posted by perkiset on Jun 29
So, you think you’re in danger of losing control of your healthcare decisions because the government might get involved? Who do you think is really making your decisions now?
Right now, unless you pay cash for everything you do (in which case you’re paying WAY too much, but I’ll address that later) your health care decisions are not made by your doctor. They are not even made by you. They are made by the for-profit insurance companies. Understand: they are playing a legalized form of craps and your health is not even on the table. Essentially they are betting that they can take more money from people than they’ll need to pay out in medical fees. So if you start to get expensive, or if your health gets in the way of their profits, YOU WILL BE DUMPED. Make no mistake about it, your health is not a function of your health - it is a function of their P&L.
The Republicans that are in staunch opposition (as well as the Blue Dogs) to health care reform and specifically a single-payer option are on that side because A) health costs are an excellent way to perpetuate a caste society and B) they don’t want to damage the profits of the insurance companies. On one hand, they say that a single payer option will be too awesome and the insurance companies will not be able to compete, on the other they say that the government can’t do anything right. So if you take that at face value, a government option will be horrible and the current private option is worse. Or, it’s nonsensical horsepoop and big money politics. You decide.
The Republicans also want us to focus on Canada as what a public option looks like - and although Canada is not a perfect system, it is far from horrible. In any case though, no one is talking about that kind of option. The best minds are focused on France’s single-payer system, which is arguably the best in the world today. And they insure 100% of the population. And they pay WAY WAY less per capita and per GDP than we do. And they have a considerably higher life expectancy. And they have a considerably lower infant mortality rate. And they have a WAY high customer satisfaction index.
Now this option will not work if we don’t have pretty significant legal reform as well, which is another reason why health care costs so much. That will be addressed next. But for now consider this simple thought: If you didn’t have to pay for health insurance, yet you had world-class care, how much more tax would you be willing to pay for that? In my case, about $1600/month (what I pay for my BC/BS premiums). Or how much more could your employer pay you if he no longer had to pay for either your health insurance OR workman’s comp (which would no longer be required)? You see? The lie is to tell you about the costs without talking about the benefits or balancing savings.
Are you ready to talk about health and not protecting insurance companies? Are you ready to talk financial reality? Are you ready to look at other countries in the world and see how we can be better? Are you prepared to address the fact that, despite being one of the highest costing health care countries in the world, we are 50th in terms of real benefit and health … just behind Morocco. Honestly. When you’re tired of throwing your health care dollars at the insurance companies and would prefer, instead, to receive health care for them, then let’s talk.
The single payer option: It’s about time.
