Single Payer is "Only Solution"

[disrupter]

Single-payer plans the only solution

March 12, 2009

As recent Baltimore Sun articles have mentioned ("Health care plan outlined," March 5), both the federal and state governments are attempting to grapple with the health care crisis. However,

only one solution, single-payer universal health care ("Medicare for All"), would be truly universal and comprehensive for all.

Under such a system, coverage would not be tied to employment and the private care delivery system would remain intact.

Patients would be free to seek care from any licensed health care provider without financial penalties. Furthermore, U.S. health care costs, currently the highest in the world, would drop significantly as the huge profits and administrative costs of the insurance industry are eliminated.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. has introduced a single-payer bill in Congress, and there is also a single-payer bill before the General Assembly.

Other approaches, such as mandating purchase of insurance from private companies, would merely be giveaways to the insurance industry, would not cover everyone and could be fiscally irresponsible.Ted Weber Annapolishttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/letters/bal-2letter0312,0,7191917.story

It is only a letter from an American citizen,
rather than some corporate or political PAID pundit.

[foxbaron]

Why can't we have a simple system where everyone pays 200-300 dollars a month, per person, into one insurance pool. Then take all those that have paid in and equally divide them up between all the insurance companies and send their 200-300 dollars to that insurance company and require all companies to provide the exact same insurance coverage on everyone.

It could cover anything and everything or leave people the option to buy extra coverage at their own costs such as for cancer, heart disease or other catastophic illnesses that then might be actually affordable for most folks or increase the above costs to 400-500 a month and include everything.

Everybody keeps their own doctors and can go to any hospital they want and the government stays out of it other than to administer the program which might require maybe 50-60 people to divide folks up and assign them to an insurance company. The insurance companies then report to the government the amount of claims they have to pay during a calendar year and if one company is paying out considerably more than the others than just reassign healthier or younger people for that company for a period of time to equal things out.

It won't matter to the consumer because one insurance company will be the same as any other one because the costs will always be the same and the coverage will always be the same.

And all claims have to be paid at the going rate that the doctor or hospital charges for their services. No forcing the doctor to discount his rates. The rates must be reasonable for the service rendered but lucrative enough for doctors to want to participate in it.

Any doctor caught padding his bills and defrauding the insurance company loses his license to practice medicine, for life. No second chances. Any insurance company refusing to pay a claim or delaying in paying a claim is dropped out of the program, permanently.

The insurance companies get millions of additional clients at 200-500 a pop and the doctors and hospitals get paid a reasonable fee for their services, and get paid on time.

The only way we lose is if everyone gets sick at the same time which is pretty unlikely.

And also that 200-500 per person per month cost could be reduced for families. Maybe Mom and Dad pay the 200-500 and then 50-100 extra per month per kid so it is affordable for families. Seldom will everyone in the family all get sick at the same time anyway or even give Mom and Dad a bit of a break on their monthly costs too, because they are insuring their own group all at once.

Perhaps one fee per individual and one fee per family no matter how many in the family.

Don't tell me it isn't doable.

[foxbaron]

Why can't we have a simple system where everyone pays 200-300 dollars a month, per person, into one insurance pool. Then take all those that have paid in and equally divide them up between all the insurance companies and send their 200-300 dollars to that insurance company and require all companies to provide the exact same insurance coverage on everyone.

It could cover anything and everything or leave people the option to buy extra coverage at their own costs such as for cancer, heart disease or other catastophic illnesses that then might be actually affordable for most folks or increase the above costs to 400-500 a month and include everything.

Everybody keeps their own doctors and can go to any hospital they want and the government stays out of it other than to administer the program which might require maybe 50-60 people to divide folks up and assign them to an insurance company. The insurance companies then report to the government the amount of claims they have to pay during a calendar year and if one company is paying out considerably more than the others than just reassign healthier or younger people for that company for a period of time to equal things out.

It won't matter to the consumer because one insurance company will be the same as any other one because the costs will always be the same and the coverage will always be the same.

And all claims have to be paid at the going rate that the doctor or hospital charges for their services. No forcing the doctor to discount his rates. The rates must be reasonable for the service rendered but lucrative enough for doctors to want to participate in it.

Any doctor caught padding his bills and defrauding the insurance company loses his license to practice medicine, for life. No second chances. Any insurance company refusing to pay a claim or delaying in paying a claim is dropped out of the program, permanently.

The insurance companies get millions of additional clients at 200-500 a pop and the doctors and hospitals get paid a reasonable fee for their services, and get paid on time.

The only way we lose is if everyone gets sick at the same time which is pretty unlikely.

And also that 200-500 per person per month cost could be reduced for families. Maybe Mom and Dad pay the 200-500 and then 50-100 extra per month per kid so it is affordable for families. Seldom will everyone in the family all get sick at the same time anyway or even give Mom and Dad a bit of a break on their monthly costs too, because they are insuring their own group all at once.

Perhaps one fee per individual and one fee per family no matter how many in the family.

Don't tell me it isn't doable.

[Smurf-Herder]

Disrupter, EIGHT seperate fucking threads by you on Single Payer healthcare is ridiculous.

Eight threads on a single topic.

Get a fucking life.

[BlackAsCoal]

Single-payer plans the only solution

March 12, 2009

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/letters/bal-2letter0312,0,7191917.story

It is only a letter from an American citizen,
rather than some corporate or political PAID pundit.

