Universal health care has saved other countries billions while insuring everyone, yet Republicans can't wrap their ideologically limited minds around the benefits.
Well, we finally have the definitive CBO study, with 5 different scenarios. I've written a lot about health care in the past, but nothing like this have been done researched so thoroughly. Thankfully, because Trump's daily disasters out of the way, this has surfaced. Now we know.
Republicans Refuse to Save $42 billion to $743 billion in 2030 alone!!! No, Really: Here's the breakdown...
The most exhaustive study on Medicare for All just came out (n Dec.). The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an estimate of the cost of implementing a single-payer health insurance program in the United States. Its conclusion: a single-payer system would guarantee health insurance to all people while reducing overall health spending by hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
1. The CBO answered these questions for four different single-payer designs and found that a single-payer system would save $42 billion to $743 billion in 2030 alone.
2. The CBO option that most closely approximates current Medicare for All proposals is Option 3, which features low payment rates and low cost-sharing. That option produces $650 billion of savings in 2030. Adding Long Term Service and Supports to that option, which also approximates what many current Medicare for All proposals do, looks like it would bring the savings down to around $300 billion.
3. Medicare for All advocates have historically pointed towards the 2 percent administrative costs of traditional Medicare as what we should expect in a Medicare for All system. Yet, private Medicare Advantage plans have a similarly sick and elderly enrollment population, but manage to spend a whopping 13.7 percent of their revenue on administrative expenses. Thus, the payer administrative costs we could expect under single-payer are not the 6 percent touted by Urban and Mercatus. They are not even the 2 percent of the traditional Medicare program. Rather, they are more like 1.5 to 1.8 percent. These other estimates are therefore missing hundreds of billions of dollars of savings per year on this item alone.
4. The barriers to the policy are not technical deficiencies or costs, but rather political opposition from Republicans and conservative Democrats who would rather spend more money to provide less health care.
The Covid-19 pandemic is the system shock exposing every wrong Republican policy bragged about for the last 20 years. Wisconsin's Scott Walker was a walking/talking checklist of right-wing clichés and truisms. We now have real world proof our gerrymanders Republican overlords were wrong about almost everything. Let's take a look.
First, shouldn't we start by determining the actual minimum cost to run state government, build in cost of living increases per year, and then spend surplus revenue (profit) on improvements and debt before ever cutting taxes. Not paying for health care, transportation, state parks, clean water, and education doesn't actually save money as we're finding out. Note: Democrats opposed every failure below, and they're the extreme party?
It Starts with Tax Cut Madness: Returning money back to overtaxed Wisconsinites, saying it's their money and not the governments sounded so ridiculous and resentful. Below I've listed the most recent examples of backfilling their failed policy. First, Rep. Robin Vos with the same logic that W. Bush used to take tax surplus dollars that would have balanced the US budget 15 years ago, and the reason he kinda "won" (close/supreme court):
All Failed Ideological Theories...
1. RETURNED FUNDING to STATE PARKS: Republicans cut taxpayer funding that supported our state parks, using only admission fees. Didn't work:
________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. CUT UW SURPLUS/NO STATE FUNDING TO BACKFILL TUITION FREEZE: They must think running state colleges is magical. What now after the pandemic?
Plus, No estimate for the collective financial loss of its 26 campuses, some of which were grappling with multimillion-dollar deficits before the coronavirus even emerged. Republican lawmakers vowed to freeze UW System tuition, seizing on a report that shows the system has amassed a huge $414 million surplus of tuition dollars … only about $82 million isn’t committed to a specific purpose … citing dwindling state aid and the need to recruit and retain top-tier faculty with competitive compensation packages.
__________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. PAID SICK LEAVE REPEALED STATEWIDE: Big government Republicans didn't like Milwaukee's voter approved sick leave benefit, so they passed a one-size-fits-all ban statewide. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed why that was a bad decision and why other countries have paid sick leave:
Level of Compensation Required for Paid Sick Leave. Covered employers are required to pay every employee who takes emergency paid sick leave at a rate of compensation no less than the employee’s “regular rate” of pay (as that term is defined under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. OPPOSITION TO UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE/MEDICARE FOR ALL: With over 26 million uninsured still, and at twice the cost of other nations, there's nothing "fiscally conservative" or morally justifiable for not having universal health care, as recently documented here...
5.TAX CUTS, IMAGINE THE PAINFUL SPOT WE'D BE IN NOW: From an earlier post:
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a major $250 million Republican-led tax-cut package that would have used unanticipated revenues to reduce the average taxpayer’s income tax bill by $106. The veto came one year and a week after Evers' first veto, which was of a similar income tax cut passed by Republicans.
