Obama will 'consider' Single Payer health insurance.

[SirNitram]

Link

[quote]Barack Obama said he would consider embracing a single-payer health-care system, beloved by liberals, as his plan for broader coverage evolves over time.

“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,â€

[Destructionator XV]

And many Democrats, including Obama and former rival Hillary Clinton, have taken a much more moderate approach.

More like much more ineffective approach. Fucking pussies.

Of course, as it's the WSJ, it immediate vomits out the canard about single payer systems eliminating private insurance companies.

In the bill Dennis Kucinich is behind that got me excited, it would eliminate private insurance; it included a clause saying that no one can offer a directly competing insurance service. It could cover stuff not covered by the bill, but that wasn't much - its proposed government system was quite comprehensive.

Even if that clause were removed, I don't understand how an evil private insurance plan could possibly survive against such a comprehensive government system. You'd be paying for the government program anyway through your taxes, so why would anyone willingly continue to buy into a private plan?

[SirNitram]

Kuniuch's bill is exactly why it's a lie. It eliminates competition for the stuff Single Payer covers. This means that everything else.. Every elective not covered, every pill too untested to sponsor, brand-name pills(If the law is written -sensibly-, they'll demand generics), cosmetics, etc. All these can be covered by private insurance. They'd also be able to offer superior accomodations in hospitals, I expect. But the bargain-basement insurance most get? Yes, out on their asses. Redundancy and profit-clipping(Indeed, what would stop an unscrupulous company from simply charging to get you your normal card?).

[frigidmagi]

Okay maybe I'm reading a different article or misunderstanding what's he saying?

But from what I'm reading he's saying that if he could start from nothing he would go with single payer, but as of right now either he couldn't get it done (which is frankly possible I doubt it would make it through the Senate) or that the interm between getting it running and what we got would cause to much suffering and such and that he needs to take care of people now.

Now I'll be frank. I don't bloodly well like the idea of government run health care, my support for it is grudging and based pretty much on the fact that private industry medicine doesn't work. That's it. For me this isn't the shiney bright new idea, it's the pill we're taking because nothing else worked.

That said I have no desire to shut down the insurance industry. Declaw/Deball it yes. Get it out of politics yes. As for making them illegal I am steadfastly against it. If the government program is that great it's unnecessary. They'll go out business "naturally" so to speak. And it's better to do it that way then shove thousands of people out of work all at once. Not to mention with a actual working government program people won't be suffering while this is going on, so why insist on it?

By the way D-15 reign it in man.

[Destructionator XV]

The advantage of eliminating them outright is to simplify the billing process for the doctors. If there was only one or two payment options (Medicare or maybe cash), the paperwork would be easier to fill out. Instead of bothering with a multitude of different plans and providers, they just deal with one or two, thus cutting costs.

If the government program is that great it's unnecessary. They'll go out business "naturally" so to speak.

This is what I expect to happen, so it would be a fair compromise. The initial cost is probably going to be higher than ideal as the transition happened anyway, so simplifying the billing process isn't a huge priority.

[General Havoc]

I tend to agree with Frigid on the subject of government-sponsored Health insurance. I take the libertarian-conservative view that the government has no business doing anything except those things that only the government can do. I don't know if the government is the only organization that can manage health insurance, but I know that our current patchwork of private companies and medicare does a piss-poor job and it's time to try the government option. It is not a perfect solution, in fact it's a shitty solution, but there we are.

However I am adamantly against the idea of legislating that nobody is allowed to compete with a government-run program. I fully expect that most major health insurance providers will either have to retool completely or go out of business, but to legislate against competition is to remove any incentive for the government program to actually be efficient or effective. Medicare is presently among the most efficient health care systems in the world, and I'd rather prefer that it remain that way. I would also rather that people with means not be prohibited from seeking to ease their own suffering and pain or that of their families with un-usual treatment styles, experimental drugs, or other things that no government health care system can provide.

The government is no less evil than the private corporations. I will not have a dysfunctional industry replaced with an equally dysfunctional (but more implacable) government system.

[SirNitram]

Competition is allowed for superior services and coverage. It's something of a very-well circulated lie otherwise.

[frigidmagi]

The advantage of eliminating them outright is to simplify the billing process for the doctors. If there was only one or two payment options (Medicare or maybe cash), the paperwork would be easier to fill out. Instead of bothering with a multitude of different plans and providers, they just deal with one or two, thus cutting costs.

In this case they can suck it up and just deal with it.