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posted by martyb on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the But-I-*like*-getting-50-different-invoices-for-one-hospital-stay dept.

There is an instinct among political pundits to confuse caution for practicality — an assumption that those who advocate for incremental change are being reasonable, while those pushing for bold reforms aren’t. This is seen most starkly in the debate around health care reform, despite the fact that the “practical” pushers of limited reform fail to address the real problems in our health care system.

We all recognize that the status quo isn’t working. We spend more per person than any other country on health care, but we aren’t getting any bang for our buck. We have lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates and more preventable deaths, and too many personal bankruptcies are due at least in part to medical bills.

[...]Time to get real. As an economist who has spent decades studying our health care system, I can tell you that Medicare for All advocates are the only ones who are being reasonable, because theirs is the only plan that will control health care costs while finally achieving universal coverage.

The problem with incremental plans, whether they are public options, buy-ins to Medicare or Medicaid, or pumping more money into subsidies in the Affordable Care Act's individual marketplace, is that they preserve the private health insurance system weighing down our health care. [...]they are leaving the main reason for our system’s dysfunction in place: the multipayer, for-profit financing model.

Commercial insurance companies are nothing more than middle men. They add no value to our system, but they do drive up costs with their bloated claims departments, marketing and advertising budgets and executive salaries. We pay for all of these things before a single dollar is spent on the delivery of care.

They also create extra costs for providers who need large administrative staffs to deal with billing systems, accounting for as much as $100,000 per physician.

Any plans short of Medicare for All leaves these costs in place. In other words, they leave hundreds of billions of dollars a year in savings on the table.

[...]Gerald Friedman, a health care and labor economist, is an economics professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst and the director of The Hopbrook Institute.

Medicare For All

[Related]:
Democrats' promise of Medicare for All is remarkably misguided and unrealistic

Trump wants to drop a neutron bomb on Obamacare. Over to you, 2020 voters.

Take it from me, tweaks won't fix health care. Dems should focus on Medicare for All.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:54PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:54PM (#827007)

    Hahaha the Native Americans and minirities would like a word.

    The company town denizens would like out of their makeshift debtor's prison, and a host of other issues. Not all the abuses were done by government, but it required government intrrvention to stop the abuse. Get a fucking clue already mr. Series of Contracts.

  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:15PM (1 child)

    by RamiK (1813) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:15PM (#827155)

    I tend to agree. I'd also add women didn't have voting rights so not only was it a tyranny of the majority (which some argue to be a form of democracy), but it was in fact a tyranny of a minority. Add to that rail road tycoons and oil barons runnig around doing whatever they'd like and it's pretty clear that representation was completely dysfunctional even for that minor section of the population that had a voting right.

    The easiest way to qualify what's a democracy is to look at what got passed by the legislators and ask "Was it for the public good?" or at least, "Was it for the ruling majority's good?". Though lets face it, very few so-called-democracies pass this test.

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    compiling...
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:24PM (3 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:24PM (#827158) Journal

    Hahaha the Native Americans and minirities would like a word.

    Still true. Things didn't get better for them just because the US federal government grew bigger.

    The company town denizens would like out of their makeshift debtor's prison, and a host of other issues.

    Also irrelevant.

    Not all the abuses were done by government, but it required government intrrvention to stop the abuse.

    It doesn't require an order of magnitude growth in the size of government to do that. The original government was big enough.

    And what of the abuses that can only be caused by large governments such as a worldwide military invasions or a global surveillance program?

    • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:16AM (2 children)

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:16AM (#827388) Homepage Journal

      The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:22PM (1 child)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:22PM (#827417) Journal

        The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members

        Unless, of course, that isn't true. France in 1938 treated its most vulnerable much better than France of 1941 did. But the latter came from the corruption and divisiveness of the former. Virtue in this one narrow area turned out useless to the future survival of France.

        And since I Godwined this thread a little, I'll note that the US handles hate speech much better than Europe does. The latter creates a large class of vulnerable people who are persecuted merely for their speech and beliefs, which is much more serious IMHO than merely treating the physically and mentally handicapped somewhat less well.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:32PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:32PM (#827471)

          he latter creates a large class of vulnerable people who are persecuted merely for their speech and beliefs, which is much more serious IMHO than merely treating the physically and mentally handicapped somewhat less well.

          You nailed it brother! We need to protect freedom of speech and freedom of religion!

          Free Robert Bowers! Protect freedom of speech!

          Free Dylann Roof! Protect freedom of religion!

          We will create the America we deserve, and *no one* will replace us!