Eh, Sen. Scott Fitzgerald plays down what was always a Bad Idea: The COVID-19 outbreak exposed the GOP again, but did they notice? Nope. Republicans don't govern, they simply pass ideologically driven ideas, devoid of any real world connection to the consequences of their actions.
Another question is how much the coronavirus, paired with a national economic slowdown, could affect the state budget — A recession would likely erase the surplus. “That’s definitely on our minds,” Republican Sen. Scott Fitzgerald said. “Hindsight is 20-20, but that projection could change dramatically, and as a result of that, things could be a lot tighter than where we thought they were.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. NO RURAL BROADBAND URGENCY: With closed schools now online, guess what, no internet or deathly slow.
Already, Wisconsin lags behind the national average in broadband coverage. An estimated 43% of Wisconsin’s rural residents lack access to high-speed internet, compared to about 31% of rural residents nationwide, according to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin. “We have such a long ways to go,” said state Sen. Jeff Smith, a Democrat who has tried unsuccessfully to increase the state’s investment in broadband.
From an earlier blog post: It all started when Walker turned down $23 million in stimulus money to expand broadband everywhere in the state. Like the Journal Sentinel wrote in this Feb. 18, 2011 editorial:
The state is turning down $23 million because state taxpayers would have been on the hook for the entire amount if the state could not meet the grant's precise requirements, Mike Huebsch, secretary of the state Department of Administration, said in a memo to school and library associations. "This is simply not an acceptable risk," Huebsch wrote. Actually, it is. High-speed Internet is part of the necessary infrastructure that is vital to communities that want to grow. The state will get there anyway, but this money could have speeded up the journey.
7. PANDEMIC FORCES GOP TO ELIMINATE PUNISHING UNEMPLOYMENT WAITING PERIOD: Well, we could have saved a lot of time and a lot of jobless pain if this bad idea never made it into law. Guess Vos/Fitzgerald were wrong again:
Under current law, workers do not receive unemployment
benefits for their first week of unemployment, effectively denying them one
week of benefits. Lawmakers support eliminating the waiting period for at least
the rest of the year. “People need help right now that lost their job,” Fitzgerald
said. Evers has been pushing for the elimination of the one-week
waiting period, which he originally included in his 2019-21 state budget
request.
8. A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT STRAIGHTJACKET, NOW, DURING A PANDEMIC?: Imagine if the federal government were blocked from spending $2 trillion-$4 trillion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet Republicans like Scott Walker are unfazed and undeterred. This is beyond tone deaf, it's sociopathic. Besides, the truth is, TAX CUTS ARE DRIVING DEFICITS.
Believe it or not, Walker tweeted this jaw-dropping demand for a balanced budget amendment...today:
We know Republicans will never increase spending or taxes, heck they didn't want to spend anything to help the COVID-19 affected unemployed. Will some reporter please interview Walker, and get his take the points below. From a previous blog post:
1. Many economists say federal deficit spending can be necessary to fund wars, combat economic recessions or respond to natural disasters. 2. Matt Rothschild, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign said, "It's like the economy has cancer and you won't let the economy get chemotherapy or radiation, it's like the economy has diabetes and you won't give the economy insulin — you'd be killing the economy." 3. Democratic lawmakers as well as the John Birch Society, a far-right advocacy group say a balanced budget amendment would make it harder for the federal government to respond to economic downturns and natural disasters. 4. EPI: A balanced budget amendment would mandate perverse actions in the face of recessions. In economic downturns, tax revenues fall and some outlays, such as unemployment benefits, rise. These so-called built-in stabilizers increase the deficit but limit declines of after-tax income and purchasing power. To keep the budget balanced every year would aggravate recessions. Unlike many state constitutions, which permit borrowing to finance capital expenditures, the federal budget makes no distinction between capital investments and current outlays. Private businesses and households borrow all the time to finance capital spending. 5. It would prevent federal borrowing to finance expenditures for infrastructure, education, research and development, environmental protection, and other investment vital to the nation's future well being. 6. It would invite Congress to enact unfunded mandates, requiring states, localities, and private businesses to do what it cannot finance itself. It also invites dubious accounting maneuvers (such as selling more public lands and other assets and counting the proceeds as deficit-reducing revenues), and other budgetary gimmicks. 7. Disputes on the meaning of budget balance would likely end up in the courts, resulting in judge-made economic policy. So would disputes about how to balance an unbalanced budget when Congress lacks the votes to inflict painful cuts. 8. An overall spending cap would further limit Congress’s ability to fight recessions. Even during expansions, a binding spending cap could harm economic growth because increases in high-return investments — even those fully paid for with additional revenue — would be deemed unconstitutional if not offset by other spending reductions. A binding spending cap also would mean that emergency spending (for example on natural disasters) would necessitate reductions elsewhere, leading to increased volatility in the funding for non-emergency programs. 9. The budget not only attained balance, but actually recorded surpluses and reduced debt, for four consecutive years … Between 1998 and 2000, President Bill Clinton’s Treasury Department paid off more than $360 billion in debt. As a result of 115 straight months of economic expansion that began after an increase in the top income tax rate — which was virulently opposed by the right — the huge deficits left by 12 years of Republican rule had been transformed into a surplus. Within months after taking office George W. Bush had begun to turn that surplus back into deficits that grew and grew, despite funding two wars on emergency supplemental bills that were not figured into the budget.
