COVID-19 Proves It: We Need Medicare-for-All

For decades, critics of single-payer health care have raised the menace of rationed care, long waits, and “death panels.”

Now, in our collective national effort to “flatten the curve” — to slow the spread of coronavirus to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed — we are seeing all three of these rumored pitfalls of “socialized medicine” in our for-profit system.


https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/30/covid-19-proves-it-we-need-medicare-for-all/


My take: You all need to read, pause, and reflect the genius behind this article. Socialized medicine is the future. The for-profit system didn't let the "stable genius" in the White House prepare for this crisis because it was not profitable for the moneybags to stockpile essential equipment and supplies. Nothing can refute the awesome power of socialized medicine.

 

Wow. Thinks the government failed him and now wants more government as the cure

 

Yeap worked fabulously in Italy. Let's see we have 122,653 confirmed cases as of 3/29, we have 330 million people. Our infected make up .00037 of the population and the death total makes up .0000064%.

Might be a tad premuture to using this virus to push socialized medicine. Italy's infection rate is .0016 and death rate .000165 for comparison.

 

I'm sure he has a thousand other reasons for national health care. They all revolve around his desire to have you pay for him

 

How do you think a single-payer system would've responded differently? Singe-payer may not be profit driven, but it still has budgetary limitations, and its still not going to spend money that it doesnt have to. At least thats how it'll work if its going to try to remain affordable and effective...

 

It's all "affordable" when you have to pay for him, the unspoken cornerstone of their desire

 

It will only take a couple of examples of major private insurance companies like Blue Cross or Humana declaring bankruptcy, unable to re-imburse billions in health care bills and the subsequent stories of evictions and repossessions. Watch the numbers flip.

 

So this means the government can afford it?

 

I doubt it. Perhaps what folks on the left have always said they really want, Trump can deliver to them in the form of absolving all medical cost in the fact of the crisis... IE Don't pay health care at all, like social medical services..... If folks can take a holiday from paying debts, why not these?

 

I read the article. It makes some claims that are just not true. They are just as much behind the ball as we were and have less flexibility. Italy and Spain are in even worse shape that the UK.

Here is one of those untrue claims:
"As Helen Buckingham of the Nuffield Trust told the Washington Post, the U.K.’s National Health Service is well-positioned to cope. It has a clear and comprehensive emergency planning structure with the ability to optimize resource use, even after years of government budget cuts."

I did just a little research. It seems that her rosy picture of the UK health system is not necessarily reality. This one is written by Gabriel Scully, a former regional director of public health in the the UK.



England's ravaged public health system just can't cope with the coronavirus
"On top of huge cuts, regional bodies have also been decimated in the past 10 years. It’s left us ill-prepared for a crisis like this

"The impoverishment of the NHS and the public health system in England is not the only depletion that has occurred in civil society that makes us ill-equipped to respond effectively to the greatest global health crisis in a century.

One of the first acts of the coalition government when it came to power in 2010 was to dismantle the regional structures that had provided a coherent mechanism for integrating and carrying out government policy within the English regions. The government offices for the regions (GOR) were established in 1994 by John Major’s administration as outposts of central government departments. They were tasked with implementing government-funded programmes and monitoring their performance. They also had an important coordination role at times of national emergency, such as during the fuel protest crisis of 2000."
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...gland-public-health-coronavirus-cuts-regional

Who gets the ventilator? British doctors contemplate harrowing coronavirus care choices
"LONDON (Reuters) - The coronavirus pandemic is forcing senior doctors in Britain’s National Health Service to contemplate the unthinkable: how to ration access to critical care beds and ventilators should resources fall short."

"The country’s public health system, the NHS, is ill-equipped to cope with an outbreak that is unprecedented in modern times. Hospitals are now striving to at least quadruple the number of intensive care beds to meet an expected surge in serious virus cases, senior physicians told Reuters, but expressed dismay that preparations had not begun weeks earlier.
With serious shortages of ventilators, protective equipment and trained workers, the physicians said senior staff at hospitals were beginning to confront an excruciating debate on intensive care rationing, though Britain may be a long way from potentially having to make such decisions."

"The NHS is preparing for the biggest challenge it has faced since it was founded after the ravages of World War Two, promising cradle-to-grave healthcare for all.
It was stretched long before COVID-19, struggling to adapt to the vast increase in healthcare demand in recent years. Some doctors complain that it is underfunded and poorly managed. About a tenth of more than one million staff roles in the health service are vacant while almost nine out of 10 beds are occupied."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rowing-coronavirus-care-choices-idUSKBN2172FC

 

After fighting over rationed toilet paper, people are sure to love rationed healthcare brought to you by the same people who gave us the DMV. Brilliant!

 

Depends on the definition of "afford". Government does not produce a product by itself. It pays contractors(think: Housing and infrastructure) to produce for THEM and we pay via TAXES.

So as long as the tax pool is infinite, they can "afford" it. The real question is can WE the populace afford it?

 

This crisis is going to saddle us with a lot of debt, and we won't be able to afford 3 trillion dollars of healthcare. I suggest starting with the public options and expanding from there. We could do medicare for all if we implement a plan with a lot of cost and price controls and agressive measures to reduce costs. But that isn't anything like Bernie's Medicare for all.

 

Government paid healthcare shuttered numerous NYC hospitals. The stable genius had to send in a hospital ship to replace the beds government paid healthcare eliminated. Well, first he had to tell Cuomo where his warehouse was so Cuomo could find the thousands of ventilators he was bitching about.

It's not all Cuomo's fault. The governor of Louisiana decided that, since the US didn't have a big problem at the time, that he would hold a global party, inviting sick people from every corner of the planet to fly through NYC to get to the coronavirus Mardi Gras. Cuomo is getting his revenge. He is sending his sick people around the country to infect other states.

 

You can have single payer or the current system. But with out health care providers it doesn't mean shi#

 

They are budget cuts in the UK (and other countries in Europe) because there is austerity being implemented due to the global crisis of capitalism.

 

Oh really???? Last time I checked we are paying for a multi-trillion dollar bailout (again) to rescue the "free market" corporations because they can not cope with a microorganism.

 

COVID-19 proves that Socialists and Globalists have it all wrong again. Going in, they had a perfect record of being wrong 100% of the time and nothing has changed. In fact, by trying to throw the Green New Deal into the mix, banning fuel needed to deliver medical supplies, they were more than wrong this time.

New York had the moral equivalent of single payer and, as a result, ran 16 hospitals into bankruptcy. Since doctors had other places to go, the NY system didn't empty the medical schools the way single payer will.

 

Which ones ?

 

Dang, you answered the cupcake question I tossed out to him

 

Republicans say how horrible government is while raiding it, dismantling it, and making it as ineffective as possible. Democrats come in and try and clean up. And the cycle repeats.

It’s like someone setting their house on fire, turning off the sprinklers and then complaining the sprinkler system didn’t work. That it actually works on so many Americans needs psychological research — but half of us believe in horse and sparrow economics even though it continually fails.

 

They could cope but have learned it is better to be leveraged past their assets so that the government must do something to protect the economy. But a single mother getting $200.00 in food stamps, that’s socialism.

 

Wait wait wait. A single mother receiving $200 bucks a month is socialism. But corporations getting trillions of dollars is FREE MARKET ECONOMICS. Is that your contention???? Man you are getting high on your own supply!

 

that's socialism too. It's what's ruined our country.

 

Medicare for all would triple the national debt very soon and we’d default. It’s suicidal.