WAPO: Single-payer Would Have Astonishingly High Price Tag

[PeachyKeane]

Don't you think if we took all the premiums, copays, medical costs, etc. we pay as a nation right now it would cost exactly the same--or probably more? It's like shopping at Best Buy instead of Target for a television set? Who cares as long as the service is provided and affordable?

Just maybe the government can do it better....

How much do most of us want the certainty of government healthcare? In Oklahoma (one of the meanest, if not THE meanest, states in the country) people are researching their genealogies trying to get affiliated with a tribe...you only need to be 1/64 to get Cherokee benefits, I've heard, much easier than the Choctaws. But if one person in the family does the work and gets certified, the others only have to prove their relationship to that person.

Yeah, maybe Indian Health Service isn't the top of the line care (even though one doctor I know changed over to get better work/life balance) but it sure beats nothing. It sure beats bankruptcy. It sure beats the problems so many of you will have if Republicans get their way.

What if there was an option? Check a form on your taxes and get single-payer health for an extra tax increase, or leave it blank and fend for yourself.

I'm not saying it would work very well. Insurance companies would struggle to keep it viable. Would people opt out of single-payer if it were available? @Veritas, would you?

 

[Fantine]

I have Medicare and a supplement, an inexpensive presription plan (don't take many meds at the moment) and a dental/vision plan.

Free fitness center membership.

All for less than half of a much worse plan I had through my small employer before then.

My deductible? $155 a year. My co-pays? Zero.

If younger people could buy into Medicare they'd be lined up miles long to get a deal like this rather than the crumby medical insurance companies are giving nowadays.

 

[RDKirk]

What if there was an option? Check a form on your taxes and get single-payer health for an extra tax increase, or leave it blank and fend for yourself.

I'm not saying it would work very well. Insurance companies would struggle to keep it viable. Would people opt out of single-payer if it were available? @Veritas, would you?

That is called "Medicare."

 

[Fantine]

The Nevada legislature passed an option to allow all state residents to buy into Medicaid...

And while some doctors don't accept Medicaid (they do in our state, because it's a poor southern state, and they need patients) they would if half their patients were insured by it.

The good thing would be that the insurers' high overhead would be cut out. This would be a good solution for every state.

Nevada's legislature just passed a radical plan to let anybody sign up for Medicaid

 

[David Brider]

The US is not Canada nor UK or any other socialist country.

I can't speak for Canada, but I can assure you that the UK is not a socialist country (if only!), and hasn't been one since at least 1979, possibly a long time before then.

 

[bhsmte]

Opinion | Single-payer health care would have an astonishingly high price tag

But the government’s price tag would be astonishing. When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed a “Medicare for all” health plan in his presidential campaign, the nonpartisan Urban Institute figured that it would raise government spending by $32 trillion over 10 years, requiring a tax increase so huge that even the democratic socialist Mr. Sanders did not propose anything close to it.

So there you have it.

Ok, lets just keep paying the highest prices in the world for drugs and medical devices and also make sure those middlemen (insurance companies) keep making billions in profits.