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Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#101

Post by WkndTriathlete »

cortesoft wrote: post #28
_m8fo wrote: post #16

The article makes the assumption that the goal is to save money. Perhaps the way things are keeps the status-quo alive for those who make the rules, and that's why we don't have single payer. I hate to be the conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but think that's the truth.

Anytime one person saves money, it is also costing someone else money (the person or people that money was going to). Saving money on healthcare will cost money for people who are currently making money from the excessive costs of healthcare. This is not a secret, and not really a conspiracy; the groups that make money from the current system are always the ones opposed to change. It just sucks because there aren't n…

While conversion single-payer would result in health insurance employees/employers being temporary "losers" it is absolutely not true that one person saving money costs someone else money. Improved productivity saves money yet frequently results in increased wealth for all parties involved and has historically been the prime driver for economic growth.

That's economics 101.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#102

Post by ML_God »

leepowers wrote: post #15

> It thus makes no sense to reject single-payer on the grounds that it would require higher tax revenues. That’s true, of course, but it’s an irrelevant objection. > The most important source of cost savings under single-payer is that large government entities are able to negotiate much more favorable terms with service providers. I agree these objections are not relevant for the overall system. But certain individua…

Is it a bad thing to have millionaire doctors, specialists or dentists?

Should ideally everybody be poor?

Or is wealth reserved for celebrities and members of a few special families?

Healthcare is important and it's OK to spend a ton of money on it. Decreasing the US expenses on healthcare will have a global negative impact on life expectancy, quality of life and medical research, as the US is effectively subsidizing healthcare in all other countries. That's perfectly fine as the rest of the world uses the dollar to trade and as reserve currency, subsidizing the US government and economy.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#103

Post by krath94 »

rhcom2 wrote: post #18
nostromo wrote: post #9

I imagine both single-payer and a truly free market health care system would be substantially cheaper than the current system -- which has none of the benefits of either approach. With the federal government unable to act, turning healthcare back to the states to test a number of different solutions seems entirely reasonable. Let California try single-payer and Texas try something different -- after a few years see i…

That would require both ideological sides to agree on objectives, agree on what counts as successful, agree on metrics. Something I doubt will ever happen at this point.

Isn't the objective for both sides to provide affordable healthcare? I think they agree on the objectives, the means of getting there are where the disagreement comes from.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#104

Post by cortesoft »

luxuryballs wrote: post #90
cortesoft wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about people making money off of the health care industry, not wealthy people in general. We aren't asking them to fund the healthcare of everyone else, just not make profit off of waste. Also, scramble out of the country.... where? There are very few places they can 'run off to' that don't already have a single payer health care system. People don't seem to be 'fleeing' those countries.

Those countries have way less population who can't contribute. The US is huge, there's so many more people who need healthcare but don't pay any taxes.

Why would the absolute number of people who don't pay taxes matter? Wouldn't it be more about the percentage of people? It is not easier for 100 people to support 1 than 1000 to support 10...

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#105

Post by krath94 »

dv_dt wrote: post #25
peterhadlaw wrote: post #12

The word "negotiation" is a euphemism here: > The most important source of cost savings under single-payer is that large government entities are able to negotiate much more favorable terms with service providers. If there are no other options for clients, it's essentially the government telling doctors how much their services are worth.

It's not just doctors, its drug and health insurance companies, etc... but really? Is the argument is that we as a nation should pay double what other modern nations pay so doctors can be well paid? Edit: Here's a deal, lets pay for doctor's educations, implement universal healthcare and call it even.

Sounds like a great deal for everyone but the taxpayer

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#106

Post by ML_God »

luxuryballs wrote: post #85
leepowers wrote: post #15

> It thus makes no sense to reject single-payer on the grounds that it would require higher tax revenues. That’s true, of course, but it’s an irrelevant objection. > The most important source of cost savings under single-payer is that large government entities are able to negotiate much more favorable terms with service providers. I agree these objections are not relevant for the overall system. But certain individua…

Yeah, and we ban people from public roads for bad behavior. Will we ban people from public healthcare for bad health choices? Do we really want to give the government that kind of exclusive control over a service while giving up control of our bodies?

There are limited resources, somebody has to make hard decisions - e.g. if a given patient must live or die. Is a privately owned insurance company a better choice maker, than the government in this case?

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#107

Post by coredog64 »

donmatito wrote: post #63

I would like to understand better what is meant by "single payer". I think I know what it should mean, but then I see France as an example of single-payer system. France has a complex system of insurance bodies (public entities, privates companies, some weird stuff in between)... If I understand correctly the biggest savings come from the mandatory nature of the coverage - everybody is covered at least partially by t…

When I see it in the NYTimes, I assume it means that the health care fairy pays for it. As you've noted, very few people are wonky enough to be able to discern any difference between the systems in the UK, France, Germany, and Switzerland. Instead, they're all lumped into "European single payer" regardless of the level of truth or correctness.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#108

Post by Spoom »

rayiner wrote: post #86
flavor8 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced this is insurmountable. How do countries with single payer handle this? Surely you could require an newly established resident who wants treatment to pay a portion since they hadn't been funding it directly via taxes, and then add a further penalty if they move back out of state within a certain period of time (to discourage moving in-state just for treatment).

It would be unconstitutional for a U.S. state to treat newly-established residents differently than long-established ones with regard to a welfare benefit: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/supco... . Countries like Germany don't have this problem because they have the power to control their borders. Accessing Germany's healthcare system requires being a German resident. That, in general, require…

This is interesting; I wasn't aware of this particular ruling. That would make running a universal healthcare program on a state-by-state basis very difficult, if it in fact applied.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#109

Post by cgag »

donmatito wrote: post #73
nostromo wrote: post #9

I imagine both single-payer and a truly free market health care system would be substantially cheaper than the current system -- which has none of the benefits of either approach. With the federal government unable to act, turning healthcare back to the states to test a number of different solutions seems entirely reasonable. Let California try single-payer and Texas try something different -- after a few years see i…

If by "truly free market" you mean that healthy people can opt out of being insured, no, that would drive the costs up. Risk selection is a very driver of prices in health insurance. If you can spread the risk between healthy and sick people, the price goes down. If you can't, the price goes up. Secondly, having a population that has no health insurance means less prevention, i.e. worse health problems down the road,…

Spreading the price around more people isn't the only way for price to go down. If there were less supply side regulation of doctors than there would be more of them, and their time would be less expensive.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#110

Post by krath94 »

caseysoftware wrote: post #27

> "The most important source of cost savings under single-payer is that large government entities are able to negotiate much more favorable terms with service providers. In 2012, for example, the average cost of coronary bypass surgery was more than $73,000 in the United States but less than $23,000 in France." A more useful comparison would be the average cost of coronary bypass surgery for someone with a employer-p…

I feel like the numbers they picked are intentionally misleading. Is the $73,000 the cost for no insurance or with insurance? I know it says average, but average out of which group?
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