Why aren't Democrats exposing the U.S. Covid-19 pandemic as a private health care market failure?
"The system is not really geared to what we need right now, what you are asking for. That is a failing. Let's admit it. The fact is, the way the system was set up, the public health component that Dr. Redfield was talking about, was a system where you put it out there in the public and a physician asks for it and you get it. The idea of anybody getting it easily the way people in other countries are doing it — we're not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes. But we're not."
This proves we need universal health care/Medicare4All, like every other country, readily adaptable to coronavirus testing and public access for everyone.
Why has only one person come out with the obvious?:
That brought out the usual right-wing Debbie Downers spewing the usual psychopathic nonsense, that allows for...ready for it, an acceptable amount of deaths, because cars kill people all the time:
A National Health Care System for "the Public Good" Pt.1: We're the only country that doesn't think so. To the monied elite, it's a privilege, as Dumb Ron Johnson recently bragged. Even worse, he coldly asking if food is a right, is shelter a right...not if there's money to be made, right Ron? Yea, he's not too bright either:
And then this happened...ironic?:
And then this happened to...Scott Walker:
A National Health Care System for "the Public Good" Pt. 2: Why is a national health care system better than our current expensive Rube Goldberg system of mazes, networks, copays, deductibles, preapprovals, exceptions, benefit packages, surprise bills, outrageous drug prices, work requirements...etc. The answer is simple. Sadly, it took a pandemic to get there. From Marketplace.org:
COVID-19 has prompted many experts to point out that health insurance and preventative care are really “public goods,” resources that everyone uses and shares for everyone else’s benefit. “We all have a vested interest in making sure that everybody around us is seeking appropriate medical care at the right time.” - Dan Mendelson, founder of healthcare advisory consultancy Avalere Health.
The US-based twin paid $14,000 for her treatment in addition to the $3,500 premium she paid her insurance company annually, and the UK-based twin paid nothing. Navigating the system was still a maze of negotiating costs and being overbilled. Health experts say this is typical of America's system. The two sisters wrote a case study of their experience for medical journal BMJ, with the goal of informing people what negotiating with the American healthcare system is like, even what was widely considered to be good insurance. Nancy was a government employee who used private healthcare...some doctors refused to work with her insurance. Some appointments required her to call the billing offices and negotiate. Nora signed just three pieces of paper to consent to the three surgeries she had: two lumpectomies and a double mastectomy. Nora took six weeks off to have a double mastectomy in 2014, and was encouraged by her boss to take off more time if she needed to. Nancy says she could only take two weeks off work. The stress of mounting bills and paperwork gave Nancy high blood pressure (which brought more bills and paperwork) Halfway through her radiation treatments, Nancy received a bill for $40,000. It was a billing error, but in the weeks it took the hospital to decipher their mistake, Nancy began to think about mortgaging her home. "How much education you have is irrelevant because the system is just set up to be baffling," said Nancy. Nora described US healthcare as a grocery store: someone (the insurer) plants themselves in front of the store and declares that nobody can buy food unless they paying them first, with a 100% markup. That store clerk will decide what you can and can't eat, and how much you will pay for it. If you don't like it, you can go to a food bank or starve.
One more reason - Protection from a Moron President. The Trump administration rejected proven test kits from the World Health Organization, which delayed the eventual release of what turned out to be defective US test kits. Trump chose to reinvent the wheel, and for what?:
The
two health care points the public isn't hearing enough about, and might be
considered "fear mongering" by some...
1. The exposed deadly problem of not having universal health insurance when it comes to epidemic and pandemic disease threats.
