We Are Our Brothers Keepers Protestor single payer truck single payer truck single payer truck single payer truck

Single-Payer Health Care

At some point in your life, if not already, you will be on a single payer system. It’s called Medicare. The hidden fact is that Medicare is way more efficient at everything than private health markets.

A single payer system will lower health cost by 50%!

Just on administrative costs alone, we can save 18% of health cost. Apparently, it takes a lot of dollars to market, underwrite, lobby congress, and process claims. Medicare streamlines all this burden because there are no marketing costs and you don’t need a lot of administrators denying care. Some people call this system Medicare for all and other people call it single payer. Instead of picking an insurance company the government will handle the administrative part of health care.

The idea of government helping the monopolies get rich and deny care needs to end.

Free Markets

The single payer system will get rid of insurance companies. It will create a price list of what doctors will get paid. Have you ever been frustrated that you can’t get the price of your health care? Creating a single price list will make it so price gougers are eliminated in the market. This will create much more savings.

Doctors and hospitals will still be free to practice in a free market way. However, they will be price takers instead of price setters. In a truly competitive system, the producers are price takers. Lots of successful industries are price takers. Most notable are the farmers that have probably the most competitive industry of all.

This doesn’t mean doctors will be poor. Doctors will still be able to make it into the top 10% of income earners. However, some of the price gougers that are making millions for doing the same work, won’t be able to continue that trend. Prices that were once hidden from consumers will be revealed.

Are doctors for single payer? As it turns out, most doctors are for a single payer system; about 66%. You will find that family practitioners, pediatricians, and nurses are overwhelmingly for a single payer system.

The doctors more likely to be against single payer are the specialists that are making millions of dollars. They don’t want their salaries to go down. In addition, they don’t see as many people struggling to get care.

Choice

A single payer system has a lot more choice than a free market system. Insurance requires you to purchase from your network. This limits the doctors you can go to because anyone out of the network is too expensive or won’t take you. In a single payer system, you can go to any doctor you want; even across state lines. If sickness befalls you and you lose your job, you can still go to the doctor. The gaps that currently exist for people will be eliminated. The worst problem in health care, no access, will be eliminated. This means a much better ability for people to choose.

In America, there is a real doctor shortage especially of family practitioners. Most of the best doctors are full and don’t take new patients. This severely affects choice.

Rationing of Care

Currently, rationing of health care is done by pricing. If you can afford insurance, you can get care. If you can pay out of pocket, you can get care. There are all kinds of helpful care that insurance companies don’t cover. For example, insurance has always been against preventative care. If you wanted the preventative care, or in a lot of cases the generic drug, insurance wouldn’t give it to you. So, most people would just go without things their insurance didn’t cover because the cost was ridiculous.

All systems of health care have waiting lines. Americans wait just as long as other countries on single payer systems. How you administer the plan does not have a big effect on wait times. Why would it? In fact, some countries, like Japan and France, have lower wait times than the United States.

Of course, you can always find a procedure that needs improvement in any system. However, comparing the whole system based on one piece of data is misleading. Overall, how healthy are the people? Who is doing the best? Americans aren’t living as long and are dying from diseases that doctors know how to prevent.

Some rich Americans might not like single payer because everyone gets access to the doctor. This could temporarily create more wait times while new doctors are trained.

Other industrialized nations do not have long wait times. Single payer systems do not create long wait times. All single payer does is reduce the administrative burden. Doctors are still free to practice.

Government will not tell a doctor he can’t work more. If there is a shortage of doctors, more doctors will be trained. Consider instead, that “free market” health care limits the number of doctors intentionally to create high prices. And, ironically, Medicare already pays for the doctor residencies.

Fee for Service

A part of reforming health care should be to eliminate fee for service. This means that a doctor will get paid to have you as a patient and to keep you healthy instead of getting paid for how many tests he did, operations performed, or drugs prescribed. Fee for service is inflationary because it rewards overuse of the system. Further, doctors should be helping prevent disease through preventative care.

Some countries reward the doctors better if the patients are healthy. This works better than over treating sick people. Fee for service will make health cost inflationary.

Popularity and Momentum of Single Payer

Most people are for a single payer system. Think about it. Do you know anyone that likes insurance companies? The testing has shown about 66% of people want a single payer system.

A lot of big unions are supporting single payer. It will reduce burdens on companies and allow wages to rise. Unions also care about civil rights and on principle support single payer.

Doctors and nurses are also for a single payer system. It turns out that the main people that oppose single payer are insurance companies.

California and Vermont have both passed a resolution for a single payer system. However, in both cases the governor has refused to go along with it. In Vermont, the governor that was really for it and pulling for it backed out at the last minute. In California, the governor just vetoes it. New York has been able to get single payer passed by half of the legislature. The bill has been ongoing there for 20 years. A lot of other states like Colorado and Michigan are gaining momentum in single payer. Many states are introducing new bills for single payer systems.

Momentum is growing because the burden of health care is just getting so great. Imagine having 4k less dollars this year than you have now. If health care isn’t reformed, that’s exactly where you will be in a few years from now just because of health care.

Insurance trends are shifting the burden to consumers through HSA and other high deductible plans. This has made it so a lot of people are paying 8k per person for their health plan and can’t afford to use it. Access has gone down and with it are larger numbers of people dying from diseases that can be treated. People want reform. As Bill Clinton said, “They are going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.”

