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Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

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Re: Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare

#51

Post by api »

gavman wrote: post #32

Vermont tried this a few years ago, they had to cancel it since in the end it wasn't financially feasible [1]. CA is already dealing with severe budget issues [2][3], so while it sounds nice in theory I'm hesitant to believe the finances actually work out. [1] http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/single-payer-vermont-1... [2] http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-d... [3] http://www.cnbc.com/201…

I wonder how much taxing legal marijuana will help the state's budget issues?

Re: Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare

#52

Post by chrismealy »

michaelchisari wrote: post #34
foota wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

West coast single payer?

Doesn't seem like a hard sell to get Oregon & Washington on board, politically.

WA isn't even meeting its constitutional mandate for funding education.

Re: Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare

#53

Post by mikeash »

marcell wrote: post #27

I can't get over the cognitive dissonance of these two points: > (2) Californians, as individuals, employers, and taxpayers have experienced a rise in the cost of health care and health care coverage in recent years > (4) Individuals often find that they are deprived of affordable care and choice because of decisions by health benefit plans guided by the plan’s economic needs rather than consumers’ health care needs.…

A third alternative would be to increase efficiency so you can have the same level of care for less money.

Other countries spend far less on health care for similar quality, so it's possible.

Re: Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare

#54

Post by marcell »

old-gregg wrote: post #41
marcell wrote: post #27

I can't get over the cognitive dissonance of these two points: > (2) Californians, as individuals, employers, and taxpayers have experienced a rise in the cost of health care and health care coverage in recent years > (4) Individuals often find that they are deprived of affordable care and choice because of decisions by health benefit plans guided by the plan’s economic needs rather than consumers’ health care needs.…

Yes you can. As a 6th largest economy in the world [1] California can negotiate prices down by 50-60% to be comparable to Canada/UK. [2] Besides, the existing state program (medi-cal) already covers over 1/3 of CA residents [3]. So it looks like if we lower the cost by 60% we can get pretty close to normal healthcare situation using the existing budget. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states…

Some of the numbers for [2] confuse me. How can an office visit cost $30 in Canada? When I go in for an office visit, it typically takes about 30 minutes of staff time, around 15 minutes with a medical assistant and 15 minutes with a doctor. If that's $30, the implied wage is $60/hr for the medical staff, if you assume that all the money goes to staff. That just doesn't seem feasible.

Some of the other numbers seem more reasonable, though I should point out the charts are a bit misleading as they list the US 95th percentile in addition to the averages, which makes the difference appear larger than it really is.

Re: Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare

#55

Post by __jal »

gavman wrote: post #32

Vermont tried this a few years ago, they had to cancel it since in the end it wasn't financially feasible [1]. CA is already dealing with severe budget issues [2][3], so while it sounds nice in theory I'm hesitant to believe the finances actually work out. [1] http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/single-payer-vermont-1... [2] http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-d... [3] http://www.cnbc.com/201…

As I understand it, a big part of Vermont's problem was due to numbers. They had too small of a population.

California does not have that problem.

Re: Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare

#57

Post by TheSageMage »

gavman wrote: post #32

Vermont tried this a few years ago, they had to cancel it since in the end it wasn't financially feasible [1]. CA is already dealing with severe budget issues [2][3], so while it sounds nice in theory I'm hesitant to believe the finances actually work out. [1] http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/single-payer-vermont-1... [2] http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-d... [3] http://www.cnbc.com/201…

I'm very new to the single-payer idea, but Vermont rates 49th for population in the US, California ranks 1st. I thought one of the strengths of a single-payer system was to leverage the power of large numbers to help drive costs down. Would this not make it more viable?

Re: Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare

#58

Post by ThomPete »

michaelchisari wrote: post #33

Healthcare is such a massive hurdle to entrepreneurship, this would be huge!

It has very little effect if any. denmark have a true single payer system and social wellfare program you can only dream of in the us. Yet the number of startups created are declining just like ine the us. It creates a very different mindset.
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