2. And the Supreme Court deciding the ACA is unconstitutional. Consider the irrational panic Americans are feeling right now about moving to Medicare4All, and the horror of losing their current insurance policy which unfairly limits your choices, the network your in, the covered treatments, prices you pay and requires copays and deductibles. The latter might be what we'll end up with:
If the Supreme Court rules the ACA unconstitutional, it will substantially disrupt the U.S. health system and could eliminate insurance coverage for millions of Americans.
The Biden Effect: Joe Biden plans to add a Medicare4All option into the ACA Marketplace, the worst possible negotiating starting position. An ACA repeal by the Supreme Court would make it so easy to convince everybody to adopt Medicare4All, but Biden thinks that's too radical.
Democratic Fail...Again! Covid19 screams Universal Health Care: How hard would it be or how obvious do things have to get before Democrats notice? At least it's starting to get noticed, but at what cost to Americans abandoned by their government. You'll notice below how AHIP, the insurance lobby, wants us to know nothing will get in the way of making a profit...brutal:
And one of Trump's earliest and most irresponsible deadly way to save taxpayer money? Hey, government was just getting in the way huh?:
Here's what happens when a president eliminates the pandemic response team in a country already without universal health care. Check out his thread:
Republicans are never concerned about the counties real and festering problems, but instead stay on message like Scott Walker. Charlie Pierce reminds us just how bad some of these ideas really are:
Trump's creative sharpie might just make another appearance after getting so many things wrong in his 10 minute message to the country the other night:
Democratic legislation addresses U.S. Health cares gaping holes: Wouldn't you know it, a pandemic and mounting deaths just isn't enough yet:
GOP leaders said they would oppose the plan over the paid leave plan and changes to Medicaid, which would help hospitals cover swelling costs of uninsured patients. The Democrats’ package would shore up safety net programs like food assistance, unemployment insurance and temporary sick leave with growing numbers of people forced to stay home from work and schools. It would also make free coronavirus testing widely available in a bid to address one of the nation's major struggles in containing the outbreak.
So, Republicans called a "recess" during Covid-19 Pandemic...really? Not in a hurry...:
Republicans Hate Constituent Paid Sick Leave: That's what's stopping the House bill dealing with Covid-19's spread and treatments:
And yet...
Ninety-four percent of Democratic voters and nearly 80 percent of Republican voters favor paid sick leave laws, according to a 2015 New York Times-CBS News poll.
In 2008, voters in Milwaukee approved a paid sick leave measure with support from nearly 70 percent of voters, making the city the third in the country, behind San Francisco and Washington, D.C., to approve one. But in 2011, newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP-led Legislature reversed the Milwaukee measure and approved a law to preempt other Wisconsin cities from following its lead. The Milwaukee law required businesses with at least 10 employees to let workers in the city of Milwaukee accrue at least nine days of paid sick leave a year. Companies with fewer workers must provide at least five paid sick days.
The push for so-called preemption laws is backed by the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council, a membership organization of state legislators who favor limited government.
NO HURRY REPUBLICANS: This really happened this week: Get government out of the way?
NO HURRY REPUBLICANS: Like the Covid-19 "recess," here's another "Republicans don't care, not in a hurry" example, when Wisconsin Governor Evers tried to help conservative rural farmers and towns from flooding...
If flooding strikes the state hard this spring he could attack Republicans for not doing enough to stop it...Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said in an email to The Associated Press that the chamber’s floor session is over but that Vos might consider the bills next session starting in Jan. 2021 if legislators from both parties can work together on them.
1. By 2016, people without health insurance had decreased to a low of 28.6 million but has since ticked up. 2. New enrollment from expanded Medicaid drove more than 50 percent of coverage gains. 3. Enrollment through ACA accounted fornearly half of insurance coverage gains, helped by premium assistance. 4. The dependents under age 26 provisiondecrease the percentage of young adults who are uninsured. 5. Medicaid expansion, subsidies and reforms, cost the government $128 billion in 2019 — considerably less than the $172 originally projected. 6. Medicaid expansion - a reductions in deaths from cardiovascular-related causes among middle-aged adults and deaths from end-stage renal disease. 7. The law’s effects are difficult to discern given the complexity of our health system. 8. Partisan conflict has stymied subsequent efforts by Congress to make improvements to the ACA. Efforts to roll back key provisions of the ACA or invalidate it are taking a toll.
Universal health care, or Medicare-for-All, would simply make every doctor your doctor and every hospital your hospital. Your current doctor will continue to see you and you would no longer be confined to a restrictive "network" of medical providers.
Clarification; insurers do not have doctors or hospitals, they're just insurance companies trying to make a profit, denying claims and requiring massive co-pays and deductibles that saves them money.
