Medicare for All....'You still gotta pay for it?'

[jayem]

That's the theory, but everywhere it's been tried, the system has been forced to limit services, has gone broke, or is in process of going broke.

Got any references? Something more than a tendentious opinion piece, or anecdotes. Like maybe an academic study in a peer-reviewed professional journal. The PubMed link is from 2018. I read the article in our local medical library. Honestly, it's balanced. It outlines the good and the not-so-good. And it states right off that single payer is not the only approach to universal coverage. I wish I could post the entire piece, but it's behind a pay wall. This is pasted from the abstract. I'm highlighting an interesting point:

Using available cross-national data, we categorize countries with universal coverage into those best exemplifying national health insurance (single-payer), national health service, and social health insurance models and compare them to the United States in terms of cost, access, and quality. Through this comparison, we find that many critiques of single-payer are based on misconceptions or are factually incorrect, but also that single-payer is not the only option for achieving universal coverage in the United States and internationally.

How Single-payer Stacks Up: Evaluating Different Models of Universal Health Coverage on Cost, Access, and Quality.

BTW: Are you implying that private health insurance doesn't restrict services? So private plans don't have panels of preferred providers. And these plans never stipulate that if you'd rather be treated by an out-of-network provider or facility, you'll be on the hook for half or more of the charges. Of course, private insurance would never limit your choice of prescription meds. And they won't restrict how many physical therapy sessions will be covered after your rotator cuff surgery. If you're hospitalized for bacterial pneumonia, they won't insist you be discharged after a day or so with the IV still in your arm and have a visiting nurse check on you a few times a week.

Private health insurance is all-American free enterprise. It provides first-rate coverage, so why shouldn't your premium be large enough to assure a nice profit for the company? After all, it has to cover 7 figure salaries and bonuses for the CEO and other top management.

 

[civilwarbuff]

As I've said, a properly structured single-payer plan will cover all necessary treatments, just as Medicare does now. The difference is it can get better prices than other insurance can.

You obviously have far more faith in the governments ability to make good choices and spend money wisely than many others of us do. I prefer to make my own choices (which medicare for all will prohibit) rather than have some faceless bureaucrat make that choice for me.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Got any references?

1st hand experience count?
When I worked in a hospital near the Canadian border we had a fair number of Canadians come to us for heart caths, angioplasty/stent placement, and electrophysiology studies/treatments and pacemaker/defibrillator implants because they were not willing to take a number and stand in line for maybe several months until someone could fit them into the schedule.....they were concerned about this thing called 'risk of death' before they got treated so they came to us and paid out of pocket. They were the lucky ones who could afford it; imagine the hundreds of thousands or millions who can't and must wait it out hoping they don't die first.

 

[jayem]

1st hand experience count?
When I worked in a hospital near the Canadian border we had a fair number of Canadians come to us for heart caths, angioplasty/stent placement, and electrophysiology studies/treatments and pacemaker/defibrillator implants because they were not willing to take a number and stand in line for maybe several months until someone could fit them into the schedule.....they were concerned about this thing called 'risk of death' before they got treated so they came to us and paid out of pocket. They were the lucky ones who could afford it; imagine the hundreds of thousands or millions who can't and must wait it out hoping they don't die first.

I 've been to several medical conferences in Canada, and have met with providers. Their Medicare (which is what it's called) isn't a uniform, national plan. It's about 13 plans, run separately by each province and territory. Some do a better job than others regarding access to care. Their issue is capacity. They don't have the infrastructure. So care is rationed by medical need. And I was told that was a conscious choice to keep costs down when their Medicare was established. We don't have that problem. I suspect Los Angeles County alone probably has more cardiac surgery centers than the entire province of Alberta. And if there's one insurer paying for services, all these providers will complete on price to get business.

And BTW, the Canadian doctors I've met have some gripes.More about slow reimbursement, as I recall. But I can't remember anyone saying they'd switch their health insurance to what we have.

 

[jayem]

I prefer to make my own choices (which medicare for all will prohibit) rather than have some faceless bureaucrat make that choice for me.

Why do you think that? My wife and I are on Medicare now. We have more choices of providers and facilities than we did when I had my employer group coverage. You must be living on another planet if you think private health insurance doesn’t restrict your choices for primary care, specialists, pharmacies, medications, home health, and other services. They restrict by cost. If you go out-of-network for care, you will pay for it. And you believe this is a better way?