The editors at The New Republic have news for you (if you didn’t know this already): Health care reform means higher taxes:
Make no mistake: A bill with less funding is a bill that helps fewer people. That’s bad policy and, by the way, bad politics, too.
So. Are you willing to pay higher taxes so that people without health insurance are brought into the fold? And if so, how much are you willing to spend?
Dating Jesus 
Taxes in Europe are much higher than here, because of health care costs. But the folks over there generally don’t have to pay for health insurance, medicines or procedures.
On my first visit to England I was surprised to see doctors’ “surgeries” (offices) in very humble circumstances such as storefronts. In the US the doctors compete to see who can put up the glitziest offices.
Did you see “Sicko?” One of the most moving parts for me was that Canadian — was he a doctor? I can’t remember — who said of course he would want to help out someone who couldn’t pay for his/her own health care, and that he didn’t begrudge his taxes going there one little bit.
“In the US the doctors compete to see who can put up the glitziest offices.”
…suggesting that they’re very successful, suggesting that they’re of course very good doctors. I guess.
Sure. Because their patients are superficial and will judge them by the size of their office plants. Or something like that.
I’m opposed to any of my money going to the private insurance industry.
I’m willing to pay the standard Medicare rates, (plus, say, 15% for starters) for universal healthcare. Everybody in. Nobody out. No co-ops, no exchanges, no “public plans” run by private industry. Medicare for all.
A Medicare for all system could save us around 4 trillion dollars over the next ten years. But when you think about it, does it really matter?
“This is no political contest. This is very real life and death. Mothers and babies. Young and old. The profit-takers know no boundaries for their greed, and our killing fields are filling with the innocents.”
Donna Smith
I was arguing this over breakfast. We are seeing the underbelly of capitalism. Whether it’s capitalism or capitalism-run-amok, when profits rule over citizens’ health, we have a problem. I would give up some of my hard-earned cash so things could be more fair. And I agree: None of my money goes to the private insurance industry.
Ditto. What if we – gasp – took profit out of health care? I have no idea how we could do that, but think of all the money that gets sucked into that — I don’t know if that money would then go into care for EVERYone, but it’s nice to imagine.
And why not? I mean, why the hell not? Why couldn’t that money go toward covering everyone?
Socialist.
I’d be willing to pitch in my share of start up. I’ve got to believe that there is a more reasonable way to deliver healthcare long term so I’d want a plan to see that end of it through, too.
Cynical is right. Healthcare should be non-profit. Healthcare shouldn’t be a way of delivering profits to stockholders who have nothing to add to real healthcare. The actual care and outcome of patients is missing from the current model. It doesn’t make sense.
No, it doesn’t make sense unless you’re a stockholder in some pharmaceutical, etc.
“None of my money goes to the private insurance industry.”
Hold on to that thought.
We may need you down the road.
The battle for universal healthcare is just heating up. The fight for Single Payer this year will be in the House. But we may lose there as well. It’s difficult gauge with Emmanuel demanding absolute subservience to the President. (Although I see Labor has split on the issue You get’em Gerry!.) Especially with the President continuing his vague and ambiguous “reform at any cost” message.
But hold on to that idea.
Think nonviolent protest.
Hit them in the wallet kind of thing.
This, too, was the topic of a recent discussion over breakfast. I am of the opinion that the single most effective way of protest is monetarily. Hit ’em in the wallet, kind of thing. Have any creative thoughts on that?
Yeah, but hit whom? Don’t pay your health insurance premiums and you have no health insurance (for what that’s worth). Don’t contribute to the politicians and the lobbyists will do it for you.
It’s a good idea, I just need some guidance.
We’ll see what happens in The House.
I know mandates to buy private industry health plans are not popular in my area. Not with taxpayers. Not with politicians.
If final legislation doesn’t contain, at least, the “option” of enrolling in Medicare or Medicaid, government administered plans, things could heat up quickly, what with Labor starting to take a more vocal role in the debate.
But what would happen if one month ten million people withheld payment to the private sector for insurance. All at the same time. As an act of civil disobedience. Just one payment. Before legislation was finalized. Forward the bill to The White House c/o R. Emmanuel.
Can you imagine processing ten million cancelations and then being hit with ten million petitions for re-enrollment? Cost to the industry would be dramatic. The message to the administration clear and concise, unmistakeable.
Unspinable.
But knowing the Administration’s fondness for the industry, that’s probably treason.
Not treason, but a creative use of consumer-power.
But in the meantime……..
Be sure to fill up the inboxes of Senate Democrats with demands to remove Max Baucus from the Finance Committee Chair. They have the power. Max doesn’t come up for reelection until 2012. Something needs to be done about Max before 2012.