Remember, everything presented here would not be an issue with a national universal health insurance program. People Love their "cheap" Employer Health Insurance? They shouldn't: Republicans have repeated the industry talking point that workers would lose their employer-provided insurance. They're not losing anything, because they will still have universal health insurance. What we're finding out now is that employer insurance is getting very expensive for employees:
Research indicates that a sizable group of people with employer health care, an estimated 23.6 million Americans, are still spending a ton on their medical bills ... with high premium contributions, high out-of-pocket costs, or both.The report goes against the notion that employer health plans mean lower health care costs. According to the Commonwealth Fund (TCF), “employer plan premium contributions and out-of-pocket costs, are eating up an increasing portion of household budgets ... a steady growth in the percentage of people who are insured all year but have high out-of-pocket costs relative to their income and deductibles” to the point that “they’re considered underinsured. The biggest growth in that trend is occurring among people who have employer plans.”
And while universal health insurance may cost $32 trillion over 10 years, or $3.2 trillion a year, look at what we paid in 2017, with increasing high deductibles, co-pays, monthly premiums, and with approximately 27.5 million uninsured people and rising:
In 2017, U.S. health care spending grew 3.9%, reaching $3.5 trillion or $10,739 per person, according to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS). That accounts for about 17.9% of the nation’s GDP. The uninsured rate rose from 7.9 percent in 2017 to 8.5 percent last year, amounting to nearly 2 million more uninsured people.
Republicans incorrectly claim the federal Medicaid insurance program is like welfare. They would also like you to think it's filled with abusive freeloaders, when in fact, people only use Medicaid when they need medical care, and that's not very often. So why not cover everyone?
GM Striking Workers Negotiating Health Insurance, then get Cut off: Unions are still arguing that they worked hard to get great health insurance plans, when in fact, a national universal insurance program would provide the same benefits. From NPR, this report about how important health insurance is to their union talks, an issue we wouldn't have with Medicare-for-All:
Prior Authorization Nightmare: For chronic conditions, the idea of prior authorization is just crazy. Under universal health insurance, this would probably be unnecessary. This is also an issue that could save money that might not have been factored into the government's estimates:
When common chronic conditions such as diabetes are well controlled, it prevents worsening disease and saves money for the health system and the patient. But Ric Peralta says his efforts to use this new tool consistently to manage his diabetes have been stymied by insurance problems ... The newest Dexcom continuous glucose monitor has three parts. For each of these parts, Peralta needs something called a "prior authorization" from his insurer ... But he also has to get prior authorization for each supply, meaning every three months his doctor needs to reconfirm with his insurance company that the sensors are medically necessary. Same goes for the device's transmitters "I have to jump through hoops and they have to jump through hoops to get information from my insurance to get authorization," Peralta says in frustration, adding, "for the last year, basically every time there's been something that's gone wrong."
Physicians don't like prior authorizations either...
Of the 1,000 physicians surveyed, 91 percent said prior authorizations "have a negative impact on patient clinical outcomes;" 75 percent said the requirements "can at least sometimes lead to patients abandoning a recommended course of treatment;" and 28 percent said the prior authorization process had "led to serious or life-threatening events" for their patients. "In my practice we have five individual physicians, and we hired five full-time employees whose primary duty is obtaining prior authorization and dealing with insurance companies," says Dr. Bruce Scott, an otolaryngologist from Kentucky and Vice Speaker of the AMA House of Delegates.
The private health care system we have now is focused on profits, not people, and that includes "non-profit" providers as well. The US system is so bad that the following horror stories represent just one report from one health system in Virginia. Imagine all the other hospitals in every state going after Americans who had an unfortunate health event and were left with hefty bills to pay, or else.
You'd have to be a sociopath to argue against universal health care after this:
University of Virginia Health System (UVA) has ruined us’:
Health system sues thousands of patients, seizing paychecks and putting liens
on homes. Over six years ending in June 2018, the health system and
its doctors sued former patients more than 36,000 times for over $106 million,
seizing wages and bank accounts, putting liens on property and homes and
forcing families into bankruptcy, a Kaiser Health News analysis has found…Unpaid
medical bills are a leading cause of personal debt and bankruptcy. UVA dunned some former patients an additional 15 percent for
legal costs, plus 6 percent interest on their unpaid bills, which over the
course of years can add up to more than the original bill. The hospital ranked
No. 1 in Virginia by U.S. News & World Report is taxpayer supported and
state-funded, not a company with profit motives and shareholder demands, it
pays no federal, state or local taxes on the presumption it offers charity care
and other community benefits. CEO Sutton-Wallace makes $750,000, with bonus
incentives that could push her annual pay close to $1 million. NOTE:Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore has sued roughly 240
patients a year on average since 2009. UVA, by comparison, often sues that many former patients in a
week,and averages more than 6,000 cases a year, court data show.
