Single payer is drawing closer, and long overdue.

The truth of Medicare: Medicare operates at 6%...private health insurance operates at 20% plus...Medicare is more efficient. Don't believe the BS spread by insurance companies Medicare controls the cost of health care.

If we had a true free market in healthcare, no government involvement and no state barriers, everyone would have excellent healthcare for under $100 per month.

that's fine as long as doctors and hospitals will accept medicare.

that's true less and less today. want to drive 100 miles for your care?!

doctors are dropping out to do concierge medicine in ever greater numbers. no more medicare.

!!! Before you paint a picture that Doctors are dropping Medicare...
"Now, 81 percent of family doctors will take on seniors on Medicare, a survey by the American Academy of Family Physicians found. That figure was 83 percent in 2010. Some 2.9 percent of family doctors have dropped out of Medicare altogether."

Doctors don't have better with insurance setting rates for Doctors.

FPs are the special ed of the medical community. We had a heavy infestation of them teaching our "introduction to patient evaluation" classes in 1st year med school. When I got done with their force fed diet of "bio psycho social model" babble crap, I prayed every day I didn't wind up with grades bad enough that i'd be forced into a specialty like that. Fortunately, that didn't happen.

Orthopedists, ophthalmologists, radiologists are the brain trust of medicine. In a pinch, I might entrust my care to an internist, though the year I finished med school, those residencies didn't fill, so you aren't dealing with a quality product there. You might find a smart internist. But again, it's like buying a shirt at sears rather than brooks brothers. maybe a good one... maybe not.

If/when I have a problem severe enough to consult another doctor, i would never entertain the thought of seeing one of those. Not for a nanosecond. I wouldn't entrust my care to a C+ doctor, let alone one off from that.

As for medicare rates, versus private pay, in my own specialty you're talking $15/unit standard for medicare. Private pay insurance can be easily twice that, maybe more. That's why anesthesia for an open heart can be a third of what you can get for a private insurance labor epidural. And the skill sets required for these are in no way comparable. Welcome to health care economics.

why is it canadians who can afford it flee their single payer system to get care to the south...

Only the wealthy, which our system caters to.

That doesn't answer my question. Those who can afford to, flee their system.

For that matter, the doctors do too! I see lots and lots of canadian MDs (or their equivalent) practicing here. Never ever have I heard of a US MD going the other way.

What's long overdue is the government getting out of healthcare completely. Communists like yourself have no idea what you're talking about

Die waiting in line.

This is our CURRENT system. Except you have to fight to be allowed in the line.

so you'll have a nice shiny card saying you're insured that's good for nothing.

LOL! hoover institute!

"The Hoover Institution"

If you liked the great depression, you'll love us!

Why would any organization want to name itself after a LOSER like herbert hoover?
Can you imagine a future tRump Institute?

Even worse, it was founded in 1919 and kept the name even after living through, and learning nothing from, the great depression.

Republicans are big into failure. They really buy into the lost cause nonsense.

Yet the current administration supporters, believe the nonsense that the T$ deficit spending, is a good thing for the Country.

End the wars and tax the rich, problem solved.

A couple trillion dollars freed up could pay for M4A, college tuitions, daycare for working families etc.

And we’d have better, smarter people making even nicer things for everyone. Work smarter not harder.

rainbows, lollipops, and unicorn flatulence.

where'd you get these ideas? was that the apocalyptic socialistic doomsday cult that says we're all going to be dead in 12 years...

taxing the productive to fund crap like that is like cutting off your leg to eat for dinner because you feel hungry.

here's the knife.

You get my "living under a rock" of the week award. Congratulations indie.

Anytime you read an opinion like this, check the source. Partnership for America's Health Care Future is a lobbying group for health insurance companies. They are trying to come up with ridiculous arguments like what about "late enrollment fees"? They don't exist now, so why would they be added? "How would it affect the ACA or Medicaid"? It would decrease their costs, obviously, if fewer people are enrolled in those programs.

That’s THE HILL …. 98% wingnut opinion pieces. Then they sprinkle in An Alan Combs, middle of the road opinion piece.

Well, fact (FACT) show the US always prospering far more under taxing the wealthy..so well...yea..FACT.

End the wars, stop subsidizing green energy, tax no one.
Solved.

the only problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other peoples' money.

can't bring much in taxing the rich, so guess what?! you'll be "the rich".

how do ya like them apples?!

Consintration of wealth as the capilist system does ends up that way, it's coming to a end.

Let me guess, you aren't one of the so called rich that you advocate taxing more.

No, I am a middle class who pays far more than the rich do and I know this because I worked for an accountant. I paid more in % of income and in actual dollars than people with million dollar incomes.

No, amazingly only one out of 100 people belong to the 1%.

Let's see if your allegory is turned on today when you re read your post.

" the Hoover Institution."

So right-wingers. Party of Trump.

To be ignored on all subjects.

You can plug your ears and stomp your feet all day long.

Doesn't change the fact that you are running out of other people's money to pay for these things you want.

The math checks out. SS and Medicare are going broke and Medicare has about $100T in unfunded liabilities.

So how are you going to pay for that?

Magic?

Oh, your side never seems to have a problem finding other people's money to pay for things, so whine all you like, means nothing.

Soon sides won't matter.
A bankrupt nation will affect all.

They go to the printing press just like you.

They are not finding it. They are printing it.

That is how you eventual get a systemic collapse of your economy.

You can't pay for these things by printing money nor can you tax enough to pay for it either.

They are going broke. The sooner you be an adult and realize that the sooner you will not demand an expansion of it and instead shrink it or end it.

Funny, you never seem to care about this stuff when your side is in power.

Oh well.

The Medical Industrial Complex needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up. Just fiddling around the edges will do nothing. Too many vested interests with sacred cows. Slaughter them all and start a new herd.

That's not how ranching works

I am a business consultant. Many times I have gone into a business to help them improve their business processes. Sometimes, when the client has been dysfunctional for a long time, they have built band aid on top of band aid to 'fix' business process problems. Tinkering around the edges does little to improve things. You put in a huge effort to get a 5% improvement. Sometimes it's way better to just blow up the entire process and rebuild it from scratch. No sacred cows. Do what's right. Not what's politically expedient.

We have a healthcare system that could only be loved by the "the Hoover Institution" and Insurance companies for which they shill.

Hoover Institution is funded by big insurance companies.

And Scaife.

Foundations tied to Richard Mellon Scaife,
the Mellon banking heir who has helped to “fund the creation of the modern conservative movement in America” (Washington Post, 5/2/99), have bank-rolled the Manhattan Institute, AEI, Heritage, Hoover, Cato and CSIS.



Scaife sits on the boards of Heritage and the Hoover
Institution.

The research underlying this piece was supported by the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future.

--

Big Pharma, insurers, hospitals team up to kill Medicare for All
By Karl Evers-Hillstrom
March 7, 2019 5:23 pm
https://www.opensecrets.org...

Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (PAHCF), a group comprised of major drugmakers, insurance companies and private hospitals, has spent the last several months lobbying members of Congress, running online ads and working with the media to drive down popularity of Medicare for All, a single-payer health platform that continues to gain popularity in the Democratic party.

The partnership includes some of the biggest names in the healthcare industry, including the American Medical Association (AMA), Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), Federation of American Hospitals (FAH) and Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

All told, the members of the partnership have a lot of money and influence to spend on Capitol Hill. They spent a combined $143 million lobbying in 2018 alone, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

OLD NEWS THIS WAS TRUMPTURDS WATCH..WHO CARES NOW