Single Payer Solution
Submitted by early-bird on April 25, 2008 - 4:45pm.
Health Care | Single Payer Solution
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/83420/
EXCERPT
Pushing the Single-Payer Solution
By Amy Goodman
April 24, 2008
It's time for the candidates to stop dancing around real health-care reform and get behind a single-payer system.
As the media coverage of the Democratic presidential race continues to focus on lapel pins and pastors, America is ailing. As I travel around the country, I find people are angry and motivated. Like Dr. Rocky White, a physician from a conservative, evangelical background who practices in rural Alamosa, Colo. A tall, gray-haired Westerner in black jeans, a crisp white shirt and a bolo tie, Dr. White is a leading advocate for single-payer health care. He wasn't always.
He told me in a recent interview: "Here I am, a Republican, thinking about nationalizing health care. It just went against the grain of everything that I stood for. But you have to remember: I didn't come to those conclusions with lofty ideals of social justice."
In the early 1990s, his medical group started falling apart. White, a keen student of economics and the business of medicine, determined that it wasn't just his practice but the system that was broken.
"You're seeing an ever-increasing number of people starting to support a national health program. In fact, 59 percent of practicing physicians today believe that we need to have a national health program. I mean, that's unheard of, even 10 years ago. It's amazing to see a new generation of physicians coming up who are disgusted with our current health-care system. You know, we're trained to be advocates of patients, we're trained to save lives, we're trained to practice medicine. And instead, what we're doing is we're practicing Wall Street economics."
Single-payer is not to be confused with universal coverage, which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both support. In fact, in a recent debate, when Clinton raised the issue of single-payer, the audience interrupted with applause. She immediately countered, "I know a lot of people favor [it], but for many reasons [it] is difficult to achieve."
Why? One of the most powerful industries in the country opposes it -- the insurance industry. Under universal coverage, insurance profits are preserved. Under single-payer, they are not. Dr. Rocky White, who now sits on the board of the nonprofit Health Care for All Colorado, has switched his political affiliation. He also has updated and reissued Dr. Robert LeBow's book on single-payer called Health Care Meltdown: Confronting the Myths and Fixing Our Failing System.
He described possible solutions: "There are a lot of different types of single-payer systems -- you could have purely socialized medicine. That's kind of like what England has. The government owns the hospitals, the government owns the clinics, the government finances all the health care, and all the doctors work for the government. That is truly socialized medicine, as opposed to the Canadian system, where the financing comes through their Medicare program, but all the doctors are in private practice."
The economics are complex, but this plain-spoken country doctor explains it clearly:
"You know, this industry is a $2-trillion industry, and the profits in the for-profit insurance industry are so huge and it's so deeply entrenched into Wall Street ... but until we move to a single-payer system and get rid of the profit motive in financing of health care, we will not be able to fix the problems that we have."
"I think that our current presidential candidates understand that ideally single-payer would be the best, but they don't have the political will to move that forward. Their job is to feel which way the wind is blowing. Our job is to turn that wind."
Dear Friend:
I am very concerned about pharmaceutical products showing up in drinking water. As Chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works, I recently held a hearing about this problem.
If you would like to read my opening statement or any of the testimony offered at the hearing, you can use this link to take you to the Environment and Public Works website feature on the hearing. You will also find a link to video of the hearing.
In the coming weeks and months, I will be working with my Senate colleagues to find solutions to this problem, which poses serious threats to our drinking water.
Sincerely,
Barbara Boxer
United States Senator
Until we have universal health care: John Edwards believed we have the collective power to strip Congress of their taxpayer subsidized health care.
and that includes excessive profits as well as excessive costs.
Hillary's plan uses the power of the Federal government to select contractors, together with the competition of the marketplace to reduce waste in the healthcare industry.
She does this by requiring annual competitive bidding for the only health insurance purchasers she would subsidize - namely those who bought policies offered by the Federal Employees Health program.
One of the very good reasons that Single Payer plans reduce waste is because unnecessary duplication of health insurance companies is removed from the system.
Over time, hillary's plan would have a similar effect, as more and more people opted to buy their insurance through the excellent and relatively lower cost FEHP. That would greatly reduce the numbers of people paying premiums to other health insurers who were less competitive, hence causing many of them to leave the business.