1. Heather Waldron and John Hawley are losing their
four-bedroom house. Financial disaster, they say, contributed to their divorce,
finalized in April. Their money problems began when the University of Virginia
Health System pursued the couple with a lawsuit and a lien on their home to
recoup $164,000 in charges for Waldron’s emergency surgery in 2017. The
$164,000 billed to Waldron for intestinal surgery was more than twice what a
commercial insurer would have paid for her care … Charges on her bill included
$2,000 for a $20 feeding tube. For Heather Waldron, the path from “having
everything and being able to buy things and feeling pretty good” to
“devastation” began when she learned after her UVA hospitalization that a
computer error involving a policy bought on HealthCare.gov had led her
insurance to lapse. She is now on food stamps and talking to bankruptcy
lawyers. A bank began foreclosure proceedings in August on the house she shared
with her family. The home will be sold to pay off the mortgage. She expects UVA
to take whatever is left. 2. Zann Nelson, sued by UVA for $23,849 a few years ago fought
back. The now 70-year-old Reva resident was admitted with newly diagnosed
uterine cancer, bleeding and in pain when she signed an open-ended payment
agreement. The judge said that Nelson had “the ability to decline the surgery”
if she didn’t like the terms of the deal. 3. Carolyn Davis, 55 … $7,448 to pay about twice as much as
what a commercial insurer for nerve injections to treat back pain that she
hadn’t realized would be out of network. Her husband is a cook at Hardee’s … UVA
refused their application for financial assistance because his Hardee’s 401(k)
balance of $6,000 makes them too well off, she said. The hospital insisted on a
monthly payment of $75. She was meeting it by charging it to her credit card at
22 percent interest. 4. When Jesse Lynn, 42, didn’t realize their plan considered
Jesse’s old back problems a preexisting illness … After back surgery at
Culpeper Medical Center, a UVA affiliate, he came out with a bill for about
$230,000, Renee Lynn said. The surgeon reduced his portion … asked for a
similar break or a payment delay from UVA. “We are not a lending institution,”
the billing office told her, she said.
Property liens do give UVA a claim on the equity in
patients’ homes. “We see a lot of them,” said Tina Merritt, a partner with True
North Title in Blacksburg. “And a lot of people don’t even know until they go
to sell the property.”
5. It took Priti Chati, 62, six years to pay a $44,000 UVA bill
for brain surgery and have a home lien removed last year … The health system
seized bank funds intended for her daughters’ college costs, she said. 6. Paul Baker, 41, ran a small lawn service and with his wife,
owes more than $500,000 for treatment after their truck rolled over. He is
grateful to UVA “for saving my life,” he says. But he is “frustrated they are
ultimately taking my farm” when he sells or dies, as a result of UVA’s lawsuit. 7. Nacy Sexton, who is in his 30’s, hoped he might get a break
on his medical bills as a student enrolled at the University of Virginia. He
was close to finishing a bachelor’s degree in 2015 when he was hospitalized for
lupus. When he was unable to cover the reduced bill offered by the hospital,
the university blocked his enrollment. “The university places enrollment holds
on student accounts for unpaid tuition and medical bills … “When you get sick,
why should it affect your education?” he asked. 8. Shirley Perry, once a registered nurse at UVA, became
chronically ill, lost her job and insurance, and then needed treatment from her
former employer. UVA sued her for $218,730 plus $32,809 in legal fees. She died
last year at age 51, with a UVA lien on her townhouse. It was auctioned off on
Aug. 7 at the Albemarle County Courthouse.
Here's yet another estimate of a single payer system by the CBO, but this time focusing in on how such a switchover would be done and at what cost.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office weighed in: "The
transition toward a single-payer system could be complicated, challenging, and
potentially disruptive," budget analysts wrote.
Oddly, none of the “problems” pointed out by the CBO are new
or unexpected, so any doom and gloomers out there are just showing us how
little they know about our complicated health care in the first place. The report also said:
1. A single-payer system could substantially reduce the number
of uninsured, which currently averages about 29 million people a
month. But if undocumented immigrants are not allowed to participate,
about 11 million U.S. residents could end up without coverage. (About half
of undocumented immigrants have coverage now.) 2. The changes could significantly affect the U.S. economy. The
magnitude of the effect is hard to predict because the evidence CBO would rely
on to make those predictions comes from much smaller changes to the health care
system. 3. Whether the nation would end up spending more or less on
health care would depend on key features such as how much health care
providers would be paid and whether patients would be required to
share some of the costs. 4. Benefits of a single-payer system could include lower
administrative costs and more incentives to improve people’s health. But
patients may also have longer wait times or reduced access to care if there
aren’t enough physicians to meet increased demand. 5. Expanding access to health insurance through a multi-payer
system instead of a single-payer model could be less disruptive and give
patients greater choice. But the nation would probably spend more on health
care than it would under a single-payer system.
