Republican voters now favor single payer health care

[Philo-Publius]

And this is where I asked you for something supporting the argument that it's more expensive for the nation. It's not even a hard question to answer.

You simply find the per person spending on healthcare and compare it to nations with single payer models. We spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare. What do other nations spend and what do they get for it.

Take the U.K. for example. We spend similar amounts on government care as the NHS but far more on private care. I haven't seen a compelling argument that switching to a model similar to theirs would raise our total costs beyond what we pay now, only that if would leave us somewhere in between what we do and what they do.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42950587

Here's the per capita number taking in private and public spending. Why would our per person spending increase?

Which is what I'm asking for. What's the basis for the argument that simplifying the payment structure and thus the overhead from our current model to a single payer model would increase the per capita or GDP costs to the entire nation?

Single payer would mean fewer staff hours spent dealing with insurance companies by providers. It would also mean fewer government hours spent verifying who is and isn't eligible for the various healthcare services provided by the government.

It would mean less capital spent on managing healthcare savings accounts and similar private means of deferring the tax costs of healthcare.

It would mean more taxes though. It couldn't be done on our current system without significant tax increases but I don't see the difference between paying for healthcare directly vs. paying for healthcare via taxes so long as you're still paying for the same end stage care.

I have already addressed the cost of Medicare for America. It is an inefficient government program that would strangle the Health Care industry financially if it was paying its current reimbursement rates for 100% of American patients across the board.

 

[ocean size]

I have already addressed the cost of Medicare for America. It is an inefficient government program that would strangle the Health Care industry financially if it was paying its current reimbursement rates for 100% of American patients across the board.

Medicare families are poorer and probably sicker though. Also maybe it is in the full report but I see no head to head comparison of the age of Medicare and no medicare households- the numbers don't mean much if Medicare households are older.

I think you are better off with Blahous' numbers for Medicare for all, he took this kind of thing into account. He did overestimate admin costs for Medicare though.

https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/com...lan-would-cost-federal-government-32-trillion

Implemented well i think it would be somewhere between a mild increase and mild decrease in overall spending.

 

[Philo-Publius]

Medicare is typically 40% less than private insurance. Hospitals set chargemasters not based on what they need to make but on what insurance will then negotiate down to. Chargemaster prices are also high to keep insurance from dropping hospitals- so they won't have to pay the out of network. List price isn't a useful number- it is like being a business that does all of its sales at clearance sale prices. So 25% isn't a useful number.

What Medicare pays is by law close to actual costs. Ive provided sources for this claim. Hospitals say they are a little below break even with Medicare rates but that's to be expected. We are going around in circles now though so unless you have new sources or facts to bring I'm moving on.

They estimate cost based on averages for diagnosis codes or CPT codes. I don't know how that cost is calculated, but their reimbursement is a low-ball and doesn't really account for overhead. Every so often, Medicare will factor in inflation and increase their rates by a certain percentage, but I remember when Congress passed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2010 in which there was a section (Section 1011) that reduced government funds to Medicare by billions, which resulted in a decrease in Medicare reimbursement of something like 8%. Good stuff. This obviously wasn't a calculation of cost, but the federal government tightening the belt on reimbursement regardless of cost or inflation.

 

[Philo-Publius]

Medicare families are poorer and probably sicker though. Also maybe it is in the full report but I see no head to head comparison of the age of Medicare and no medicare households- the numbers don't mean much if Medicare households are older.

That is why in my calculation I factored in that non-Medicare households tend to spend 71% of what Medicare households spend. If I had assumed the 85% of non-Medicare households would cost just as much as the 15% that are currently on Medicare, my estimate would have exceeded $4 trillion a year.

Also, Medicare households may be older, but they don't have children they have pay health care services for either.

I think you are better off with Blahous' numbers for Medicare for all, he took this kind of thing into account. He did overestimate admin costs for Medicare though.

https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/com...lan-would-cost-federal-government-32-trillion

Implemented well i think it would be somewhere between a mild increase and mild decrease in overall spending.

Why? That just looks like an editorial. He analyzed a Bernie Sanders' Act to come up with those numbers? What does that even mean? He doesn't really spell out how he calculated those numbers.

 

[ocean size]

That is why in my calculation I factored in that non-Medicare households tend to spend 71% of what Medicare households spend. If I had assumed the 85% of non-Medicare households would cost just as much as the 15% that are currently on Medicare, my estimate would have exceeded $4 trillion a year.

Also, Medicare households may be older, but they don't have children they have pay health care services for either.