Make no mistake. Hillary's plan is a giant step in the direction of Single Payer. And in theory at least, it could actually be better than Single Payer due to the fact that it would preserve some competition in the leaner and more responsive health insurance companies that survive the transition.
http://securingamerica.com/ccn/node/14870
Nick Kelly
Wes Clark could still secure America as a national security candidate.
you mentioned on the thread long time ago if I remember correctly that you were a whistle blower and had a hard time getting a job after that; is that the nursing job? well since you already did the right thing if it doesn't get you further in jeopardy why not discuss it to help people understand the waste and fraud in nursing homes
Until we have universal health care: John Edwards believed we have the collective power to strip Congress of their taxpayer subsidized health care.
make the blog - sure it will be useful and interesting every time someone stands up to do something for the common good it gives encouragement for another person to do the same if called to do it;
McCain visiting places devastated by seven years of GOP policies is like an arsonist turning up at the scene of the fire. - Paul Begala
One trip to ER, followed by three days in a hallway divided up with curtains. Also known as the 'observation unit.'
Six rounds of antibiotics, one begged for sleeping pill.
$11,000 dollars.
Wow.
was you or yours best wishes for however you need to use them;
it is incredible corporate insurance war of attrition against American citizens; the stories of people with insurance paid up premiums being denied health services is BADDDDDD and the stories of illness without coverage is WORSE......
GOP Leo Streuss & neocon ideology & social darwinism & shock doctrine capitalism & the ownership society = meaning 'you are on your own'
http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2008/04/wall-street-continues-to-be.html
EXCERPT
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Wall Street Continues to Be Disappointed in Managed Care--Just Where Did They Think It Was Headed in the First Place?
United Health's earnings and revenue grew by 7% this quarter year over year and the stock fell by almost 10% yesterday.
I'd hate to see them really screw up.
United is the first to admit that they have some service and persistency issues but the fundamentals of their business continue on track.
Wellpoint followed with another disappointing report today.
Wall Street finally seems to be figuring out that the health insurance business is, and has been for years, on a long walk off a short pier. What's sustainable about a business whose costs have continually exploded at 2-3 times the growth rate of the rest of the economy or the wage rate? Just where did Wall Street think this business was headed all those years the sector has been the darling of Wall Street?
Perhaps most telling was the recent comment by one analyst in the Wall Street Journal, "What we're seeing is a market that's gotten so mature and beyond its customer that people can literally no longer afford to buy the product," said Sheryl Skolnick, an analyst with CRT Capital Group. "The number of uninsured is growing faster than any player in the game, and it's getting bigger at the expense of the Uniteds, the WellPoints."
Ya, and it was five years ago.
Allow me to let you in on another gem Ms. Skolnick--and the other health care analysts out there: Pet Stark is getting ready to slash those fat private Medicare payments and either a Democratic president or one of the only Republican Senators to vote against the whole thing in the first place isn't going to veto it the next time around (that would be any nano second past noon on January 20, 2009). And, that's after the growth in these private Medicare products has already started to level off.
We are way past the time the really smart people on Wall Street (that would be all of you) needed to start asking just what the future of this business is. If the answer you get is that the future of managed care is just to ride an unsustainable health care cost trend rate many more years into the future you might just want to dig a little deeper this time.
http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2008/04/health-plan-stock-prices-hard-hit.html
EXCERPT
Will John McCain defend the terrific private payments the 2003 Medicare Act has given the health plans?
Well, McCain was one of the only Republicans to vote against the private Medicare legislation calling it a big boondoggle.
United, Wellpoint, and Aetna have only a single digit percentage of their profits tied up in the private Medicare Advantage business. Good for them.
Humana and Universal American have a whole lot more--Humana about half it its profits.
Humana and Universal American have both lost about half of their market cap in recent weeks because of earnings worries in the wake of disappointing news from both. But what about the political risk they are taking?
Doesn't look like John McCain has the same attachment to the 2003 Medicare Act George Bush has had.
Until we have universal health care: John Edwards believed we have the collective power to strip Congress of their taxpayer subsidized health care.
Until we have universal health care: John Edwards believed we have the collective power to strip Congress of their taxpayer subsidized health care.