Is the only viable alternative to the Affordable Care Act single-payer?

With 48 million Americans uninsured, costs soaring for decades, and the shrinking numbers of those covered by employer-sponsored plans sustained by the taxpayer to the tune of $250 billion annually - and regarding their huge subsidy as a personal entitlement from which others must be excluded - major changes were, are, and will be essential.

The only desperately-needed healthcare reform that was fashioned by, promoted, and actually enacted by a Republican is the successful model for the national reform law. Willard Mitt Romney extolled the 'individual mandate' mechanism that insures inclusive coverage as "Ultimate Conservatism." Newt Gingrich had proposed it. The Heritage Society had approved it. TP darling Jim DeMint not only said that RomneyCare was one of the reasons he endorsed Romney, it was in fact something that "we should do for the whole country."

We did.

So, we'll see just how well it works.

While we're finding out, some pragmatically point to the extant paradigms of advanced nations that provide efficient, effective coverage for all citizens at about half the cost as the US; others, bristling at such proven, real-world approaches, fancy some ideologically 'pc' notion in which the free marketeers have free rein.

Those in a tizzy about extending coverage to millions of Americans so that the taxpayer in not burdened with their cost of care, those who prefer the private health cartel to be allowed to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, and those who feel all those kids, even when healthy and otherwise uninsured, should be thrown off family policies at age 21, never seem to propose a realistic, practical alternative.

Would they rescind Medicare? Medicaid? The Affordable Care Act? Would they cancel that $250 billion annual taxpayer subsidy that sustains coverage for those under employer-sponsored plans? Would they allow the uninsured to die untreated?

Do they have an actual alternative, and are they able (and willing) to articulate it?

Just asking.

 

Single Payer is the only logical alternative, saves money, insure all, cut out the middle man, no need for money wasted on marketing and sales, no need to pay execs 7-8 figure salaries. And the irony is, IT'S GOOD FOR BUSINESS... except for ONE.

 

All is proceeding as I foretold!

 

So, you have nothing to offer.

That inability appears to be widely shared amongst those in a tizzy over the Affordable Care Act.

 

I agree; unfortunately it would never have gotten through before. Insurance companies DO employ a lot of people. And it would have been a heckuva jobs disruption to kick them all out of their jobs aside from those who might offer "boutique" policies on top of single payer.

But I think as we move forward, that is the direction we'll be heading; I'm all for it.

 

Forming the largest risk pool distributes that risk most effectively whilst standardizing all data processing, thus eliminating the insurance cartel with its high overhead - duplicated bureaucracy, astronomical CEO salaries, corporate profit margins, political lobbying and campaign "contributions", marketing, advertising, (and, of course, relieving the taxpayer of the annual $250 billion that subsidizes employer-administered plans.) It would drastically reduce cost, but there would be severe economic repercussions in suddenly wiping out an entire industry and all those jobs - especially in the current climate. The cartel would end up offering deluxe "cadillac" plans to those who could afford and want them.

Phasing in a demographic expansion of Medicare, reducing the eligibility age incrementally would reduce the impact, and the infusion of progressively lower-risk age groups would increasingly lower the overall risk. Eventually, employers would be relieved of the unnecessary burden of administering plans, eliminating one imposing hurdle and start-up cost for entrepreneurs, and increase competitiveness in the global marketplace where foreign concerns do not bear such a handicap.

It may not be politically practicable at present, but those in a frenzy over the current law have no viable alternative.

They merely kvetch, and that solves nothing.

 

I suspect that a 1 cent tax on all electronic transactions would easily fund a national single payer health care plan without anyone having to pay another dime.

 

What I'm offering is the observation that 3 weeks into Obamacare, you are already ready to toss it over the side for single payer, which sort of goes to the theory that Obamacare was intentionally poorly designed so that it's spectacular failure and damage to the private insurance market would lead instantly to calls for.....wait for it...

Single payer!


As I have foreseen!

 

Obamacare was the first salvo in the leftwinger's push to socialize medicare care in this nation;. and eventually they will win that battle. It's inevitable because it's usually pretty easy to convince people that they are getting something for nothing. By the time they realize how MUCH socialized medicine is going to cost every productive citizen of this nation . . . it will be too late. Mostly it's already too late.

 

Yes, I've come to agree with what you say above also.

 

um - but in Europe, countries with single payer have better outcomes and lower costs than our current system. Why do we hate that? I forget

 

Neither the Affordable Care Act or a single payer version, are viable. It does not address in any way the real problems of rising health costs. How does either stop illegal immigrants from using the emergency room as a GP office? How does either stop illegal immigrants from not paying? Or is it that both will allow illegal immigrants healthcare within the US system of healthcare? If this is the case you are adding a huge portion of subsidized recipients. How does that lower costs? It doesn't rather it heaps costs on those that already have insurance without ACA or a single payer.

 

The way it was 2 years ago was viable. It delivered the greatest medical care and the lions share of new medical innovation in the history of mankind. Now, we have lawyers playing pharma scientist and doctor. Lawyers who use Botox and lie openly on a regular basis - this is who the left wants in charge of medicine.

Dear Lefters. You get what you pay for. You cant take it with you.

 

WillardCare is not the success those covered by it claim?

Nations such as Israel that have very successful single-payer systems are not really viable, and you have nothing to offer - beyond letting uninsured people die because they might be foreign?

Perhas in the fantasy world of Ayn Rand, but not in America.



.

 

None of them are trying to be both socialist and a super power. Now why would that be I wonder? Gasp! Do you think perhaps it has something to do with economic realities? That you can't do both?

 

No. Unsustainable premium increase, tens of millions uninsured and growing, and the shrinking number in employer-administered plans subsidized by the taxpayer was not viable.

You have nothing to offer but retrogression to an untenable situation?

 

Sorry I cannot see your position from your response. Is it you think all people must pay more for insurance to help out illegal aliens?

 

The allure of empire has caused nations to neglect their own people in the past as well. Maintaining 662 military bases around the world, and the power to contrive $2 trillion nation-building fiascos does not compensate for what is by far the most expensive healthcare system on earth that fails to cover 48,000,000 Americans whilst those covered by group plans need a $250 billion annual taxpayer subsidy.

 

(Premiums went up though, that doesn't help anyone).

Lets take this step by step.

Do you work for money or have you in the past?

Have you invested or risked capital in order to earn money?

 

The choice is treat critically-ill undocumented workers and their children and incur the cost or let them die.

You really have nothing to offer.

 

Translation: Correct, you cannot be both a socialist nation and a super power. You can be one or the other but not both.

 

There have been multiple alternatives to offer, including the status quo. And even the status quo was better.

You're not fooling anyone, we all know how partisan you are and that you've been in for single payer from the start - and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But saying that it is the ONLY viable alternative is either willful ignorance or sheer stupidity. You know there are other viable alternatives, just not ones that you like.

 

I'm self-employed and pay for a private policy to cover my family. Are you covered under an employer-administered plan, all of which are subsidized by the taxpayer/