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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Btfsplk who wrote (404151)	1/14/2011 11:04:45 AM
From: Brumar89	2 Recommendations Respond to of 794009

Lots of people think "single-payer" ie socialized health care sounds good ... it promises security .... the govt will take care of you no matter what. I know Canadians and Americans who've worked in Canada and they aren't and weren't at all happy with the secure single-payer health care there. 80% of Americans are happy with their health care and govt taking the whole thing over will hurt them. We already have Medicaid and Medicare but the proponents always seem to talk as if those don't exist .... as if there were litters of poor people lying outside hospitals begging help me please.

To: Joe Btfsplk who wrote (404151)	1/14/2011 1:58:14 PM
From: Katelew	3 Recommendations Respond to of 794009

My vision of single-payer has not, to my knowledge, ever been articulated by any pundit(s). It certainly would not be 'free'....everyone would be making premiums from birth on ....and as individuals. No family policies and no group policies. And not a rich mix of benefits. Basically just catastrophic coverage plus some preventive offerings, like annual check-up, well baby visits, etc. Not a whole lot. Keep it cheap and keep it minimal and let people pay the rest out of pocket or buy insurance from private companies. Making it work is just a matter of getting the math right and the math is simple because never before in the history of the country have we had so much collective data with which to create the actuarial tables. Those tables plus the level of benefits to offer creates the premium. But it's not worth discussing. It's not going to happen and probably shouldn't even be attempted. Why? Because our collective politicians would eventually screw it up. To get elected, promises would be made (and then not funded) or benefits would be subtracted to make some other group happy. Back and forth, back and forth until whatever chance the original program had of succeeding became hopelessly sabotaged. The history of SS is a good example of this, imo. Why are people getting SS checks who never paid a dime in? And Medicare as a viable program never had a chance because the funding was never going to be adequate from the git go. By funding, I mean the levels of premiums withheld from paychecks starting in 1965. In addition, Medicare benefits kept getting expanded along the way....more promises that never could be fully kept. IMO, these are two collective safety nets that could have worked...esp. SS....had they been implemented and administered properly along the way. But they weren't. So any scheme of single payer with each person paying into the pool is just a pipedream to me now. And Obamacare is an adomination because it makes no sense on any level, primarily because it rests on subsidies that the government doesn't have the means to make. It's not an insurance program. As a business model, I don't know what it should be called.....but not insurance.