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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

#181

Post by DrScump »

undersuit wrote: post #124
yegle wrote: post #4

I find it hilarious that this article uses state government taking over road maintenance as an analogy and claim it will save money, while it's known that California has a bad reputation in road repair, due to funding problem. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-road-funding-prob...

>“I think the missing element in this is Republican votes and identified Republican support,” said Brian Kelly, secretary of the California State Transportation Agency. >California’s reliance on gas taxes to repair its transportation network is becoming less and less tenable. Increased fuel economy standards have led to less spending on gasoline Why stop at saying it's a funding problem? (Allegedly) Obstructionist Re…

Republicans have no power in CA. Democrats hold the governorship and have supermajorities in both the Assembly and Senate.

CA infrastructure doesn't have a funding problem. It has a spending problem.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#182

Post by dv_dt »

prostoalex wrote: post #167
dv_dt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is often brought up, so show the corrected or aggregate miscarraige and mortality numbers to get some point of comparison. Leaving it just open seems incomplete... Edit: Absent more aggregated numbers, it looks like Canada records similar to the US, while also having some similar issues with a higher pre-term birth rate, and US rate is still 50% higher than Canadas. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMR…

They do discuss the adjusted data a few paragraphs down: "This difference in reporting, they found, accounted for around 40 percent of the U.S.’s relatively high rate compared to Austria and Finland, a result supported by the CDC report—when analysts excluded babies born before 24 weeks, the number of U.S. deaths dropped to 4.2 per 1,000 live births. ... When the researchers broke the statistics down by age, they dis…

Good find, but aren't neonatal deaths are a subpopulation of the overall infant mortality stats, so there is unfortunately, still no clarity. Canada it was noted had similar pre-term birth rate as America (and presumeably higher than Austria and Finland).

It's like a grim logic puzzle where one gets a pile of facts and try to discern the answer.

Country A has higher infant mortality rate than country B. Country A has higher preterm birth rate than country C. Country B has a higher neonatal death rate than country A. etc..

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#183

Post by buckbova »

DrScump wrote: post #178
buckbova wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Americans will die needless deaths" when they're on long wait lists for procedures because of a glut on resources when they no longer have access to the high quality care they once had when there's a greater shortage of quality nurses and doctors because of diminished pay when innovation is stifled because R&D is funded by the government

because of a glut on resources Did you mean a run on resources? Or maybe a shortage of resources?

Yes. We'll go with "dearth of resources." Thanks.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#184

Post by greeneggs »

galeaspablo wrote: post #111
shortstuffsushi wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want proof. I only see numbers. Everything else is conjecture. But wait, is this not conjecture, since it doesn't currently exist? Sure, you have sources where it has worked, but the proof would only be implementing it here. > Or is the US government not a leading force in fighting corruption anymore? What? I don't understand what you're getting at here. My point isn't that the government is corrupt, it's that it…

> But wait, is this not conjecture, since it doesn't currently exist? Sure, you have sources where it has worked, but the proof would only be implementing it here. Universal and transparently managed healthcare consistently gives more bang for buck. Note that I said "consistently", not just in a few places. Yes, obviously you can't know what's going to happen in the US until you try it. But if it has consistently wor…

Are there other countries that have transitioned from a high-cost system like ours to a single-payer system? How quickly did their costs go down?

For example (according to the first Google links for "usa/uk average doctor salary"), the average doctor salary in the UK is $128,500, compared to $189,000 in the US. How are we going to cut salaries by 32%?

My guess is that there are salary discrepancies across the medical industry.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#185

Post by lb1lf »

DrScump wrote: post #179
lb1lf wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in what is essentially a single-payer health care system (Norway), I assure you we don't see many MDs sleeping in cardboard boxes under freeway overpasses. On a more serious note - education and skills tend to pay off. Around here, doctors with their own practice are reimbursed by the state via several mechanisms, the two most significant ones are probably a fixed sum for each patient they are responsible for…

How is medical school funded? It's not uncommon for medical school grads in the USA to graduate with six-figure student loan debt.

University tuition is free (well, tax-funded, to be precise) - so students typically take out a student loan of approx. $1k/month to cover living expenses. A lot (most?) work part-time on the side to make ends meet.

