Do Democrats Know How Radical Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare For All' Plan Is?

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Ridgerunner said:
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LeafByNiggle:
Yes indeed. Things have really changed for the better since the ACA, which put an end to charging uninsured patients the highest possible rate! Thank you Obama!
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You’re joking, right? Uninsureds are still charged “Reasonable and Necessary”, which is the highest rate. Of course, the provider will often reduce the charges if they have to go to too much trouble to collect. If they perceive that they can’t collect, they write it off.
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Excellent system. The uninsured get their needed care at the expense of the destruction of their credit; a resource they desperately need in a consumerist and capitalist economy.

Is there an emote for clapping?
 
Ridgerunner said:
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LeafByNiggle:
Yes indeed. Things have really changed for the better since the ACA, which put an end to charging uninsured patients the highest possible rate! Thank you Obama!
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You’re joking, right? Uninsureds are still charged “Reasonable and Necessary”, which is the highest rate…
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Do you have some alternate explanation for the phenomenon that Monte described? Or is Monte wrong is claiming it?
 
ucfengr said:
I think the problem is that people have lost the idea of what it means to ration. During WW2, for example, a person a person was allowed to buy, say, 1 pound of hamburger per week, or 2 gallons of gasoline per week. When the hamburger was gone, or the fuel tank was empty, you couldn’t buy any more until the next week. Rationing means some authority artificially limits what you can buy based not on availability, but based on some edict. In a free market, nothing is rationed, you’re only limited by availability and ability to purchase.
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Now the question is, should healthcare consumption be limited by the ability to pay?
 
Whether market pricing is a form of rationing or not isn’t really relevant to that idea the “health care is a right”. If something is rationed, then there is no right to it. When you say “health care is a right” what you mean is that government decides who gets what. The rich and powerful will still get whatever healthcare they want, the poor and the middle will have to fight for the leftovers.
 
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Everything else is. How would you limit health care consumption? Deny treatment to the elderly and disabled? That’s how the VA does it.
 
ucfengr said:
Everything else is. How would you limit health care consumption? Deny treatment to the elderly and disabled? That’s how the VA does it.
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The first thing I would do is get rid of medicare. Those who have means can pay their own way, those that don’t can use medicaid. There is really no need for medicare if we have medicaid. No need for redundancy. Second, I would get rid of occupational licensing restrictions that drive up prices. I would also get rid of trade restrictions and let people import drugs from wherever they wish.
 
I don’t see how that limits health care consumption. All you’re doing is shifting around the bureaucracy a little. And getting rid of “occupational licensing”? Really? So a doctor shouldn’t have to graduate from an accredited medical school to practice medicine? You don’t care if the guy making your IV has had training in making sterile products? You’re a braver man than I am.
 
ucfengr said:
I don’t see how that limits health care consumption. All you’re doing is shifting around the bureaucracy a little. And getting rid of “occupational licensing”? Really? So a doctor shouldn’t have to graduate from an accredited medical school to practice medicine? You don’t care if the guy making your IV has had training in making sterile products? You’re a braver man than I am.
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It doesn’t necessarily limit consumption, it shifts the cost to the individual who should rightfully bear it. The problem with medicare is that it costs hundreds of billions and is a transfer from the have nots to the haves.

I didn’t say I didn’t care about the training of providers, what I said is that the choice of provider belongs solely to the consumer. Nobody else has any business interfering with the decision of the consumer and provider.
 
ProVobis said:
The number of personal bankruptcies has dropped drastically since ACA.
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Imaginably there is a cause/effect relationship, but over the years I have observed that bankruptcies come in waves, usually related to economic downturns, and particularly when accompanied by asset deflation or disinflation and upturns in unemployment. After the 2008/2009 recession, I would have absolutely expected a short spike, then a downturn in bankruptcies as the economy leveled out.
 
Vonsalza said:
Ah, no. I think I’ve referenced infant mortality, life expectancy and the WHO rankings of national healthcare systems. In all cases the US is ranked in the 20s or 30s. We simply have an inferior system.
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All of which have been debunked here on CAF several times. Infant mortality is not measured the same way in every country. Life expectancy is likewise not an apples-to-apples comparison, since several factors involved are cultural, and when those are factored in (e.g. Japanese-Americans have similar life expectancy as Japan), this falls out. And the WHO rankings measure things unrelated to health outcomes, and instead measure things like cost sharing, percent of GDP, etc.

The WHO rankings were tailored to make European systems look wonderful while ignoring what’s really important: actual health outcomes.
 
America doesn’t have a national health service yet? You guys are in the stone age!
 
Suudy said:
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Vonsalza:
Ah, no. I think I’ve referenced infant mortality, life expectancy and the WHO rankings of national healthcare systems. In all cases the US is ranked in the 20s or 30s. We simply have an inferior system.
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All of which have been debunked here on CAF several times. Infant mortality is not measured the same way in every country. Life expectancy is likewise not an apples-to-apples comparison, since several factors involved are cultural, and when those are factored in (e.g. Japanese-Americans have similar life expectancy as Japan), this falls out. And the WHO rankings measure things unrelated to health outcomes, and instead measure things like cost sharing, percent of GDP, etc.

The WHO rankings were tailored to make European systems look wonderful while ignoring what’s really important: actual health outcomes.
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For good or bad, we’re all beggars to the data that is out there. If you have superior data, please share it with us.

As it currently stands with your objections duly noted, outcomes as currently measured don’t even put the US in the top 20 in most categories.

These are facts that don’t support your side of the debate. And as well all know, when the facts don’t support you, you must either change your views or deny/disparage the facts.

I see the route you and others have chosen, unfortunately.
 
Sy_Noe said:
Not based on income that’s for sure. I believe healthcare s a right not a privilege. And I don’t mean waiting to run to the ER.
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where is this right defined in our constitution? how come it has never been established if it is a right?

is healthcare for all a good idea? of course but it is not a right and definitely not a federal obligation. it should be left up to the states.

we need less federal government not more.
 
upant said:
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Vonsalza:
I wasn’t aware anyone in the US was really pushing for a VA-style system.
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too early to tell what they mean.
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I think most are pushing for a system that puts Cigna out of business. Not Cedars-Sinai in LA.

Something you might like; were such a system actually implemented, there would be no need for the VA. Moreover, many like me think the VA should be killed immediately so vets could spend the equivalent at the provider of their choosing. This would add further to the critical mass required to eventually get everyone on a Medicare-style or single-payer system.
 
IWantGod said:
America doesn’t have a national health service yet? You guys are in the stone age!
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Whoa whoa. We do.

For the old, for the poor and for our veterans, we already have a national health system(s). Roughly 40% or so of Americans.
 
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I doubt Cedar Sinai sees many Medicaid patients, or many Medicare patients without supplemental insurance for that matter. They couldn’t operate on those reimbursements. It’s private insurance reimbursements that keep the doors open.
 
Balderdash.

We have a new hospital in our area that is roughly 70% medicaid or medicare (rural Kentucky). And they still felt comfortable building a $1million reflecting pool purely for aesthetics.

They built it knowing that the overwhelming majority of the customer base would be publicly funded.

The notion of “those poor hospitals and doctors can’t make it on public insurance!” is a total absurdity.
 
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