Throughout the analysis, the CBO showed reasons for the current costliness. For instance, the office found that in 2013 the "three major insurers" paid hospital rates that were 89% higher on average than Medicare rates for the same services. The federal government's administrative costs for Medicare were about 1.4% of total Medicare expenditures in 2017. For Medicare Advantage and Part D plans, administered by commercial insurers, those costs rose to 6% of total expenditures. For commercial insurers, those expenditures averaged about 12% of total costs. The CBO said that the projected administrative savings could be one of the "opportunities" of developing a single payer system ... the system would have more incentive to invest in preventive medicine and improve overall population health if it could eliminate the turnover seen in the employer and individual markets. Dr. Doris Browne, a retired military medical officer and immediate past president of the National Medical Association argued that a universal coverage option would force widespread adoption of preventive medicine, which has so far baffled the U.S. "If you put prevention into practice, you're not going to have many of these hospitalizations that end up in the ICU. We have not practiced prevention. We have been talking about it for years and years and it has gone by the wayside." New York City emergency physician Dr. Farzon Nahvi used personal anecdotes from the treatment room to advocate for single payer. In one instance, he said he treated a woman who had overdosed on fish antibiotics she bought from a pet store to manage a fever, as she didn't think she could afford seeing a doctor. The overdose affected her brain, and she fell down a staircase and was rushed to the emergency room. In another story, a patient who had a urinary infection treatable with antibiotics couldn't get her insurer to cover the $300 medicine. She bought cranberry juice instead only to come to the emergency room with sepsis from a subsequent infection — costing thousands of dollars. "We're paying more for bad outcomes, and that needs to be part of the discussion too," Nahvi said. "There's no way to account for what we're seeing on the ground level."
Paul Ryan decided to leave office by repeating outright lies and fabrications about universal healthcare. This guy is playing Americans for fools and Trumpian dumb asses. He even uses the word "socialism." Ouch.
His latest tweet and video are embarrassing, especially since every industrialized country has the kind of insurance he says just won't work... Ryan: "...it is the hollow empty promise of socialism..." Ryan says it ends "having choices." Uh, no, Medicare for all would give everyone the choice of any doctor and any hospital. And since we don't have a universal system, why would we create one that lets the government get between ourselves and our healthcare as Ryan claims?
What universal health care does is that it simplifies everything and eliminates the complicated maze we have now, that encourages overcharges, fraud, and bureaucratic red tape.
Paul Ryan has been saying this stuff for years, and for years, the media has been letting him get away with it. So it's no surprise that he keeps repeating this utter nonsense:
Ryan→ Single-payer, government-run health care would essentially destroy and obliterate the private health insurance system.
Truth-Yes: First, where is this clueless person who loves paying expensive premiums every month, has high deductibles and can't wait for the next major yearly increase that might force them out of coverage? Yes, obliterate private insurance slowly or...some single-payer systems rely on private insurers to manage their national health care plans or offer elective coverage etc.
Ryan→ Single-payer, government-run health care would essentially destroy and obliterate→ the employer-sponsored health insurance system.
Truth: Yes: Hello, that's what single-payer/universal healthcare does. Plus, employers no longer have the administrative burdened. Plus, it puts us on equal footing with every other industrialized country.
Ryan→ Single-payer, government-run health care would essentially destroy and obliterate →Medicare as we know it.
Truth: Yes: Again, that's what single-payer/universal healthcare does. All the money already in Medicare will be used to help pay for universal insurance.
In what should be a cakewalk for Randy Bryce to replace Paul Ryan (except for the fact Republicans blindly vote party and not their own self-interest), challenger and scary Ryan clone Bryan Steil failed to mention our current health care system costs $2 trillion more than Medicare for all:
Steil repeatedly criticized Bryce's stance, calling it "a $32 trillion government takeover of health care. The plan to pay for the program — so people aren't hoodwinked here — the plan to pay for the program is to raise taxes," he said. Steil called for improving health care by giving more control to patients and doctors.
And now, this declaration of ignorance from our illiterate grifter and President:
Trump: "Like, if you take insurance, they want single payer, which can’t be afforded, and we want really great health care where people get a great price. You know, really great stuff where people get a great price. I mean there are such differences, I could go on, on almost every subject."
