Right wing delusion 2.0

[Tragic KingdomII]

[Professor]

[Professor]

Just a quick question - why are most people on here saying we should go TO single payer, when most first-world countries that have single payer are looking to reform it, citing skyrocketing costs, access to providers, and other reasons?

[eric]

[Professor]

You know, I find it very interesting (actually, disturbing) that the discussion has always been about moving to single payer. To what degree? In what way? How soon? Etc.

I'm taking a few facts as givens, in the vast majority of cases:

- the US has a different situation than almost every other first-world country with single payer (we're 3x larger than the next largest country, Japan; we are FAR more demographically diverse; we have a far different culture)
- market competition drives down prices

If those are true, by-and-large, then why haven't we at least investigated going the opposite way - toward a more market-driven approach?

We have to face it - the high cost of our current system has one, single driver. Medicare. Every single HI company bases their rates on the Medicare Fee Schedule. They may vary them from that Schedule, but that's the starting point. Get rid of Medicare, keep mandated coverage, and prohibit HI companies from dropping people. Elderly still has healthcare, even if it's paid for by the government. But, it's administered by HI companies, at market-driven prices.

I'm just curious why the debate has always been going FROM the hybrid system we have now, and going TO single payer, when we could just as easily go the other way.

[Indy]

Honestly I'm tired of those arguments:

-We're too big/not like other countries
-Market competition drives down prices? Huh? Didn't work here!

[Mr.Bill]

Hospitals and doctors right now charge 2x-3x more for people with private insurance compared to what they charge to people without HI.. So the fraud and gouging in the private HI sector goes into the billions too.

[Professor]

[eric]

[exploited]