This was pre-ACA, so the calculus certainly changed post-. Of course with Republicans constantly threatening to “cancel Obamacare”, the risk remained.
States did actually pass gay marriage before it became national. You would also probably need a state single payer plan to work for a few years before it was considered nationally. I also don’t think you can underestimate how influential Romneycare’s success was in making Obamacare possible, something that Obama loved to point out.
The problem with single payer is math and status quo bias. ACA was possible because they managed to bamboozle people into thinking it wouldn’t disrupt their current insurance. No such deception is possible with single payer.
I don’t know who wrote it, but it was in an editorial in Investors Business Daily on 31 July, 2009.
He probably didn’t even know Hawking was British. To be honest, I didn’t know either until that story came out. I’d always assumed he was American.
I vaguely recall a British voice synthesizer wasn’t available at the time, and by the time it was he already had a brand, so to speak.
Yeah, I recall he used to murmer and someone would translate for him. No idea how that person did that.
Price is based on what people are willing to pay, and is completely removed from the actual cost. People with excellent insurance plans are “willing” to pay these prices, but that means that those who do not have these plans or the cash simply cannot afford such prices, even if it is a necessity.
I only became comfortable opening my own business when the ACa was starting to get rolled out. Not only would getting sick without insurance suck for me personally, but with my finances intimately tied to my business, would likely make me have to close my doors and fire my employees.
Speaking of employees, I have worked in dozens of jobs over the decades. The jobs I found the most rewarding were smaller places that did not provide healthcare benefits, and the jobs that did provide healthcare were jobs that sucked. And even then, in most cases, the insurance provided was a joke.
Having insurance not tied to employment means that i can get higher quality employees who are not tempted (or forced) to go work somewhere else for insurance benefits.
Any of the problems? Kids can stay on the parent’s insurance til they are 26, people cannot be denied or kicked off their plan due to pre-existing conditions, the Marketplace allowed you to, for the first time, actually comparaison shop, side by side, differnet insurance products and their prices. Millions of people got insurance that did not have it before.
Did it solve all of the problems? No, that’s why we need leaders in washington who will improve it, not gut it. But to make the claim that it hasn’t solved any of the problems demonstrates a remarkable ignorance about the changes in healthcare since the ACA.
Gay marriage worked state by state because if people come from a state without gay marriage to get married in your state, it doesn’t cost resources, in fact, it provides money to your state similar to tourism. The externality of other states not haveing gay marriage actually makes early adopters favorable.
With a single payer system in a state, you will have the same sort of thing, where people will simply visit or move to a state with single payer, and use the resources.
The two are not comparable at all, other than them both being a good idea who’s time was long past.
If disruption is paying half the premiums, virtually no deductible, and far superior outcomes, like every other first world country on this earth, I don’t think that they will mind too much. Not saying that there are none who will mind. There are some whose principles would dictate that they should pay more and get less to ensure that someone else less deserving doesn’t get it, but the people worried more about practical matters would find quality up, and cost down.
Why’s that?
Heck. I’d be retired RIGHT NOW (opening a job opportunity for someone else) if we had universal coverage. But we don’t, so I’ll probably be working for a half decade yet.
Because everybody awesome is American until I find out different.
I thought Jim Carrey, William Shatner, and Pamela Anderson were American too. Just an assumption I always make unless I hear an accent and I usually can’t differentiate Canadians from say, Minnesotans.
That’s what I was going to ask. I first heard of him around 1985. (Maybe before, but I don’t remember.) In whatever documentary I was watching, it was established he is British. Perhaps the writer of the editorial had only heard his name, and that he was some kind of smarty-pants, and, if he had heard the ‘voice’, just assumed Hawking was American.
That’s not really how it’s going to work. First, the California and Vermont plans covered pretty much everything. Negotiating alone doesn’t drop prices by half. That takes changing a lot of things about the way heallth care is provided, such as reducing unnecessary tests and encouraging doctors to prescribe proven effective treatments rather than the newest treatments. This actually has pissed me off in the past. I’m constantly getting prescriptions for stuff where there’s a cheaper, just as effective, more proven drug. In one case the alternative was OTC! We attack insurance companies for refusing to cover some of this stuff, but sometimes it’s for a good reason. For my blood pressure I was prescribed Benicar, which is Tier 3 on my plan, so I was paying $50/month. Worked well, then my company got a new insurance plan where it was Tier 4, so I had to pay 50% of the cost. So I asked my doctor for a new prescription and got put on Losartan. Losartan is $6 at Wal-mart. My BP is just as low as it was on Benicar. Argh!!!
But I digress. Unless the states had plans to control health care costs that were far more coercive than what ACA is doing, they would not see major decreases in heath care costs. At first, they’d see none, which means the average person would probably pay more, not less.
The small grimace at exactly 2 minutes is … very understated:
I suppose if all you know is "smartypants in a wheelchair with a synthesizer voice, you could come to that conclusion.
But, if you read anything about him at all, or watch any documentary, or follow his work, you would see that he works at cambridge, went to oxford… His wiki page has the word “English” as the 10th word of the article, if you include his honorifics.
I get how someone with no interest in his field wouldn’t know much about him, but if you are going to make up stuff about what would or would not happen, you should at least read the first dozen words of his biography.
No reason you should know. Any more than one would assume A. Milne-Edwards the ornithologist and explorer was actually French. *
However the mistake is less permissible in politicians and professionals, pontificating where their errors might have consequence. Or not.
- I dunno why on earth you would think Mr. Hawking was American, any more than Charlie Chaplin or Jude Law.
To be generous there are many Britons in the United States, in media and entertainment, who ought to have their citizenship removed to rest, adopted for good, in Lady Liberty’s bosom. We give them freely.
Well, Hawking predates the internet, so unless one had a reason to look him up recently, one’s assumptions about him would stem from TV shows that he appeared on in the 80s.
Which is why we need a major reform. One which would decrease healthcare costs. Pay doctors based on results, not on tests and procedures.
My mother went to the doctor for high blood pressure. He did a bunch of tests, prescribed a bunch of medicine. She asked if there were any lifestyle changes that she could do rather than the medication, and he kinda begrudgingly told her that there were, and gave her info on them. The problem is, is that he gets paid for the tests and the medication, but he does not get a dime for talking to her about he diet and exercise. This is something that can be fixed, but it requires the political will to do so.
From outside the US system its sometimes a little difficult to not see patients more as income streams.
Some people like these. They also work pretty well with a smart tv: Fitness Studio exercise videos - NHS
He existed before the internet, sure, but he still exists now. It’s not like the fact he was born and got famous pre-internet doesn’t mean that he’s not pretty famous now too. He is featured in many current documentaries, as well as articles and even youtube videos. The TV shows in the 80’s did not hide the fact he was from england either. If it’s a current science documentary, it talks about him being the director of cambridge’s physics. If it’s a biopic, it talks about him going to oxford.
And, if one has a reason to use him as an example as to why a particular health system doesn’t work, then one has a reason to look him up, rather than relying on ones mistaken assumptions.
So to further embarrass myself for your entertainment, I also thought Cambridge was an American university until recently.
From inside the US as well.