It took a comedian like Samantha Bee to make the simple case for Universal Health Care, and the absurdity of GOP arguments against saving trillions of dollars and American lives:
Private Sector Health Care Ripping off Americans, Part 1,000,001: This is a never-ending story, yet Republicans continue to pretend nothing is wrong. They say shop, be happy! And medical providers say, "hide the real cost," and that makes them happy, so it's never going to change.
Universal healthcare is the solution, where both the government and insurers negotiate a standard price for all sorts of care with hospitals and doctors. No gouging, no artificial price increases, complete transparency, no bills, so there are no surprises.
The magic of the free market has allowed the following practice to get completely out of control in more markets:
Dominant hospital systems use an array of secret contract terms to protect their turf and block efforts to curb health-care costs. As part of these deals, hospitals can demand insurers include them in every plan and discourage use of less-expensive rivals. Other terms allow hospitals to mask prices from consumers, limit audits of claims, add extra fees and block efforts to exclude health-care providers based on quality or cost. The Wall Street Journal has identified dozens of contracts with terms that limit how insurers design plans, involving operators such as Johns Hopkins Medicine in Maryland, the 10-hospital OhioHealth system and Aurora Health Care, a major system in the Milwaukee market. National hospital operator HCA Healthcare Inc. also has restrictions in insurer contracts in certain markets.
Why do Republicans keep making life more complicated, unbearable, and cruel? It's crazy but Republicans have oddly targeted life's bigger events with Rube Goldberg "solutions." There's got to be a better use of our time.
So "what do Democrats stand for?"
Thanks to the United Nations 2017 World Happiness Report, Democrats can riff off the 3 biggest changes this country can make to make everyone happy again. Look, 19th place is a big drop from 2007's third-place ranking.
Let's help Americans live again:
All of the top 15 countries have progressive/socialist governments whose policies contribute to the contentment of their citizens. The three most significant policies for these countries are:
1. Universal free health care for their citizens. 2. Outstanding free public education. 3. Strong environmental standards and access to public lands such as parks and refuges for their citizens.
Simple, isn't it? But Republicans hate these things, which runs counter to polling:
Health and happiness are inextricably linked. All the top-ranked countries have socialized medicine so that the average citizen doesn’t have to worry about not being able to afford insurance and necessary medical care. The U.S. is the only developed nation in the world without universal health care. Compared to other developed countries U.S. citizens pay far more for their health care, and yet the U.S. ranks near the bottom in quality of their health care. In Costa Rica the death rate for heart disease is one-third less than in the U.S., even though Costa Rica spends one-tenth as much per capita on health care as the U.S. Quality public education is the great equalizer. With a good education the poor can rise to the top; without it out their opportunities are limited. In Norway, university students draw a government stipend as well as free tuition. Compare that to the U.S. where middle-class students can finish college encumbered with almost insurmountable debt. People are simply happier and healthier when they live in an environment with clean air and water; all of the top countries have tough, strictly enforced environmental regulations. The top-ranked countries also have large areas of public land set aside for the public to enjoy. Costa Rica has 25 percent of its land set aside as parks and refuges, whereas the U.S. has only 14 percent. Much of the public land in the U.S. is open to mining, oil drilling, logging and livestock grazing, which are not allowed on public lands in the happiest countries.
Again...:
In summary, the top-ranked countries have a social system that takes care of most people’s needs, leaving them feeling safe, comparatively healthy, and free of most of life’s biggest worries, while providing an environment where most people can make a living. The U.S. is headed in the wrong direction ... Much of the change can be blamed directly on the impact of the Republican Party on government policies. If you’re still voting Republican you evidently feel that Americans are just too darn happy. If we can just increase American’s anxiety over health care, destroy our public education system, and return to the days when the air in our cities stunk and our rivers were flowing sewers, we can move the U.S. out of the top 50 happiest countries. Seems like an admirable goal for the Republican Party.
Thank you, Scott Walker: Back here in Wisconsin, where the Republican extreme is playing out under career politician Scott Walker (for god's sake he raised a family, from cradle to college, on taxpayer money):
The closest the U.S. has ever come to universal health care is Obamacare, but Republicans are enraged over the government doing anything at all to help its citizens obtain quality health care. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker has led the nation in attacking public education both by dismantling teachers’ security through Act 10, and through the use of vouchers to divert funding from public schools to private schools, including many for-profit schools. Walker in Wisconsin and Trump on the federal level have been a two-man wrecking crew on environmental protection. In Wisconsin, Republicans have disemboweled our once-proud and effective Department of Natural Resources and reduced protections for the environment on every front.
