The future of single-payer health insurance
It’s not over till it’s over
Vermont appears to have given up on single-payer health insurance, having run out of other people’s money before the program even began.
If leftist Vermont can’t make it work, does that mean the drive for single-payer has been abandoned? One might think so, but not so fast. Perhaps the time just isn’t right:
“It is not the right time for Vermont” to pass a single-payer system, [Vermont Governor] Shumlin acknowledged in a public statement ending his signature initiative. He concluded the 11.5 percent payroll assessments on businesses and sliding premiums up to 9.5 percent of individuals’ income “might hurt our economy.”
Will there ever be a “right time”?:
“If cobalt blue Vermont couldn’t find a way to make single-payer happen, then it’s very unlikely that any other state will,” said Jack Mozloom, spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business.
“There will never be a good time for a massive tax increase on employers and consumers in Vermont, so they should abandon that silly idea now and get serious,” Mozloom added.
Mozloom aside, the left will never stop trying. Never:
“It is time to put the interests of patients first, ahead of political expedience,” said Andrew Coates, president of Physicians for a National Health Care Program. Single-payer is “the only reform that will cover everyone, save lives and save money. Mr. Shumlin, of all our nation’s governors, knows this well.”
The rest of the article is devoted to proponents of single-payer saying why it is that although maybe the Vermont plan wasn’t quite right, single-payer is still a great idea. It just needs to be done in a different way, or at the federal level.
This sums it up:
Gottfried has been introducing his New York single-payer bill every year since 1992. The cause is “not for the faint of heart,” he said.
There is little question that most leftists are quite stout of heart, veritable models of patience and dedication who live by the motto “try, try again.” The laws of economics are nothing in the face of their drive, and they see this merely as a temporary setback.
How can a thinking person make a statement like this one, and believe it? (That is, assuming the person actually does believe it, which may or may not be the case):
Oregon considered adding a public option — not the same as single-payer, but with similar challenges — to its Obamacare exchange in 2010, but ultimately decided the startup costs were too high, even if savings were forecast down the road.
“People have to ultimately understand that it’s going to cost them less even though their taxes go up,” McGuire said.
According to McGuire and those who argue similarly, the initial increase in cost will be reflected in taxes, but “ultimately” there will be savings. Based on what? Projections of folks like Jonathan Gruber? And what will the other costs of those “savings” be (in the unlikely event the savings ever do materialize), in terms of decreased choice and a decline in the quality of care for the majority of people?
What’s that they say about a free lunch?
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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Comments
The Left will never let logic or reality get in the way of Their plans.
This is a huge rebuke to the people who want to nationalize healthcare.
However – they are going to say this proves that individual states cannot adopt it. Instead – the entire country must adopt it.
Gottfried has been introducing his New York single-payer bill every year since 1992. The cause is “not for the faint of heart,” he said.
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No, the “cause” is for the black of heart. The entire scheme is to maximize control over the lives of each individual American, not to foster EITHER “health coverage” or “health care”.
It is the Holy Grail of the Collective, and we all know it.
They simply lie about it, which is their Prime Directive. They will do anything to attain this, which is why they cannot be allowed to. Their terrible hunger for this tells us how ghastly it really is.
Einstein had this quote about repeating the same action, and resulting in the same failed outcome…. however, the Left’s Newspeak dictionary has conveniently left out the word “insanity”.
Before you know it, everyone will be mandated to have Obamacare.
You’ll have health insurance,
but to get access to actual, quality health care,
You will need to be the single payer, yourself.
Exactly: All the insurance in the world doesn’t help, if all the hospitals are closed.
Single payer does not work but is impossible to conceive at the state level. It takes a country to force medical care givers to work for the government so that it can impose wage rates for providers and set prices for all medical services.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/21/cuba-hikes-salaries-for-doctors-nurses-to-as-much-as-67-month/
Cuba hikes salaries for doctors, nurses to as much as $67 a month
Well dang, at that rate maybe some of those doctors can afford to stop moonlighting as prostitutes, as many of them must do.
Everything the government touches, everything, increases in cost; e.g., student loans backed by the full faith and credit of the gov’t correlates exponentially to increases in the cost of education and equal increases in the national debt.
