for everything but not drugs or dentist eye tests and glasses. Not sure about hearing.
Ours is run by the province and helped by the feds.
You go to the doctor of choice although some limit their load so a new doctor may be hard to find sometimes.
We have clinics to go to if you don't have a doctor or when you doctors office is closed, that keeps people out of the ER for band aids.
The rates that doctors can charge for a procedure or visit is negotiated with a group that represents the doctors, no co pays, except for bone crackers and some other a few other things but any of the co pays I have heard about are like $20 or something, same for everyone.
Most hospitals are gov. owned but are run like a business with a budget and all that and they complain a lot.
For test like MRIs there are waiting lists and sometimes that get bad but still those people have a doctor and will get the test.
They always seem to squeeze people in if there is an emergency.
Some of our hospitals are specialty as well as all the regular stuff.
Just down the road we have a new cancer center. In the city we have children's unit, and some are where you go for heart problems.
The cost to me is set by how much I earned last year. $75 a month right now
That changes depending on if the gov. is left or right but never un reasonable.
Private companies do the bio med testing ordered by doctors but they are monitored so they don't get more tests than needed.
A couple times my doctor has ordered tests for me that the gov. thinks would be overlapping so I would have to pay for one of them. $10 I think.
Based on Neal’s $75 / month and the cost of a heart bypass at about $120,000 that means 1600 people have to pay for a month for 1 person to get a bypass that month. That’s if the system breaks even and there are no administration costs. Now if another person needs a valve replacement that would take about 2000 people paying in.
I have no facts but when you think about it the program has to have additional funding from the normal tax base also. So most likely your real cost of healthcare is something higher.
I have no facts but when you think about it the program has to have additional funding from the normal tax base also. So most likely your real cost of healthcare is something higher.
nealtw
Contractor retired
But you guys complain about your tax rate is higher than every one else.
Perhaps the healthcare from childhood means less of those bypasses.
Just a little story. Some years ago there was some smuggling across the border back east.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Regis_Mohawk_Reservation
The feds and Ontario decided to lower the tax on cigarettes to take the profit
out of it.
The fed asked BC to do the same. The Premiere of BC at the time said. " that would cost more than we pay into BC Med."
slownsteady
Well-Known Member
Socialized medicine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the term "Socialized medicine" as it is used in U.S. politics. For national health care systems generally, see Universal health care.
Socialized medicine is a term used to describe and discuss systems of universal health care: medical and hospital care for all at a nominal cost by means of government regulation of health care and subsidies derived from taxation.[1] Because of historically negative associations with socialism in American culture, the term is sometimes used pejoratively in American political discourse.[2][3][4][5][6] The term was first widely used in the United States by advocates of the American Medical Association in opposition to President Harry S. Truman's 1947 health-care initiative.[7][8][9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine
Single-payer healthcare
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Single-payer health care)
Single-payer healthcare is a system in which the residents pay the state – via taxes in amounts determined by the state – to cover healthcare costs, rather than individuals buying from private insurers competing for their business.[1] Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from private organizations (as is the case in Canada) or may own and employ healthcare resources and personnel (as is the case in the United Kingdom).
The term "single-payer" thus describes the funding mechanism, referring to healthcare financed by a single public body from a single fund, not the type of delivery or for whom physicians work.
The actual funding of a "single-payer" system comes from all or a portion of the covered population via taxes. In contrast multipayer healthcare uses a mixed public-private system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_healthcare
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the term "Socialized medicine" as it is used in U.S. politics. For national health care systems generally, see Universal health care.
Socialized medicine is a term used to describe and discuss systems of universal health care: medical and hospital care for all at a nominal cost by means of government regulation of health care and subsidies derived from taxation.[1] Because of historically negative associations with socialism in American culture, the term is sometimes used pejoratively in American political discourse.[2][3][4][5][6] The term was first widely used in the United States by advocates of the American Medical Association in opposition to President Harry S. Truman's 1947 health-care initiative.[7][8][9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine
Single-payer healthcare
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Single-payer health care)
Single-payer healthcare is a system in which the residents pay the state – via taxes in amounts determined by the state – to cover healthcare costs, rather than individuals buying from private insurers competing for their business.[1] Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from private organizations (as is the case in Canada) or may own and employ healthcare resources and personnel (as is the case in the United Kingdom).
The term "single-payer" thus describes the funding mechanism, referring to healthcare financed by a single public body from a single fund, not the type of delivery or for whom physicians work.