Part of this loan (methinks ~30%) is converted into a scholarship once you pass your exams, thus leaving you (very roughly) $50,000 in debt after six years in med school.)

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#186

Post by Aron »

"An underappreciated advantage of the single-payer approach is that it sidesteps the mandate objection by paying to cover everyone out of tax revenue.

Of course, having to pay taxes is itself a mandate of a sort, but it’s one the electorate has largely come to terms with. Apart from fringe groups that denounce all taxation as theft, most people understand that our entire system would collapse if tax payments were purely voluntary."

Seriously? This is the argumentation from someone that has absolutely no idea what the other side is thinking.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#187

Post by lb1lf »

peterhadlaw wrote: post #149
lb1lf wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in what is essentially a single-payer health care system (Norway), I assure you we don't see many MDs sleeping in cardboard boxes under freeway overpasses. On a more serious note - education and skills tend to pay off. Around here, doctors with their own practice are reimbursed by the state via several mechanisms, the two most significant ones are probably a fixed sum for each patient they are responsible for…

I don't think I ever made a claim that "doctors would be sleeping in boxes".

Oh, you didn't - and I hope my flippant comment didn't mislead anyone into thinking you did.

There's already so many factors distorting the health care market that it is imho hardly an argument against single payer that doctors would have to negotiate compensation against a powerful customer. (It would, after all, at the same time remove a number of other distortions from the mix - while unlikely to leave doctors in the gutter in the process.)

External circumstances change in a lot of professions all the time; for instance, I do not expect the government to help me out (working in the petroleum industry) now that oil prices are more than halved from their peak - that's life. Better adjust to it.

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#188

Post by galeaspablo »

greeneggs wrote: post #184
galeaspablo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But wait, is this not conjecture, since it doesn't currently exist? Sure, you have sources where it has worked, but the proof would only be implementing it here. Universal and transparently managed healthcare consistently gives more bang for buck. Note that I said "consistently", not just in a few places. Yes, obviously you can't know what's going to happen in the US until you try it. But if it has consistently wor…

Are there other countries that have transitioned from a high-cost system like ours to a single-payer system? How quickly did their costs go down? For example (according to the first Google links for "usa/uk average doctor salary"), the average doctor salary in the UK is $128,500, compared to $189,000 in the US. How are we going to cut salaries by 32%? My guess is that there are salary discrepancies across the medical…

> transitioned from a high-cost system like ours to a single-payer system? How quickly did their costs go down?

I did not look this up. But I know one thing, eventually you will save money. I don't suppose that it would take longer than 20 years to save money, but I frankly don't know. Maybe you could look it up to expand on your point:-D

> average doctor salary in the UK.. Compared to... In the US.

That is not apples to apples. There are countries with lower and higher pay, both overall and relative. Plus you have think of differences in cost of living, taxation, malpractice insurance, and even their own medical insurance.

Here's a link I found covering a bit of that. The chart would be the tldr. https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/05/28/are-u-...

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#189

Post by pas »

warcher wrote: post #128
Joeri wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I've visited the U.S. this drives me crazy. I always wonder how people shop for anything, given that the only time you find out the actual price of things is when you're about to pay for them. Do you just in your head have to tack on 10 to 20 percent (depending on the context)?

Basically yeah. I bought a car last month and I paid an extra... twenty percent before I walked out the door. Drives me nuts. That and fucking tipping, man. Enough already. Just put the price on the menu- I'm good for it, I swear.

Tipping is. Meh. If you're broke, don't do it. It's not compulsory/mandated by law. (There are states where waiters don't get compensated, if patrons don't tip enough, but you're still broke, so don't feel too bad.)

Re: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money

#190

Post by pas »

methodover wrote: post #129
dv_dt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it that the USA is paying more than we should? Or is it that other nations are paying less than they should? Also, doctors aren't the only thing we should be talking about. That's probably the easiest subject to think about. It's much, much more difficult to talk about drug and device prices. Should the government dictate how much a new drug or device costs? What are the risks and downsides of doing that?

Other nations pay less for more. So, probably the USA pays a lot more than it should.
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