Bernie's Single Payer Health Care

[_Kevin Graham]

What exactly is the primary argument against it anyway?

Cost? It'll save us trillions.

Benefits? It'll save thousands of American lives.

[_subgenius]

Well first, people like you insist on calling it single payer when, in fact, it is a government-run system. Just like the one that Truman wanted, and eventually we got one...it's called medicare and medicaid...these are "single payer" systems...sooo..not sure why you think we don't already have it.
But, since you ask, I'll list 6...with the naïve hope that you are interested in actual answers and not just exercising your right to be dismissive in lieu of an argument.

1. Wait times (peer countries like UK and Canada experience over 3x wait periods for treatments, 6 months for vaccines and well child visits)
2. Doctor shortages. Already, due to recent patient increases, rural areas in the US are being under served. This is also manifest in peer countries.
3.Because of #2 above quality of care is influenced due to necessary rapid visits, prolonged waits, etc. Basically errors increase.
4. Government run systems diminishes competition and incentives for innovation and development.
5. Increases the argument of subsidized drug abuse
6. Increases government burden and bureaucracy.

See, you keep perpetuating the myth that a level playing field of coverage equates to an equal level of treatment..but..reality doesn't agree with your assumption.
So, forget about the money, that is the oldest and simplest distraction. The health industry doesn't need a new cash register or even a new cashier....learn the difference because the Bern and Hillary-us are betting that you wont.

[_Kevin Graham]

Well first, people like you insist on calling it single payer when, in fact, it is a government-run system.

No, it wouldn't be a "government-run system." Like you already said, we have single-payer in place, but does that mean all doctors who accept medicare/medicaid are "run" by the government? No. Private care would always be optional for the uber-wealthy who prefer their country-club style health care. Single-payer simply means exactly what it says. It should be self-explanatory, even for people who have trouble understanding when Christmas eve is.

Wait times (peer countries like UK and Canada experience over 3x wait periods for treatments, 6 months for vaccines and well child visits)

But not surprisingly, you're just propagating the usual myths.

As you can see below, wait times in socialized UK are actually better than in our privatized system, and we pay much more for healthcare than they do and they live longer.



Right Wingers love to bring up Canada because they're one of the worst and they hope everyone else is stupid enough to believe Canada can be used to describe all socialized medicine throughout the world. Or maybe it is just from them being used to the kind of short-ranged thinking that they're accustomed to after reading Brietbart all day. Either way, Canada's issue with wait times has more to do with Canada than anything else. Try spreading out 30 million people across an area larger than the USA and provide them all with timely healthcare. What you folks always ignore are the tremendous benefits (everyone gets covered no matter what sickness they have!). If Canada employed our system and effectively rejected one sixth of their population because they didn't have health insurance, then I'm quite sure wait times wouldn't improve dramatically. But I'm guessing people would prefer to wait a little longer and know they'll be taken care of at no cost to them, rather than go through the financial distress that usually accompanies all sicknesses by Americans. But hey, they may go bankrupt, but at least they got in that same day right?

The Waiting Times Myth - Dr. Christopher Hughes

Your claim about "rapid visits" is humorous because that is precisely what I get whenever I go to the doctor here in the great USA. When I broke my knee in Brazil, I didn't get the sense that I was being rushed at all. Then a second time when I broke two knuckles in my right hand, same experience all over again. I was a foreigner who showed them nothing more than a passport, and that was enough to get surgery on my right knee cap without even getting a bill! Did I have to wait a few hours? I can't remember, but I was probably so comfortable knowing I wasn't going to get financially hammered that I didn't even pay any attention to the wait time. The fact is the USA is the worst when it comes to spending enough time with a patient. I've been to the doctor once in the last five years, and it was for a physical (see below). The doctor rushed me through the process and when I tried to complain about pain in various parts of my body, I was told "yep, you're getting old" and then he explained that there was only so much he could do "in 15 minutes" because he had to tend to another patient I guess.

