Medicare is reality’s foothold on US soil. Sure we can point to EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD as an example of how UHC can cost less money and provide better results, but Medicare shows that it can work here as well and that is deeply disturbing to those not in the reality-based party.
Medicare is headed for insolvency. It is inevitable.
The left is going to demagogue Ryan’s plan for short-term political gains in the upcoming elections making sure that nobody will want to touch the issue for years to come. It’s the Sacred Cow of Sacred Cows.
The left in this country will throw the tantrum to end all tantrums when it does fail.
In the end would you rather have upwards of $15,000/year to spend on an insurance plan, or nothing at all? Seems like a no-brainer. You’d think, but - no.
Medicare is corrupt. It is being looted by heath care insurers, big pharmacy, doctors and suppliers. We pay double, get less people covered and get worse medical care.
It should be fixed, but big money rules America . They will not allow us to take away their money playground.
So, are you saying you want to repeal Medicare and replace it with something else? I don’t understand.
I want to fix it. It is designed to fail The young healthy population is not part of it. It is only the aged and likely failing of health who are on it. It should be expanded to include all.
The insurance companies should be jettisoned. The costs should be controlled. It isn’t hard to fix it, but it is making a lot of money for a few people and they are well connected politically.
The process is well under way toward dragging the US into the modern world. Vermont will have single-payer in 4 years, which will also help neutralize the comments that the US is somehow so unique that it can’t be done here.
I worry that the health care system will conspire to wreck the Vermont experiment to keep the “disease” of single-payer from spreading.
I agree with your goals, but calling Medicare a failure just plays into the hands of the Pubbies. They do NOT want to expand it, they want to do away with it.
I do too - no doubt Big Pharma’s lawyers have their constitutionality arguments all prepared to file, right after their injunction filings.
It isn’t an “experiment”, btw, and we aren’t helping ourselves by allowing the antiprogressives to define the terminology for us. Single-payer is well proven. It’s just an implementation struggle at this point.
What would a single-payer healthcare system look like in this country? My guess is that you would in actuality wind up with two seperate health-care systems. One exclusive & expensive private system with all the best doctors and equipment (also all the politicians and public-union workers would have access to this). The second, a run-down tax-funded public system with rationed resources for the rest of us.
Screw that.
We have one. Medicare. Seems to work alright, or at least the people that use it seem alright with it.
And that’s all we really need to do - expand eligibility for Medicare downward in age, from 65 down to birth, most likely with a means test and an increasedly progressive premium/tax rate to cover it. If Big Insurance thinks there’s a market for premium-priced services in the so-called “free market”, then let 'em go for it.
You described what we have now.
I don’t see why insurance companies would necessarily have anything to do with a premium privatized market. If you have the money all you have to do is go to a doctor and say, “Hey, I’ll pay you more than what the government is offering if you treat me.” Once that is established all of the best doctors will wind up working for the upper classes. Whoever is left over will wind up working in the run-down public system.
There’s no “if” this will happen. I guess you’re okay with that. I plan on working hard and making as much money as I can so that I am not stuck using a run-down government-rationed public hospital. So, to some extent I’m okay with it too, but I just think it’s somewhat immoral to actually want and work for the implementation of such a system.
Oh, fuck me, you don’t think the insurance companies “ration” healthcare?
What we have now is a system that both the rich and poor use creating a higher level of quality in general. Once wealthier americans are using their own private health-care system you will see the current level of quality decline. The rich will siphon off all the best resources thereby increasing scarcity. And what happens when you have increasing scarcity of a valuable resource in a system that has no choice but treat everyone equally?
You guessed it. Rationing. Or as some have called it “death panels”. 
Explain, if you will, how the system currently doesn’t have rationing by your understanding.
If there is now (and I’m not arguing there’s not) imagine how much more there will be when you’ve created a system that encourages increased demand (it’s free!) & greater scarcity.
What is it about the US that makes you think that any public system will be run-down?
And how is that worse than a situation where people who can’t afford it getting no health care at all? “I don’t want the rich to have nicer things” is not your typical conservative complaint. I thought the main reason that UHC doesn’t get off the ground is that most Americans are rich enough to afford quality health insurance and don’t see any personal benefit to giving the poor any coverage at all.
But I think a two-tier system would be just the ticket. If a public option was indeed low-quality, then that would give people an incentive to buy “gap insurance”. And if it sucks paying for gap insurance, then that’s an incentive to put up with the lower-quality plan.
So high-quality care would still be available, but no one would go without at least minimal care.
“Screw that”.
I think it would be run down for the same reason government housing projects tend to be run-down. Just like some spend their entire lives in housing projects some would choose to spend their entire lives using government health care. Of course you’re creating an entrenched class whose very existence relies on someone else providing everything. You’re creating poverty.
Currently nobody is denied at least minimal care. Nobody gets turned away. There is Medicade, other state run programs, charity care or you could do the unthinkable and pay your medical expenses out of your own pocket. Hospitals and clinics are willing to work out payment plans if all else fails. There was a time where I needed medical care and didn’t have insurance. Guess what. I didn’t demand that someone else pay for it. I paid the bill out of my own pocket. Weird - I know.
Personally, I like Ryan’s plan & if I were given the responsibility of choosing that’s the one I would pick. It’s not going to happen, but neither will single-payer.