The actual funding of a "single-payer" system comes from all or a portion of the covered population via taxes. In contrast multipayer healthcare uses a mixed public-private system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_healthcare
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slownsteady
Well-Known Member
Hey Chris, since I'm pretty confident that you didn't diagnose these folks yourself, how do you know what they're there for? Did they all tell you? Did the doctor tell you?
My point is that casual observation from a single point of view (each of you) is not justified in a discussion as wide-reaching as this.
slownsteady
Well-Known Member
So if the free market is the ultimate system for all our ills, then why are we f*ckin' around with the insurance companies? They are the middleman, and they are making decisions that affect the health (and perhaps the life or death) of all of their customers. Yet they take no blame and make these decisions without any medical training. Why aren't we just bypassing these scavengers?
C
Chris
Guest
These are just my examples from speaking with people in the waiting room since we are usually there more than an hour and also just knowing people in my day to day life that are always going to the doctor for every little thing. I could be dead wrong and the 100 people every day in the one little office in a city with 100 offices is there for a major health issue. But if they were I would be more worried about why thousands of people a day in my area were becoming very ill.
C
Chris
Guest
You guys from out of the area really need to go spend some time in the LA area to truly see the corrupt side of things. If it were not for growing up seeing this day in and day out I would probably agree with you.
Put yourself in a position where you see someone ripping off every person they met everyday of their life and just being a bad person would you bend over backwards to support them and their ways?
Put yourself in a position where you see someone ripping off every person they met everyday of their life and just being a bad person would you bend over backwards to support them and their ways?
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nealtw
Contractor retired
Growing up here our provincial government was dominated by one part for 30 years, except for 3 years in the 70s they ran everything. They were very right wing as they supported big business. They understood that big business brought good jobs but strangely I don't think they were all that uptight about unions, that might have been more about getting elected.
In order to to help big business there was things we needed that private companies could not or would not build.
Some they built and some they bought because they thought they could do a better job. And they did. They built the place.
So at one time we owned and some we still own. BC Hydro and the cables , BC gas and the pipes, BC Ferries, BC rail, and Insurance Company of BC (Auto insurance) and BC med.
But with that they built hwys all over the province and supplied gas and electric to all the big mills and mines as well as the ferry system all up and down the coast and over to the islands. They made the place pop.
But you know when you give stuff away you do run out after awhile. So we don't have as many mines or sawmills, but we do have ski hills and wine.
In order to to help big business there was things we needed that private companies could not or would not build.
Some they built and some they bought because they thought they could do a better job. And they did. They built the place.
So at one time we owned and some we still own. BC Hydro and the cables , BC gas and the pipes, BC Ferries, BC rail, and Insurance Company of BC (Auto insurance) and BC med.
But with that they built hwys all over the province and supplied gas and electric to all the big mills and mines as well as the ferry system all up and down the coast and over to the islands. They made the place pop.
But you know when you give stuff away you do run out after awhile. So we don't have as many mines or sawmills, but we do have ski hills and wine.
frodo
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single pay has a network of doctors that are members,
my dentist, who is in my network is 90 miles away, while there are dentists in the area who are not in my network.
my lung doctor is 50 miles in Vidalia Louisiana
we have a lung doctor 20 miles from me, not in the network
we have a hospital in town that is not in my network,
but the hospital in Natchez 40 miles is
my dentist, who is in my network is 90 miles away, while there are dentists in the area who are not in my network.
my lung doctor is 50 miles in Vidalia Louisiana
we have a lung doctor 20 miles from me, not in the network
we have a hospital in town that is not in my network,
but the hospital in Natchez 40 miles is
nealtw
Contractor retired
Yeah I can see why that doesn't work and I guess we need an index of word meanings or a translator.
Some times we do have to travel for a specialist, big city 60 miles and we have a big area some have to fly in and we all belong to the same group.
zannej
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Except, we don't necessarily know how much it costs for bypass surgery there. It maybe $120k here, but it might be a lot cheaper there.
A test that costs about $10k in the US can cost only $50 or $80 in other countries. The inflated prices are one of the biggest problems in our healthcare system right now.
Thanks. Ok. So single payer was definitely not what I was thinking. I was thinking that we should have a choice for insurance company and we could choose ones from out of state-- and we would have more options and that insurance company would cover things without expecting us or requiring us to have a secondary insurance to cover things they won't cover.
Ugh. That is annoying as hell. And it's something that I see happening a lot. The whole thing of "preferred doctors" or ones in the network is absurd. I can get that they might not want to include doctors or clinics with very bad ratings or reputations or something-- like known hacks-- but making it so you have to go 90 miles for dental work is just wrong. They need to improve the system so people don't have those kinds of problems.
