Ok but it doesn't save the donor class anything, so it won't happen.
Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
101–110 of 1001 posts
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#102Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#103In a more sane world the Republican Party would be in favor of universal health coverage. How many potential entrepreneurs stay working at BigCorp because they need the health benefits? How many small businesses are crushed by the cost of providing healthcare to their employees? It would be great for business to remove any involvement they have in personal healthcare. But I suppose they are the party of big business,…
A more sane world, you say? How about the Nixon administration, where Nixon proposes a universal healthcare system to Congress?
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#104Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Universal healthcare doesn’t happen in the US because a certain subset of the American population would rather have worse health outcomes than guarantee abortions, HIV prevention, and gender-affirming care. Also, ~150M people with employer coverage plus seniors on Medicare fear disruption more than they value expansion.
There's also a racist element (I know that's a politically incorrect word here, but such things happen). People don't want to fund services to the lazy ______s - fill in one or more of many groups toward whom hate is promoted. When a similar bill was voted down years ago, someone I was with laughed and said, 'no way were we paying for healthcare for the Blacks'. It fits the divide and conquer strategy to divide poore…
Another way of looking at is that some people are concerned about what happens to limited "free" healthcare resources when you simultaneously oppose any controls on immigration.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#106What about quality of care tradeoffs? In Canada, for example, you are forced to use the government system, and if it doesn't deem you important enough, there is no private option.
Same here in the UK. If you need to see a specialist, you regularly have to wait months, assuming you can even get a referral in the first place.
The US is not much different.
We don't have a wealth of specialists available to see people right away.
I've flat out been rejected from a specialist because they had no availability at all. I actually tried again and got to be seen, but an appointment is months out, always.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#107We've been down this road. ACA was predicated on studies like this, to no avail (it turns out that intense opposition chips away at it over time regardless of these studies). I'm of the opinion that, if your solution requires perpetual majority control of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, your solution is in fact a campaign slogan. I'm not saying that this is what is happening now , but I am saying that…
This is exactly the argument that gave us the Affordable Care Act. It was literally a republican plan from Massachusetts. It was supposed to be broadly acceptable and that's why it was implemented with a billion compromises.
But the Republicans called the Democrats commies anyway and refused to participate. And that has been their playbook ever since. That is what they are going to do, no matter what we propose.
So we may as well propose actual universal healthcare. But I agree with you that we need to create strong majorities to keep it in place until it reaches the kind of momentum it has in Canada or Sweden and opposition to it becomes a practical impossibility, like opposing social security.
Maybe someday we can have a system where losing health insurance isn't a motivation for not starting a company. Our current system is a complete disaster for entrepreneurial capitalism.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of two major political parties, and the one that currently holds all 3 branches of federal government, has labelled it un-American and communist. And yet you point the finger at...a Democrat.
> the one that currently holds all 3 branches of federal government The key word here is "currently". When did Democrats ever propose or pass single payer when they were in power? Moreover, when the leaders of both parties are opposed to single payer, how in the world do you expect it to ever pass? Jeffries wants to be Speaker of the House after the midterms. If he's opposed to single payer, then there's no hope for…
> Moreover, when the leaders of both parties are opposed to single payer, how in the world do you expect it to ever pass?
I don't. However, if I were a betting man, I'd bet on the Democratic leadership to come around well before the Republicans. Not least because a significant, non-zero fraction of their politicians are already in favor of it (compared to the other side, which has close to zero).
Without a 60-strong majority in the Senate, which must necessarily include some Republicans, it'll never happen. So ultimately Republicans are the bottleneck.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if your solution requires perpetual majority control I think once universal health coverage is established, it amounts to political suicide to try to take it away again.
I don’t think “political suicide” exists anymore.
We still have Social Security for now. Entitlements are sticky for better or for worse.
Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is frequently true in the USA as well. My provider's dermatology department is pretty backed up and couldn't make me an appointment for an excision until November. Fortunately it's not urgent.
Do you have any more evidence than this anecdote - pretty much any specialist is available this week in my area. Did you check ZocDoc?
I'm a Kaiser member, so I have to use their providers. The same restriction would hold for any HMO that has a closed provider list.
You should see how long their surgery departments are backed up!