Government run systems diminishes competition and incentives for innovation and development

Private health care cannot compete with what the Government can do, that is for sure. But to say it diminishes incentives for innovation is crapola. The opposite is true. Some of the best medical innovations over the past century were made in publicly funded universities. Not in the labs owned by private corporations, which spend more money on marketing and securing patents for bogus drugs than anything else.


And yet more benefits to socializing medicine:






You were saying something about doctor shortages?

Here is a hilarious interview with a doctor in the UK who dispels a number of Right Wing myths.

[_The CCC]

By several metrics Canada does better than the US, and costs considerably less.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... ted_States

[_moksha]

It will cut many unnecessary insurance companies out of the loop and a well run system might balk at paying four times the price for medication than the rest of the world, so it would lower the pharmaceutical industry profits as well.

[_subgenius]

Well first, people like you insist on calling it single payer when, in fact, it is a government-run system.

No, it wouldn't be a "government-run system." Like you already said, we have single-payer in place, but does that mean all doctors who accept medicare/medicaid are "run" by the government? No. Private care would always be optional for the uber-wealthy who prefer their country-club style health care. Single-payer simply means exactly what it says. It should be self-explanatory, even for people who have trouble understanding when Christmas eve is.

ummm...medicare/medicaid is government run...completely.

Wait times (peer countries like UK and Canada experience over 3x wait periods for treatments, 6 months for vaccines and well child visits)

But not surprisingly, you're just propagating the usual myths.

As you can see below, wait times in socialized UK are actually better than in our privatized system, and we pay much more for healthcare than they do and they live longer.

I guess CCC and wikipedia and reality are also "perpetuating myths" - see CCC link up thread
"a 2010 Commonwealth survey found that 42% of Canadians waited 2 hours or more in the emergency room, versus 29% in the U.S.; 43% waited 4 weeks or more to see a specialist, versus 10% in the U.S"

The U.K (60%) and Canada (57%) had the highest numbers of persons who had to wait four weeks or more to get to see a specialist physician. In the U.S., only 23% reported a wait of four weeks or more for specialty care.

Only 8% of surveyed patients in the United States reported a wait time of four months or more for elective surgery, compared to 33% in Canada and 41% in the U.K
http://getbetterhealth.com/wait-times-f ... 2010.02.02

Waiting times at five-year high in British National Health Service
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10 ... l-o19.html

To bad the UK health system does not agree with your left-wing blogger.

"UK and Canada have worst wait times"
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/244716

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm165/dartagnanx/blog_healthcare_wait_times_zpstqqotmzg.jpg

Oh yea that is so convincing...so convincing.....so so....so convincing, posting unsubstantiated graphics from a liberal blog on this subject does not lend credibility to your argument nor does it actually prove anything, except that a blogger can make a graph....err, can skew a graph.
You see, when you look at the citation for that "blog" you see that the stats are not as you would like to present them....there is a reason that you only posted a graph of the "6 days or more" statistic...why you no post a graph of the "Same Day" wait times? It was available from the blogger's deeply buried source.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/conten ... nsion.html

Try spreading out 30 million people across an area larger than the USA and provide them all with timely healthcare.

But the US is a large country, much larger than the UK yet you want to compare the US to the UK but not Canada? What qualifies your argument for such geographical exception? Obviously the UK provides timely healthcare simply because of the significantly smaller area...so thanks, again.

The doctor rushed me through the process and when I tried to complain about pain in various parts of my body, I was told "yep, you're getting old" and then he explained that there was only so much he could do "in 15 minutes" because he had to tend to another patient I guess.

I believe i mentioned this "rapid consultation" up thread...a consequence of doctor shortages...thanks.

You were saying something about doctor shortages?

Once again you favor anecdote over actual fact. The shortages, as i noted, are more noticeable in rural areas which is why we see the statistics in the UK erroneously compared to the US - population densities and ease of access to non-rural areas skew whatever smoke you are trying to blow up my nether regions.
You can, as predicted, dismiss the doctor shortage but it is already occurring in the US, and no YouTube video or lop-sided-cherry-picked-oohhlookatthecolor-graphs can refute that actual fact.