I completely agree that single-payer is the only solution .. but that is not the solution the Obama Administration will undertake.

They are much too cowardly for such a bold move.

What we will get from Obama is healthcare tweaking, not real healthcare reform.

[disrupter]

Oops Smurf,

did i reflect the will of the American people too well?

& not the criminal elite who are doing a media & political blackout of single payer healthcare?

What we will get from Obama is MANDATES that enslave everyone to the corrupt, thieving lying insurance companies, & NOT any kind of actual healthcare.

More gross administrative costs,

more CEO bonuses for denying premium payer's health claims using lawyers.

What we have now is a sick system,
& the greedy insurance companies want the federal government to force everyone into their profit skimming schemes.

[Smurf-Herder]

Oops Smurf,

did i reflect the will of the American people too well?

& not the criminal elite who are doing a media & political blackout of single payer healthcare?

What we will get from Obama is MANDATES that enslave everyone to the corrupt, thieving lying insurance companies, & NOT any kind of actual healthcare.

More gross administrative costs,

more CEO bonuses for denying premium payer's health claims using lawyers.


What we have now is a sick system,
& the greedy insurance companies want the federal government to force everyone into their profit skimming schemes.

No, you're trying to shove it down our throats, when everything could be put in one thread under the main topic.

[Eagle1]

Single-payer plans the only solution

March 12, 2009

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/letters/bal-2letter0312,0,7191917.story

It is only a letter from an American citizen,
rather than some corporate or political PAID pundit.

Medicare a perfect example of why not to pursue single payer?

If you think health care is expensive now....Wait 'til it's free!

[Smurf-Herder]

You want to hear how well things are working in Massachusetts?

Everybody has to have healthcare - not free.

A friend's daughter up there works for Cole's Depatement Store. She has insurance she's paid into for a year. She now has huge medical bills for leg problems - because the insurance that Cole's offers for it's employees in Massachusetts isn't valid in Massachusetts.

This is the first I've heard of something like this and I don't know the all the details, except they're seeing a lawyer about it.

[disrupter]

See how insurance companies deny benefits at every turn.

& Massachusetts has a MANDATED, FORCED private healthcare system,

NOT single payer.

[Eagle1]

Massachusetts has a MANDATED, FORCED private healthcare system,



Gotta' love the libs. Mandated, forced....No thank you!

[Smurf-Herder]

See how insurance companies deny benefits at every turn.

& Massachusetts has a MANDATED, FORCED private healthcare system,

NOT single payer.

But this is the department store's problem. They must have known getting insurance for their nationwide chain wouldn't be valid in all states.

[Eagle1]

But this is the department store's problem. They must have known getting insurance for their nationwide chain wouldn't be valid in all states.

:lmao2: Love it!

[Smurf-Herder]

:lmao2: Love it!

I'm hoping they'll sue Cole's. It would be a class action suit involving everybody they employ in the state.

[disrupter]

Good thing we don't have single payer Smurf,

otherwise all this complicated patchwork of of non-standardized & incomplete & spotty coverage couldn't happen.

Ain't the complex private healthcare industry just great?

Not only does Cole's have to run their business,
they have to run a healthcare business on the side too.

Gotta love it.

Better than shivs under the fingernails.

[GetAClue]

Could someone define to me, WHO is the Single payer in a Single Payer system? Who has that kind of cash laying around. Must be Bill Gates. Yea, I'm all for that! Let Bill Gates pay for my insurance. I'm sure he won't mind.

[disrupter]

Eagle1,

The Massachusetts, forced, mandated healthcare system was created by that

arch conservative,

Mitt Romney

so, who, exactly isn't a 'liberal' in your little microscopic pea-brain?

[Moby]

Gotta' love the libs. Mandated, forced....No thank you!
You do know that Mitt Romney is a Republican and that he was the darling of Fox News while he was put this mandated system in place don't you? The forced insurance wasn't a lib thing. It was a Mitt Romney Republican thing.

[Moby]

I'm hoping they'll sue Cole's. It would be a class action suit involving everybody they employ in the state.
I thought a winger like yourself would be against class action suits and for tort reform.

[Eagle1]

Eagle1,

The Massachusetts, forced, mandated healthcare system was created by that

arch conservative,

Mitt Romney

so, who, exactly isn't a 'liberal' in your little microscopic pea-brain?

Silly me. I thought politics in Massachusetts have been dominated by the dems for decades.

By the way--I don't care who forces/mandates healhcare. It's a bad idea in my opinion. The idea is liberal by definition.

[Smurf-Herder]

I thought a winger like yourself would be against class action suits and for tort reform.

Not when there's an obviously valid case like this. Tort reform on frivilous suits, yes. But not in a case like this, where an entire class was defrauded; and the matter would be the subject of an investigation by the state Insurance Commissioner's office.

Who the hell is against class action law suits in general?

[Smurf-Herder]

Eagle1,

The Massachusetts, forced, mandated healthcare system was created by that

arch conservative,

Mitt Romney

so, who, exactly isn't a 'liberal' in your little microscopic pea-brain?

It was a bad idea. Healthcare costs were never addressed; and have risen 400%. I think Massachusetts is now running a multi-billion dollar deficit.