Why? That just looks like an editorial. He analyzed a Bernie Sanders' Act to come up with those numbers? What does that even mean? He doesn't really spell out how he calculated those numbers.

The link to the report is in that article. It's been all over the news for a month because a Koch funded free market think tank study found M4A will save 300 billion a year- but only at Medicare rates.

 

[Philo-Publius]

Elective does however cover many things (non essential like cosmetic) that will increase the average wait times by a lot. There is no way you are waiting 175 days for kidney stones lol.

In most cases The wait times are a non existant boogeyman used to scare people away from a socialized solution (still the best solution currently out there). At least we don´t risk being denied coverage at all, paying out of pocket, personal bankruptcy, tiered access or loss of coverage if we are fired.

I am not buying what you are selling. Most Europeans I have spoken to confirm the long wait times. The people who have most had to test the system know best.

 

[Prutfis]

I am not buying what you are selling. Most Europeans I have spoken to confirm the long wait times. The people who have most had to test the system know best.

I am not british. So don´t care about the article. I would say I have tested our healthcare with several cancer cases, a wife with a smashed knee and a bad liver, I have a bad back, a nephew that was 3rd degree burned on 55% of his body, a sister with PTSD and some manic depression in the family. I certainly wouldn´t want my family under a US model.
Hell I can call a doctor at 2 am and he will be at my house in less than 30 min with 0 charge.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

No. It's definitely not propaganda. Hospitals would not be able to afford the overhead if they were making Medicare rates across the board.

Then how do hospitals afford overhead in Canada,Australia, Sweden, Norway, UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, et al? They definitely arent shutting down.

Or better yet, how do Murkan hospitals which operate in impoverished neighborhoods where >60% of the patients cant afford their bills and are on Medicaid, how are they still in business? When they are paying nurses 50$/hr. and doctors millons of dollars a year when most of their income is via Medicaid?

I suspect those European nations don't have physician shortages because it's okay to sit and wait on a wait list for many months before being seen. Everything is rationed.

Many European nations have doctors making housecalls which is something unheard of in Murka. How do they afford that? Also some European nations pay their docs more. How do they afford that?

Rationing? lol, Murkan private insurances ration care also. So even if they did ration care how would that change anything? Again youve offered no evidence just spewed propaganda and talking points that have been easily refuted.

 

[Philo-Publius]

Then how do hospitals afford overhead in Canada,Australia, Sweden, Norway, UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, et al? They definitely arent shutting down.

Or better yet, how do Murkan hospitals which operate in impoverished neighborhoods where >60% of the patients cant afford their bills and are on Medicaid, how are they still in business? When they are paying nurses 50$/hr. and doctors millons of dollars a year when most of their income is via Medicaid?



Many European nations have doctors making housecalls which is something unheard of in Murka. How do they afford that? Also some European nations pay their docs more. How do they afford that?

Rationing? lol, Murkan private insurances ration care also. So even if they did ration care how would that change anything? Again youve offered no evidence just spewed propaganda and talking points that have been easily refuted.

The market is different in the United States for the reasons I stated previously. Socialized medicine will not fix those problems. Removing the claims process and paying medical providers to mitigate risk instead of insurance carriers will fix many problems.

You need medical coverage to pay for medical care. Most Americans (impoverished or otherwise) have coverage, but sometimes it is not very good coverage. The ACA promised to fix that but didn't.

Nothing I have said is propaganda or has been refuted.

 

[Philo-Publius]

I am not british. So don´t care about the article. I would say I have tested our healthcare with several cancer cases, a wife with a smashed knee and a bad liver, I have a bad back, a nephew that was 3rd degree burned on 55% of his body, a sister with PTSD and some manic depression in the family. I certainly wouldn´t want my family under a US model.
Hell I can call a doctor at 2 am and he will be at my house in less than 30 min with 0 charge.

Well, I care. American consumers should have as complete a view as possible of how various systems around the world work if they are going to consider socialized medicine. Even if your particular delivery system is the utopia you are making it out to be, there is no guarantee that a socialized delivery system in American would resemble yours over another. America is a very large nation of over 300 million people, and socialized medicine in this country would be a very large and expensive project.

 

[Prutfis]

12.2% of american adults have no medical insurance

58% of personal bankruptcies in the US are from medical bills

 

[Philo-Publius]

12.2% of american adults have no medical insurance

58% of personal bankruptcies in the US are from medical bills

^ No doubt these are problems that need to be addressed in America. I don't think socialized medicine needs to be the solution though.