[_ajax18]

It will cut many unnecessary insurance companies out of the loop and a well run system might balk at paying four times the price for medication than the rest of the world, so it would lower the pharmaceutical industry profits as well.

The US pays the cost of developing a drug while other countries copy it free from patent laws. It's effectively a wealth redistribution scheme that takes money from overconsuming wealthy Americans and gives it away to undeveloped nations. You should like it.

[_Kevin Graham]

ummm...medicare/medicaid is government run...completely.

No, it is government paid, not government run healthcare. A government run healthcare would be something akin to military/VA healthcare where all practitioners are employees of the government. There would be nothing under Sanders' plan to prevent doctors from providing private services.

I guess CCC and wikipedia and reality are also "perpetuating myths" - see CCC link up thread
"a 2010 Commonwealth survey found that 42% of Canadians waited 2 hours or more in the emergency room, versus 29% in the U.S.; 43% waited 4 weeks or more to see a specialist, versus 10% in the U.S"

How does that change the fact that other countries with socialized medicine mop the floors with us in those same categories? Their patients live longer and their government spends far less on healthcare. The common denominator here isn't socialized medicine, you're just pulling the usual stunt by focusing on one country and then engaging in the correlation = causation fallacy with no attempt at understanding the underlying causes. Canada's issues with this has more to do with Canada and nothing to do with it being socialized medicine. Their doctors have been writing about this for years, and their proposed solution has never been to privatize the system.

Only 8% of surveyed patients in the United States reported a wait time of four months or more for elective surgery, compared to 33% in Canada and 41% in the U.K
http://getbetterhealth.com/wait-times-f ... 2010.02.02

Again, these numbers are skewed because of the types of surgery we're talking about. None of these surgeries are emergency. That's what "elective" surgery means. It isn't a medical necessity. So tell me which is better. A granny who decided she is tired if riding the bed all year and wants to have her knees replaced. She has two options:

1. She can go with one system in which she has a 8% chance of waiting four months for surgery, and pay tens of thousands of dollars.

2. She can go with another system in which she has a 33% chance of waiting four months for surgery, and pay nothing.

You see, this is why your argument about wait times is a joke. The choice above is a no-brainer except for the dumbest of people. It isn't an emergency procedure, so there is no reason why waiting a few months should such a big deal.

To bad the UK health system does not agree with your left-wing blogger.

It isn't a "left wing blogger," it is the same data you relied on above from the Commonwealth Foundation. Maybe you should pay closer attention to the source at the bottom of the graphics. And the link you just posted said wait times were high in England and Canada but it was referring specifically to weekends and nights. It starts off saying the USA was among the worst: "A thorough study by the Commonwealth Fund, a US think tank, criticizes health-care systems in several countries, most notably highlighting flaws in the UK, Canada, U.S. and New Zealand."

Oh yea that is so convincing...so convincing.....so so....so convincing, posting unsubstantiated graphics from a liberal blog on this subject does not lend credibility to your argument nor does it actually prove anything, except that a blogger can make a graph....err, can skew a graph.

Uh, it is the same graph as this one:


As you can see, it wasn't pulled out of his ass. It came from the 2010 survey from Commonwealth Fund.

You see, when you look at the citation for that "blog" you see that the stats are not as you would like to present them....there is a reason that you only posted a graph of the "6 days or more" statistic...why you no post a graph of the "Same Day" wait times? It was available from the blogger's deeply buried source.

LOL. Seriously? So you lost on the 6 day wait issue and now you want to move the goal posts and focus on "same day" wait times?

Well let's take a look at the data from the link you provided. I'll even provide a screen shot to give you less wriggle room:



As you can see, only 57% of Americans were able to see a doctor within 48 hours. That's slightly better than Canada (45%) but not as good as the UK (70%), or France (62%) or Germany (66%) or Switzerland (93%).