There are really only two ways to possibly reform health care. One way would be to deregulate, repeal licensure, and open it up to anybody that wants to practice it. The other is to regulate it by keeping it safe, but also affordable. Most people, and all other industrialized nations, have chosen safer and affordable.

The idea of government helping the monopolies get rich and deny care needs to end.

States for Single Payer

The fight to reform health care is now at the state level. Every single member of congress has taken a “bribe” from a health care company. They aren’t going to ever pass legislation that hurts their own constituents.

The Clintons tried for health care reform, but were defeated. The health care industries spent over 100 million in ads (Harry and Louise) against health care reform. In the movie Sicko, Michael Moore shows Hillary warming up to the current health care system after she was given a donation of over 800k by health care companies.

Will the powers that be let any state have a single payer system? The momentum says it isn’t going to be something that can be stopped. Health care is too burdensome to ignore anymore. States are stepping up to fix it.

If you want any kind of reform, it must be done at the state level. Once one of the states does it successfully, it will attract lots of business because of lower health cost. Wouldn’t you rather move your company to a state that has half the health care cost and a better health care system? The reality is that whoever does it well and first will attract other states to it.

A lot of states have a single payer movement to join and other states don’t. If you want things to change, work on single payer in your community. It’s really the only viable solution. There is a lot of evidence that single payer works. It’s what all the other industrialized nations use.

Doing What’s Right

I like this poem. It shows the importance of helping people. "In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me -- and by that time, no was left to speak up."

-Pastor Martin Niemoller

Quotes About Health Care

John F. Kennedy said: “No matter how big the lie, repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth. The reality is we do not have the best health care system.”

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Jesus was a healer, a provider of universal health care, a man of compassion who treated those with preexisting medical conditions." CNN

"Here's the deal on single payer. Rationally, single payer is the best system, our system is the worst, most expensive and least effective." Bill Clinton

"Bulk of weath is health." - economist Kenneth Arrow

"We are all in this world together, and the only test of our character that matters is how we look after the least fortunate among us. That’s all that really matters, I think." Tommy Douglas

"When they favor the access of other people to education and health care, the countries of the North not only demonstrate generosity or solidarity, but also implement the principles of respecting and promoting human rights. " Omar Bongo

“ I think the biggest problem with healthcare today is not its cost – which is a big problem – but for all that money, it’s not an expression of our humanity.” Jonathan Bush

“When it comes to health, your zip code matters more than your genetic code.” Dr. Tony Iton

"The American health care system combines the worst of capitalism with the worst of socialism. " Christopher Hitchens

“I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an  emergency room." – Pres. George W. Bush

Ethical Question

Suppose your young child comes down with a life threatening disease that will prove fatal in a short time. You feel distraught; not sure where to turn to. The doctor says there is no cure. You do some research and find out there is actually one guy with a proven cure. This man with the cure happens to live in your area. You go and ask him for it to save your child. He says, "Sure, for 10 billion dollars I will sell it to you." You try to raise the money, but it is impossible to get enough money.

You start driving and find yourself by the guy’s home that has the cure. It looks like his home is vacant. The garage door is open. The cure is sitting on the shelf. It only cost the guy a few dollars to make it, but he did spend most of his life researching to produce this drug.

Should you steal the drug? Why or why not?

Final Thoughts

Everybody likes markets. I would personally love the market to fix this problem. However, markets sometimes fail.

All the data readily shows America is less healthy and pays twice as much as everyone else. Everyone agrees there is a problem. However, what’s the solution?

The best bet to improve health care is to work at the state level. The problems need to be fixed at the grassroots level. If any state leads the way by reducing their cost and covering their whole population, other states will follow. In addition, business will be attracted to states with lower health cost.

I have called many conservative legislators. They actually have no plan at all to fix any of this. And, how can they? They have all received large donations from health insurance companies and the AMA.

Even people that used to be for single payer, like Hillary Clinton, are now against it. It’s not just republicans taking contributions, but also democrats. In fact, neither side will ever vote against their campaign donors.

How did Obamacare get through? Originally, Obamacare was trying to get single payer. All the companies and most of congress were totally against it. However, an important thing changed all that. The bill took out single payer and cost saving measures. Once that happened, the bill was backed strongly by the entire health care industry. Insurers are now reaping huge profits from the bill because they are getting a huge new client based subsidized by the Federal Government.

Obamacare is certainly expensive. It will raise health care cost because those that can’t afford health insurance will be subsidized by the government. It takes out some of the most egregious practices of insurance companies like denying preexisting conditions.

Most economists and health policy analysts think Obamacare is a great step in the right direction. Most people find it morally reprehensible that some people die because they are denied care. It’s not just a few people. Thousands of doctors and policy makers have been trying to fix this problem for many years.

I have found that perhaps the biggest reason that people oppose single payer is because they think America is superior to all the other countries. If we are so much better than everyone, we should have something better; not be a follower. The problem with this thinking is there are mountains of data that shows us that our way of doing health care is much worse.

Like John F. Kennedy said, “No matter how big the lie, repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth. The reality is we do not have the best healthcare system.”

There is really only one group of people trying to fix health care. It is the single payer people. Join the revolution!!



State Single Payer Links