If the billionaire Koch brothers really want to undermine the economic case for Medicare for All, they have a funny way of showing it.
They need to be called what they are: THE KOCH ROACH BROTHERS!
True, most people donât read past the headlines, or at least not much. But the Koch brosâ funding for this study might have been wasted, since most people only know about Medicare for All from snippets from political candidates, especially presidential candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, who told us that single-payer would never work because it is way too expensive.
Every time I see an article about the profit from disease industry (insurance), I gain ever deeper appreciation for the Monty Python (read: âfull montyâ of the Ouroborus or snake that eats its tail).
Single payer now!
Yes, no doubt about it.
Still trying to pretend youâre a progressive? BTW, there is no such thing a totally deprivatized health insurance system even in countries with a single payer system. All one has to do is hit the Googly and take a look around.
What about all the medical insurance costs that corporations currently pay for their employees? If all their employees are included in Medicare For All, it seems like they, too, would save money even if they had to pay a âper employeeâ payment into the Medicare For All fund.
Payroll and/or other taxes are going to go up for some folks, maybe many. Personally, if the opportunity does come to make a single payer type system pass, I think the bigger issue is how to make it work effectively and quickly. One of the ACAâs biggest problems was that in its initial years, many people couldnât see its benefits, and that allowed its opponents all kinds of time to fill the gap. Lag time will be a death knell for it in front of a Supreme Court with five justices ready to look for any reason to undermine it. And can you imagine what a doctorâs strike would mean in this country, like the one that occurred in Saskatchewan in 1962?
The Koch bribers should commission a study of how much the Israeli universal healthcare system is going to continue to cost vs. how much free handout money from the American, and finally what is the figure on how absolute zero is the payback for Americans.
A Public Option would have been terrific. Let those who want Medicare For All simply sign up for it. And then let the insurance companies fight for the left overs by dropping their prices. And by the way, what Doctor wouldnât want their bills paid quickly, with minimal fight over denials; back and forth bullshit. Health care is covered, period. The only denials should be for fraudulent bills. And if there is any proven fraud, The Doctor is removed from the Med4all system forever. No paying a huge fine like Rick Scott, FL Gov. Insurance companies and big pharma are cheating the people, and it must stop.
Until I see your name in the news and on my ballot, you will be considered by me, a troll.
Read Charles Koch was done with Trump and GOP madness and wants to work and support Dems who agree with the Koch waysâŚThere would be more than enuf $$$ to support a Medicare for all or better yet a Single Payer if Less was given to our bloated Military and their own outrageos spending habits. Do they ever think of the people who elected them at all? Nope! Once they are in all the BS they promised turns into lies, Gotta get ALL of them out!
I saw an article on this earlier this morning, and the framing was worded in order to scare people. The right likes to throw out really large numbers, to make it seem as if the things the left wants to do is just so impossible. The commenter here FightThePower did this last week. He linked some silly study that threw out a huge number about entitlements, the number was an estimate of spending over the âinfinite horizonâ (based upon numbers done on spending over the next 75 years). No context at all though, like, over that same time period, how large will the US economy be? With this particular issue, the article I read didnât make a few things clear (intentionally). It didnât make clear that it was the total cost of the system, not expenditures in addition to how much we spend now. The same article didnât once mention how much the present system would cost over the same time period. That isnât logical, and again, the intention is to come up with a huge number, without any context, to scare people. Since the present system would cost more, shouldnât that scare people even more? But, again, the goal isnât to educate others, it is propaganda. Single payer would save trillions (I have to see the methodology of this particular study) over the long term, and I think it is important to note how completely right wing the economics department at George Mason is. It isnât just that they get money from the Kochs, they have for decades been at the center of âpublic choiceâ economics, which the book Democracy in Chains focused a lot on (that school of economics, as well as George Mason). That school of economics is largely right wing, and I am betting that when I start to read the study of theirs, the methodology of theirs will be heavily slanted to give lower savings. However, it is beyond question, single payer would save money, this study even shows that, it would have less overhead and would massively cut down on the huge social costs of this nightmare of a system. On the facts, they lose and they know it, which is why they are going to lie, like they always do, and rely on ideological bullshit.
I appreciate your solutions, but thereâs a ton of work buried in there. This is why congressional hearings on the matter would be useful. No system is going in with Trump in the White House, but ideas can gel in the meantime.
The one thing to price in is the Supreme Court, which has, of late, shown itself to be adverse to price controls and increasingly sees commerce as free speech. A national system could be quite expensive if the Roberts Court restricts Congressâs ability to regulate, say, drug prices, under the commerce clause. Conservative groups will have cases lined up immediately after a bill is passed to challenge regulation.
I donât say the above to disagree with youâI donât. But guys like Alito and Kavanaugh are party hacks. They will do all they can to make the scary numbers sound real and be real. Progressives should be prepared for this. This is why I think holding hearings now, if Democrats gain Congress, would be good. It may give us the best understanding of what it would take to pass a defensible bill that isnât wrecked by 5 ideaologues and give a new president a path forward, not unlike Roosevelt had in his first 100 Days.
If we could collect and concentrate the solar heat landing on every houseâs roof, store it (probably in an insulated box of rocks) and deploy it at night with a heat pump, that would save another two trillion a year, and it would cost shockingly little money and time to prove the concept. If we could store solar heat the way solar power towers store it and use it at night, but if we could engineer the elimination of all bird kills, that would save another two trillion per year.
All of this would bankrupt the Koch brothers.
If you were set up with a soccer ball one foot from the goal and with no goalie or pressure, could you score the goal? I donât think you could. Youâd kick the ball out of bounds somewhere. Youâd wait a week until the wind came up and blew the ball across the field.
ââWe remain the only major country on earth that allows chief executives and stockholders in the health care industry to get incredibly rich, while tens of millions of people suffer because they canât get the health care they need. This is not what the United States should be about.ââ
What our nation and people need is Universal Not-for-profit Single-Payer health coverage. the plan coming closest is HR 676. Expanded and Improved Medicare for ALL! The âJohn Conyers Billâ
The way to pay for this and all the other critical needs of our nation and people is to end the obscene crime of the Pentagon/military budget and stop endless wars! Restore needed progressive taxation lowered over decades of corrupt governance and Congress, of the wealthiest and corporations that have bought political favors (AKA corruption/theft) eliminate tax loopholes, prosecute offshore hidden holdings, and fine the hell out of the SOBâs for any BS! Those making the big bucks (the ability to pay!)must give-back to the nation (the middle class and poor) that makes their âsuccessâ (read greed and theft) possible!
The bill Bernie Sanders introduced into the Senate, S 1804, does not eliminate profit and other sops to profit and business as usual from the equationâŚsadlyâŚ
I hear you, but arguing that would throw more than the healthcare system into chaos. I mean, why would single payer be different than the educational system, or at the more local level, public utilities? If the government manages and funds a sector of our society, it necessarily is going to play a role in setting prices. In regards to public utilities, local governments do play a role in setting prices among private utilities. However, the Supreme Court as it is now is a right wing basket case. In Citizens United (and similar cases), they argued that bribes (not the word they used) didnât even have the appearance of corruption.
Here, here!! I am still waiting to get a response from him on aligning his plan with HR 676.
Tom is a socialist. Now, it is quite true that the European plans, while much better than our system, and here I am thinking of Germany, they are versions of, âAll are equal but some of us are more equal than othersâ.