Put an end to Camp Baucus.
““In the US the doctors compete to see who can put up the glitziest offices.”
…suggesting that they’re very successful, suggesting that they’re of course very good doctors. I guess.”
Or, they can get away with charging outrageous fees.
1st off to answer the question asked–I am not willing to have both higher taxes and higher cost for my health insurance as well as reduced quality of care to provide health insurance to those without. That is what will happen under any of the plans currently being considered.
2nd–I am currently helping pay for the cost of treating those without health insurance. They simply go to the emergency room where the health provider cannot turn them away. Then they charge those high prices that some have mentioned to make up for their loss–so when I need care they charge me more than would be the case if they were not providing free health care.
3rd–My son-in-law wrote off 50% of the charges in his practice [that many did not pay] when he was in private practice. So again people are all ready paying for health care for the uninsured–he had to charge more for his paying customers to make up for the 50% who did not pay.
4th–You cannot have non-profit health care. It has to be a business. People have to be payed, equipment purchased, new techniques developed–all of these requiring funding
5th–I don’t understand the antagonism against insurance companies–I have been treated well and claims paid well when made. My only regret is that there is no crystal ball to tell you that you are going to be so healthy that you could have paid less money for health care if your premiums had been going into your banking account.
Now Medicare on the other hand makes it extremely hard to keep up with what they have paid–my private supplemental insurance is more user friendly.–It is obvious what a fiasco it will be if government health care goes on line.
“4th–You cannot have non-profit health care. It has to be a business. People have to be payed, equipment purchased, new techniques developed–all of these requiring funding”
I didn’t say there wouldn’t be money involved — but there IS such a thing as non-profit business. When CEOs of insurance companies are paid millions and millions of dollars a year, and companies operate in ways that insure that their stockholders benefit, much is lost.
“5th–I don’t understand the antagonism against insurance companies–I have been treated well and claims paid well when made.”
Would that EVERYone with a policy could say the same. I know a musician whose family family paid large premiums, which mainly covered his son’s serious illness. The company went out of business, they were out all those insurance premium-payments, and of COURSE his son is now uninsurable because of — yes — a pre-existing condition.
There are far too many stories like that.
I don’t believe that we have to have reduced quality of care for people who don’t have care right now. And I do believe you can have non-profit health care– or you can at least take some of the profit motive out of health care, because the way it is now absolutely doesn’t work. I’m not sure why you think government-run health care would be a fiasco.
I’m not willing to pay higher taxes for rationed care from a private industry. The plans being considered by The Senate are dogs, useless in confronting the crisis of tens of thousands suffering and dying due to private industry profiteering and political corruption.
The cost of the uninsured seeking care is small compared to the 40% of insurance premiums spent on executive compensation, administration, lobbying, bribes to politicians and support to PACs. In a Medicare for All system, most of that 40% would be recovered immediately and spent on providing care where it is needed.
With a “medicare for all” system, everybody pays their share, based on income level. Cost shifting would be eliminated, losses from the uninsured, and the extra administrative costs incurred dealing with those losses, would disappear.
Administrative costs, equipment, wages, bribes and the like are counted before profit. Most other civilized nations with national non-profit healthcare plans meet or exceed quality standards in the US.
But we must have non-profit healthcare. The private industry model for sustaining massive profits is based on the denial of coverage for those needing care. It is that model which has brought us to this crisis. It needs to be abandoned.
I’m not saying there’s no room for profit in the system. But, right now, we need to rescue the victims of this corrupt and crippled system, establish equity and parity in access to the system, and provide efficient administrative procedures in disbursements, cost control and abuse potential.
Once we form One Group, establish One Plan guaranteeing universal access, and empower One Payer to meet administrative needs, we can reintroduce a tightly regulated private industry. A private industry sustaining profits the old fashioned American Way: through efficiency, innovation, desire, genius. A private industry operating within the framework of healthcare as a human right, an industry dedicated to the elimination of human suffering. Not profiting from the continuation of human suffering.
Non-profit doesn’t mean sacrifices must be made in quality, efficiency, or innovation. At least that’s what the <a href="http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/10/07/ibm-ceo-palmisano-on-single-payer/CEO of IBM thinks. I’m with him.
Nobody knows what’s coming around the corner when it comes to healthcare. That’s why we need universal healthcare.
One Group. One Plan. One Payer.
Oop..
sorry….
here’s thelink.
…..more coffee……
And one Leftover, who makes a lot of sense to me. Is that scary to you? It is to me.