Anyone who believes gov’t is backing a project believes that ‘deep pockets’ gov’t will bail them out. Gov’t has become the awful whole life insurance with the taxpayer as funder.
So, um, uh…
300,000th?
Part of the problem with single payer is that the left controls the language about it. We need to start pointing out that health care is not a “right” but a commodity. Rights do not obligate someone else to provide it. The worst thing that happened to health care was employer paid insurance.
I worked for one of the largest HMOs for 40 years. I saw how it changed people and not for the better. They had no idea of the cost of things. I was an echo tech in one of the smaller medical centers. I was the only echo tech and if something went wrong with a patient in the hospital, I had to take my machine to the floor, making my out patients wait. One day I came back from an emergency that ate up my lunch time and 15 minutes of the first afternoon out patient. Her daughter started yelling at me that we should have another machine and tech. Sure. In those days, those machines were upward of $500,000 and another tech, with salary and benefits would have been outlandish for our small facility.
People also abused the ER, using it as a drop in clinic because they didn’t have to pay for it. You get the picture. No. Single payer will not work. There is a reason you will never find my former employer in Phoenix.
Another catastrophic development in medicine and hospitals was enactment of the law that patients HAD to be treated regardless of ability to pay. Believe it was passed about 1982 or 1983.
It’s involuntary servitutde against the medical profession, and I’m shocked no one has ever filed suit for violation of the 13th amendment… or was it 14th?
This coupled with the 1982 Plyler v. Doe case (illegal alien children must be permitted to attend government schools without charge), combined to make being an illegal alien a subsidized ride.
Full disclosure: I live in VT. If Burlington was in NY, VT would be a reliably red state. I am surprised that Shumlin listened to his advisers, who probably told him the tax increase would sink the VT economy. For better or worse, I am part of the VA for my healthcare, so can ignore Shumlin’s fantasies.
Hmmm… replace a few words and:
Proponents of Communist revolution are saying it is that although maybe the Stalinist plan or the Maoist plan weren’t quite right, Marxism is still a great idea. It just needs to be done in a different way, or with the right leaders…
Obamacare is NOT about health care. Obamacare is NOT about “insurance”. Obamacare IS ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT DECIDING WHO GETS CARE! Remember Dr. Emmanuel, Rahm’s brother, believes no one should LIVE PAST 75! And of course that policy would relieve Social Security from its approaching BANKRUPTCY! Now I’m not saying that Homeland Security will show up on your 75th birthday and put you in the back of the van and kill you with CO2. Nothing so OVERT! But they will cancel any prescriptions the good nanny state is “giving” you. And stop your SS payments. Maybe confiscate your bank accounts, stocks and other “wealth”. So stop thinking this is about “health care”. IT IS ABOUT CONTROL!
It’s almost like people think this has something to do with healthcare.
I blame our public education system.
“…[A]lthough maybe the Vermont plan wasn’t quite right, single-payer is still a great idea. It just needs to be done in a different way…”
Isn’t that what every socialist says EVERY time about any and all aspects of socialism when they fail — AND when socialism inevitably devolves into political cannibalism?
I noticed that, too. The Marxist/socialists’ ideas are never EVER wrong, just not implemented “correctly”. Now if only the right people were in charge…
Shumlin dropped single payer in Vermont because things were getting a little too hot regarding his sweet deal with Jonathan (Americans are stupid) Gruber. Apparently Vermont has been funneling money to Gruber with no accountability. Shumlin is citing executive privilege to hide detail of the Gruber arrangement.
http://vtdigger.org/2014/12/14/shumlin-administration-wire-single-payer-financing/
“People have to ultimately understand that it’s going to cost them less even though their taxes go up,” McGuire said.
Really? Taxes aren’t a cost? This is one of my gripes about Obamacare. When it’s supporters say that health care spending is being reduced I ask them if taxes are going up. I get crickets chirping as an answer.
It is like the joke about how to reduce deaths by heart attack. If you see someone having a heart attack, shoot them. The number of deaths by heart attack will almost certainly go down. Never mind that murder rate.