The Conservative case for universal healthcare?

[Spartanmack]

So I'm looking up numbers, 2016 was what I found easiest.

Medicaid $565.5 billion.
Medicare $672.1 billion.
Private health insurance $1,123.4 billion.
Out of pocket $352.5 billion.
Prescription drugs $328.6 billion.

$3.04T in 2016.

$3.04T x 10 = $30.4T that we'll spend if everything stays the same (it won't). In fact, the study even says "over the next decade, the U.S. is projected to spend more than $33 trillion, plus inflation, on health care services without any changes to our current health care system."

If we're already spending $33 trillion on our current inefficient system, is it inconceivable to think with 18% of the country's GDP opening up that we can't find a way to make this happen in some form? It feels like a discussion worth having at the very least.

actual spending in 2016 was $3.3T w/ approx. $1.5T of that coming from the private sector. In order to believe this nonsense, you have to believe that Medicaid or even Medicare is better than private insurance. Or you have to believe that people giving up their private insurance are willing to give every dime they're currently spending over to the government so they can go to an inferior product (Medicare/Medicaid). You also have believe doctors will accept lower payments from all their patients because the government will be deciding what their services are worth. What you'll end up getting is a massive spike in demand and a large decrease in supply which will lead to rationing, bigger deficits, poorer outcomes, etc, etc

The idea that the free market is failing in healthcare is absurd. Healthcare is one of the most regulated industries in our economy. The discussion should be around less, not more regulation. Freeing consumers and providers of both healthcare and health insurance to make value based decisions about their care and coverage. It will require consumers to be better informed but that's another good outcome. You can have regulations around transparency, privacy, standards of care, etc.

 

[Spartanmack]

But it’s not going to be single payer. It’s going to be like GBR and Canada and our Westen allies where anyone who can get private insurance does and those who can’t settle for long lines and rationing and crap which as I pointed out we’re pretty much already there anyway without just coming out and saying it.

From following your posts over the years, I kinda think you agree we’re pretty much already there too.

I do agree, we're pretty much already there. I think we need to be moving in the other direction though. This Obamacare mess could have easily just expanded medicare and left the private insurance market alone (deregulating it would have been better) but instead they purposely mucked it all up in an effort, I believe to bring us one step closer to single payer.

 

[tinselwolverine]

I do agree, we're pretty much already there. I think we need to be moving in the other direction though. This Obamacare mess could have easily just expanded medicare and left the private insurance market alone (deregulating it would have been better) but instead they purposely mucked it all up in an effort, I believe to bring us one step closer to single payer.

Except as I point out in Grest Britain, Canada and our other friendly Western allies where they have “single payer,” they don’t actually have single payer. For Rhetorical political reasons some Partisan activists in this country call it single payer in those countries but it just really isn’t.

I don’t think it’s going to come to that here When it hasn’t even come to that there.

 

[Spartanmack]

Except as I point out in Grest Britain, Canada and our other friendly Western allies where they have “single payer,” they don’t actually have single payer. For Rhetorical political reasons some Partisan activists in this country call it single payer in those countries but it just really isn’t.

I don’t think it’s going to come to that here When it hasn’t even come to that there.

Britain and Canada effectively have single payer and rationing and they've taken medical decisions away from patients and families and put their fate in the hands of the government for a large chunk of the population.


regardless of what you call or to what degree others are socialized, I think moving further in that direction is a very bad idea. We should be going the other way.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Britain and Canada effectively have single payer and rationing and they've taken medical decisions away from patients and families and put their fate in the hands of the government for a large chunk of the population.


regardless of what you call or to what degree others are socialized, I think moving further in that direction is a very bad idea. We should be going the other way.

Okay.

Sggatacl's graph or chart showed about 50% of health care funded by private insurance; I just read that private health insurance covers about 30% of health costs in Canada.

I thought it was more. Maybe a lot of Canadians have an amount of private insurance but their health care costs are split between public care and private care. That's what this Canadian guy was telling me.

So you're right - Canada, while not being entirely single payer, is closer to single payer than we are, and also closer to being single payer than I had been thinking.

 

[Michchamp]

I kinda forgot about this thread, but I figured someone else would post this since it was all over twitter for the last couple weeks... but even that Cock-Brothers-funded Mercatus study, the one that put the price tag on Bernie's single-payer plan at $34 TRILLION or whatever...

guess what? even that study predicted Bernie's plan would SAVE $2 TRILLION compared to if that same level of coverage was provided under the existing monopolistic health-insurance system

they tried to bury the $2 Trillion savings in a footnote, and only trumpet the costs, but they got caught.

Here are a couple summaries of it: link, link.

True, both those sites are lefty sites, so if you're the kind of person that can dismiss media without reading it (and of course complaining if other people do the same thing to links you post), let's look at how mainstream sources report this: ABC, NBC, CBS, the WaPo, etc. all report this study the exact same way: scream the cost, and whisper the savings. they also all report it as an "error" and bend over backwards to obscure the lower costs

CBS for example, reported the cost savings this way:

Sanders' staff found an error in an initial version of the Mercatus report, which counted a long-term care program that was in the 2016 proposal but not the current one. Blahous corrected it, reducing his estimate by about $3 trillion over 10 years. Blahous says the report is his own work, not the Koch brothers'.​

Except it wasn't an "error," the study tried to bury the cost savings, and got called out on it.

 

[Michchamp]

What's really dumb about all of this is the arguments are so twisted...

the existing healthcare system is not emblematic of a "free market." due to lax anti-trust enforcement as a result of lobbying, there are a handful of huge players that can exercise market power.

there are huge existing federal subsidies for drugs and other treatments, and even there industry lobbying blunted "market forces" by getting laws passed that gut the government's ability to negotiate lower prices.

Arguing that you support the current system because "market outcomes are efficient" is therefore not only dishonest, but incorrect. These are a bunch of publicly subsidized monopolies feasting on a captive market, and THAT's why premiums are skyrocketing. THAT's why the out-of-pocket costs and deductibles are also going up... they're fucking consumers because they CAN.

better to just come out and say "Look, I don't give a shit who has insurance, or who is sick and dying... as long as I have employer-subsidized insurance for myself I WANT health insurers and pharmaceuticals to make BIG fucking profits. That kinda thing gets me hard."

 

[Spartanmack]

First, I find it ridiculous that you of all people accuse others of being "the kind of person who can dismiss media without reading it"

Second, this and all the other studies assume doctors will accept the current Medicare reimbursement rates for all their patients which on average are something like 40% below the rates paid by private insurance, which is why so many doctors already don't accept medicare. It won't work, it will lead to shortages of providers and rationing of care and outcomes will be worse, certainly for people who can and are willing to pay for private insurance.

I also think it's funny that anyone, including the Mercatus Center thinks the government will generate administrative efficiencies.

And again, I don't support the current system. I think it needs to be dramatically reformed but through deregulation, tort reform, etc not a government takeover. I would however prefer keep the current, at least rollback the obamacare disaster over the single payer option.

 

[biggunsbob]

Single Payer in a America is coming. A majority of Americans want it. We might as well all work together to make sure we have the best type of system in the world. No one should have to go bankrupt because of health. We can make it so one has to be held hostage by being sick. Seems like the humane thing to me.