That would probably be mostly fine. That's more or less what France does and the French seem happy with what they have. But we can do better than what we have now and that necessitates eliminating these vampires of private for-profit health insurance.

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But even the Republicans weren't going after preexisting condition clauses.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Did you see that retard on Fox & Friends say something like "congratulations, millennials, now the healthy have to pay for the sick"? THAT IS THE WHOLE PREMISE OF HEALTH INSURANCE. I'm convinced Republicans want healthcare to be like buying a TV: you look at sticker prices, shop around, bring in a coupon from a competitor and tell them to match it or you'll speak with their manager, and then pay that. It's insane.

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Isnt that happening with the current system tho? If I am a healthy person that is paying high premiums but never use very much health care?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I imagine it would be similar to the current payroll taxes. Instead of 1.45% for Medicare you would pay 7% and maybe a deductible for some services and your employer would pay an additional 7% (like they do now for Medicare).

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Yeah, it is pretty stupid when you lay it out like that, especially considering "well you pay now so you can be covered later" still has you paying a lot.

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The funny thing is that Medicare is a government run health system that is both popular and generally successful. Obamacare expanded it and conservatives cried foul as it represented an expansion of government. That is certainly true but the spin has carefully avoided the Medicare link and focused more on the government is inefficient and bad propaganda. That is in large part due to insurance industry lobbyists who most certainly don't have our best interests at heart.

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Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.- JD Vance
If you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn’t be pardoned.- JD Vance on the J-6 insurrectionists

Haha, yeah. "Keep the government's hands off my Medicare!" People like Medicare because not only is it generally successful, it makes ordinary people's lives so much easier. When the government does something to make life just a little less miserable, whether that's Social Security or Medicare or even streamlining the DMV, people really really like it! When the government does something that makes your life harder, whether that's fucking with your kid's math curriculum or making you shop online for insurance plans and explain at great length why you shouldn't have to pay full price, people really really hate it. "The government" is not universally good or universally evil, but it can get things right from time to time.

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To some extent yes but you are viewing it through a very personal window. If you have a pre-existing condition and lose your job you are screwed. What you view as high premiums doesn't reflect those costs. Fortunately for most of us insurance companies can't easily dump fellow employees because of health issues...but they would if they could.

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Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.- JD Vance
If you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn’t be pardoned.- JD Vance on the J-6 insurrectionists

Drop the illusion that are healthcare insurers are providing insurance. In every other line of insurance, auto, home, life workers comp, GL, for profit companies work just fine. There are ways to address risky people with take all comer or insurers of last resort models.

Our health insurance market is a dollar trading scheme. Most private employers are self insured with the insurer simply providing claim administration and network access. In fully insured plans, you are just paying high premiums to match low deductible claims. Real insurance would be catastrophic cover where individuals are responsible for most of the day to day losses. I agree with CH early quoted post about people without coverage not going to doctors. It's a huge problem. So is our obsesity crisis, drug use, smoking, and generally sedentary lifestyles.

Where the logic of government taking the profit out logic fails is that the government will be full of waste and fraud. They have no clue how to run an efficient cost conscience operation. And wait until public hospitals look like CPS schools or our public infrastructure. It will be robbed of investment.

How will the government save money? Well cost controls, meaning under paying providers as it does now. That sounds great until you realize doctors will stop spending ten years in school and hundreds of thousands on tuition for a government paid job. The cost of drugs will go down, but so will research needed to find break-through medicines.

Look at the VA system. Is that what you want? What part of our government gives you confidence that they can run 1/6 of our economy.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

It's a niche program though. It's the insurance equivalent of social security. It's not applicable to healthcare at large which is why Medicaid is horrible.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

http://tinyletter.com/error/letters/som ... ngle-payer


France pays its doctors well, not as well as ours, but they also don't let them fall victim to backbreaking medical debt.

I suspect a lot of medical research is already government-related, and even so, the idea that the whole industry will go Galt and stop inventing new and better boner pills if we don't keep bankrupting ourselves for care has always felt far-fetched to me.

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As usual, you over-simplify and compare apples to oranges. For profit insurance means for profit. They are not pro you. Health insurance is not a commodity like you seem to believe. I admit there is also not an easy answer. But you seem to believe that inefficiency is inherent only to government which is patently false. Further, that inefficiency does not necessarily mean higher cost when compared with the oh so efficient (only to those who haven't dealt with them) for profit insurers.

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Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.- JD Vance
If you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn’t be pardoned.- JD Vance on the J-6 insurrectionists

And it's a big reason the "Medicare for all" is problematic...Medicare reimbursements do not cover doctor/hospital costs and must be supplemented by patients with private insurance. Doctors and hospitals would either demand higher payments, disappear, or cut back on services (which would likely affect mortality).

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Very true.

Lots of complaining about for profit insurance here when much of the markup is because of how the government underfunds their part.

Let's trust them to run it all though! We can even get health justice!

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yes insurance is getting a bad rap. Particularly by Zipperhead who seemingly has had the worst possible insurance experience of all time. Bottom line is most think they are happy with their insurance as it is. The question has always been the uninsured and the preexisting patients. There are better ways to handle those than is already being done.

I have said very clearly there is the pre ACA system and single payer type solution. The in between stuff will never make everyone happy.

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Elections have consequences.

I'm not happy with my insurance as it is. I cover myself and my 2 children. My kids go to the doctor way more than I do. My son broke his arm....it cost me over $2000 out of pocket. It was pre-tax out of pocket, but still....that's a lot of out of pocket money considering I pay monthly insurance premiums (with contributions from my employer as well). That's ridiculous.

The biggest problem are with how much the same coverage has increased year by year. I know insurance has a cost....fine with that....but it's clear the costs our out of control and that's not right. The system as it stands has inheritantly high costs. Part of that is profit for Insurance companies, but most of that is on malpractice as well. So not only are we insuring ourselves but we insuring the doctors from themselves. It's crazy.

Single payer is a great theory, but it's not very practical in reality. Agree that medicare is not a good comparison. I think we'd see single payer resemble social security...not good. If we are truly going to do something, seems to me the only way we could see premiums / costs controlled is to open up the markets and get them as competitive as possible....but not holding my breath.

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