Seriously, do you even bother to read this stuff or are you just on Rush Limbaugh auto pilot?

But the US is a large country, much larger than the UK yet you want to compare the US to the UK but not Canada?

You're the one who started comparing them. I'm simply demonstrating why you're babbling Right Wing talking points and have no true understanding about why these comparisons are dumb. I'll play your silly correlation = causation game just to prove the point that you're a hypocrite who doesn't really believe his own BS. If being privatized correlates to better wait times, then how do you explain socialized countries like Germany and France having superior wait times?

I know, I know. Reverse, pivot, and go back to bashing Canada, right?

What qualifies your argument for such geographical exception?

Common sense, along with reading about this over the years and listening to Canadian doctors explain why we hear of these horrible tales about people dying because they couldn't get timely healthcare. Living out in the tundra and living in Toronto is quite different. Virtually every informed article written on this subject by Canadians makes the point that these are exceptions, not the rule, and experiences vary depending on location. For instance:

"From a purely statistical standpoint, there are enough physicians in Canada to meet the health care needs of its people. But most doctors practice in large urban areas, leaving rural areas with bona fide shortages. This situation is no different than that being experienced in the U.S. Simply training and employing more doctors is not likely to have any significant impact on this specific problem. Whatever issues there are with having an adequate number of doctors in any one geographical area, they have nothing to do with the single-payer system."

Obviously the UK provides timely healthcare simply because of the significantly smaller area...so thanks, again.

If you would read your own articles you would notice that they actually explain the reasons for the recent increase in wait times, and it has to do with politics. Thanks to the global economy taking a nosedive Britain has taken austerity measures that includes cutting funding for NHS by 20%. That's really all it amounts to.

When you fire thousands of nurses and doctors, your wait times are obviously going to go up.

I believe i mentioned this "rapid consultation" up thread...a consequence of doctor shortages...thanks.

Yes, you suggested that is what would happen if we went single payer, but patients in other single payer countries spend more time with their doctors than Americans do. You just glossed over that fact.

[_Themis]

It will cut many unnecessary insurance companies out of the loop and a well run system might balk at paying four times the price for medication than the rest of the world, so it would lower the pharmaceutical industry profits as well.

The US pays the cost of developing a drug while other countries copy it free from patent laws. It's effectively a wealth redistribution scheme that takes money from overconsuming wealthy Americans and gives it away to undeveloped nations. You should like it.

UMM NO. Learn first before making up beliefs.

[_Themis]

As you can see, only 57% of Americans were able to see a doctor within 48 hours. That's slightly better than Canada (45%) but not as good as the UK (70%), or France (62%) or Germany (66%) or Switzerland (93%).

When it comes to size and population Canada can maybe be compared with Australia. Most Canadians can see a Doctor within hours if they want to. I could call right now my family Doctor and probably get an appointment later today. If not I could just walk into that clinic or another and wait for the next doctor within an hour or two. That's the reality for Most Canadians but not all. Some live in areas to small and spread out that seeing the doctor will take more time and planning just due to geography.

As we can see other western countries including Canada do better overall then the US and spend much less money doing so. That doesn't mean their systems are perfect or that they are not always in flux. The issue here is about whether a single payer system paid for by government is better then a private system. Comparing things like wait times doesn't really show whether one system is better then another. You have to get into real specifics on whether a single payer or private system is even affecting wait times or other parts of health care.

Some things we see is that western countries all have universal health care systems except the US and they pay less while getting better results on average. Also a single payer system does not necessarily mean the free market system is not a part of the system or that the private system in the US does not have Government paying some of the costs of health care. My doctor is not an employee of the government but works for a private clinic, as do most Doctors, and I can see any other Doctor if I don't like the one I have now.

One of the main things that makes health care more expensive in the US is the insurance industry. They make a lot of money off your health care money without providing the actual health care.