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Americans - would you support single-payer?

Would you support a single payer system in the US?

  • Total voters
    108
aociswundumho said:
Of course. Universal means universal. The extremely caring politicians who will impose this scheme believe everyone has the right to healthcare.
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Very generous of them.
 

What about a non life threatening health problem?
 
I understand. I see this mentality a lot. For example, VFW members (I am one) who accept free medical / health care from the VA - including excellent hearing aids - but vehemently insist that this kind of government health care should not be offered to other Americans.
 
Perhaps you should grasp that I'm not advising Exxon to take over helathcere. Try to grasp the context before you spew an irrational brain fart.
 
Ive been on government run healthcare until my dependency ran out. It was pretty good. Now my pharmacy just all of a sudden drops the generic version of my medicine and because its a controlled substance i cant do anything about my raised rate. Also having to pay 200 bucks for my cat’s insulin really ******ing sucked.
 
Also in countries with UHC you dont have to worry about vulture capitalism squeezing your hospital for every penny and citizens can call an ambulance without going bankrupt. Businesses can operate without worrying about managing their employees health insurance which allows them to focus on doing business.
 
I am really sorry. There is no way we should keep allowing these circumstances to prevail.

Good luck.
 
bomberfox said:
Also in countries with UHC you dont have to worry about vulture capitalism squeezing your hospital for every penny and citizens can call an ambulance without going bankrupt.
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Too many people still don't know they will receive a bill for an ambulance call/ride - and, of those who do, I'd say most have no idea how monstrously high that bill will be. (Or that insurance won't pay for it.)
 
Pyrite said:
I am really sorry. There is no way we should keep allowing these circumstances to prevail.

Good luck.
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I mean the controlled substance thing is idiot politicians fault like you really cant have even one emergency dose because no politician is going to give a shit if life doesnt work out like they think it will so people that need the medication are just left to steam,
 
Pyrite said:
Too many people still don't know they will receive a bill for an ambulance call/ride - and, of those who do, I'd say most have no idea how monstrously high that bill will be. (Or that insurance won't pay for it.)
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That too. Our ambulatory services are getting gutted by private equity as well. It just needs to be a public service like the fire department.
 
bomberfox said:
That too. Our ambulatory services are getting gutted by private equity as well. It just needs to be a public service like the fire department.
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Good point about outsourcing/privatizing ambulatory services.
 


The best one we’ve ever been to was Syracuse, but it had its own VA issues as well, namely what you mentioned - almost every ****ing time you go in there, there’s a different doctor. You can’t get used to a good doctor because they shuffle them around and you never see them again.

Huntsville - ok so we were moving from Syracuse to Huntsville and hubs had chest pains. We went to the Syracuse VA and they wanted to cath him immediately, as he was a heart patient. He refused, as we already had the moving truck packed and our lease was up. He explained that we would be in Huntsville the next day, and we would go then. We got to Huntsville and they told us to call Birmingham. Birmingham gave us a 5-month wait for an emergency cardiac appointment. We explained to them exactly what Syracuse told us to say, and they did not care. 5 months for his appointment.
 
Absentglare said:
If I had to buy a plan it’d be over $600/mo just for a silver plan covering me, and that doesn’t include the out-of-pocket expenses.
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I know. My adult daughters can’t afford health insurance and they are too old to be on mine. I worry all the time about this.
 

I’m on a heart medication that the VA will cover, but it’s weird - there are several manufacturers that make it, but only Glenmark manufacturing makes the pill that works for me. The rest - when I take them, I can tell they aren’t working. My heart goes wonky.

So all my prescriptions come from the VA and express scripts with the exception of this one, that I have to pay out of pocket for.
 

My mother is on a pain contract. She is given a medication that doesn’t really work, and her doctor refuses to change it for her to something that will actually work.

She can’t leave him and find another doctor because she is under a pain contract with him.
 
Greenbeard said:
In fairness, the likelihood that Republicans would insist on under-resourcing the health care system is a legitimate reason to be wary of single-payer.
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In other words, Republican would refuse to raise taxes high enough.

But that's true of Democrats as well, which is why no blue state has single payer.

Greenbeard said:
Certainly it's not hard to find examples where making all health care resource allocation a political decision has led to unfortunate results.
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Political decisions by their very nature tend to be poor decisions. Imagine, for example, trying to build a house, where all of the decisions regarding its construction were made by politics.

Greenbeard said:
In the past I would've said "probably not," but lately I'm moved firmly into the "maybe!" camp.
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What has changed to move you into the maybe camp?
 

The situation today for chronic pain patients is absolutely barbaric. All because of the drug war.
 
aociswundumho said:
The situation today for chronic pain patients is absolutely barbaric. All because of the drug war.
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Absolutely is. I’ve seen my 75 year old mother cry out in pain, and they do nothing. She won’t let me say anything, either, which makes it even worse.
 
Didn't know about pain contracts. (I've since done a cursory search.)

Thanks for mentioning them.
 
Political decisions tend to be poor decisions . . . you mean like when it comes to women's healthcare? Aociswondumho, please tell me you're not pro-life.
 
Superfly said:
Absolutely is. I’ve seen my 75 year old mother cry out in pain, and they do nothing. She won’t let me say anything, either, which makes it even worse.
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Yeah, you have to be careful, or they'll cut you off completely.

My first wife had chronic pain from a car accident, and they would not give her enough pain meds no matter what. Luckily I was able to get her percs off the street, but without them she told me she would have killed herself. There was just no way she could tolerate it.
 
What about healthcare for people who aren't exactly like you, and as fortunate as you - I mean, if there are any such people - just asking. I'm assuming you recognize that there are other non-Adverse people on your planet, right Captain?
 
Mr Person said:
We need to raise taxes across almost the whole board and pay for it. I don't give a shit about labels. It's more financially efficient. Complaints about single payer systems are necessarily cherry-picked.
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As a concession to the for profit "gatekeepers" in 1966, Medicare claims are processed by the interests that would be put out of business by
single payer and the 20% cut they are entitled to "earn" per ACA could be repurposed for claims processing and fraud investigation.

It is reasonable to expect single payer to initially lower the cost of insurance by 15 percent. Is it still health "insurance" if single payer initiates
a right to specified treatment for specified disorders without a private for profit gatekeeper dividing the pie between itself and care providers?

France simply subsidizes the purchases of treatment under the theory that the market sets the price private care providers are able to obtain, as if
all beneficiaries had at least the private means to cover the costs, vs. the UK employing the care providers in a government owned system.

Nearly 5 year old article,

February, 2019

"..Medicare Part C is a bit more complicated: It's basically private insurance funded by the federal government. Commonly known as Medicare Advantage, with Part C you pledge your government Medicare payments to a private healthcare organization, typically an HMO, and they provide coverage that is at least equal to what Medicare provides directly. In most cases, these plans provide considerably more services. The downside is that you have to stay within their network or face higher out-of-pocket costs.
For those who don't choose Medicare Advantage, there are health plans that cover the gap between what the doctor charges and what Medicare will pay (known as Medicare Supplement or Medigap plans). There are quite a few flavors of these, which we will discuss below, and choosing one can be a major undertaking.

Not all doctors take Medicare. Those that do fall into two categories: "participating" and "non-participating." The participating physician takes what Medicare reimburses as payment in full for services, while the non-participating physician can charge up to 15% more than Medicare provides. If you visit the latter often, you'll want a Medigap plan that covers this additional 15%. Then there's the doctor that has opted out of Medicare. These physicians don't take any payments from Medicare, so that you must pay them in full out of your own pocket...;"

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