None of this is a reason it won't work. In fact it's a stupid ass reason not to do it because it's the better model and delaying the implementation means more deaths and a harder implementation.

GUISE, you may take our lives and those of our loved ones, but never touch our money or our EMPLOYEE PERKS

uh he's well aware of the Republicans good, Democrats bad concept.

Yeah, but I'm sure either two things could happen: one, they could wear name tags that say "Pelosi (R)" to trick him, or two, they could point out that passing popular legislation will make him popular.

There's a reason all these world leaders keep flattering trump. It gets them exactly what they want without sacrificing anything on their end. Trump's vanity is easily exploited and it would be nice if someone used it to benefit the US for once.

Roy is straight up lying about individual market premiums under ACA in that thread. They are actually lower than projected by extrapolation of pre-ACA premiums.

This general attitude seems to be a big problem in the US more so then other countries. The attitude of "We've done this stupid thing for decades/centuries and there's clearly this better alternative, but, ****, changing just seems hard".

Health care, gun control, entitlement programs, the ****ing metric system, etc.

I get that its human nature everywhere, but definitely seems worse in the US.

Also, it's so ****ing telling that awval isn't willing to argue against single payer on the merits, but instead appeal to some objective "political will".

Mother****er WE are all part of that political will. YOU personally oppose single payer but you're too ****ing chicken**** to say so.

Right. When he says "political will" he is talking about himself, but he won't say it.

no. you are wrong. hes a lock. as are all the reps.

They're going to let 2 no votes in for re-election purposes; Heller is a strong shot at one of them or else he might as well not run for re-election. Rand sometimes just does stuff on his own--so it's possible he'll just grab one. Obviously, seems likely they want to just let Flake/Heller vote no and ram it in there.

Other than that, hard to be optimistic. murkowski's a stretch and I'm stumped after that outside of the guys that are against it because they don't think it goes harsh enough.

so, when this passes, assuming the current form largely remains, will it make things worse than they were prior to obamacare?

also, what sort of effect will this have on employer plans?

Even people in unions who used to have to pay no premiums out of pocket for Cadillac plus coverage are now having to cover a huge chunk.

Plus what do you think single payer is that the problem would be getting rid of employer based coverage?

Not sure about the one released yesterday but here's a good article about the House bill re employer coverage

http://www.businessinsider.com/gop-h...surance-2017-5

Mother****er WE are all part of that political will. YOU personally oppose single payer but you're too ****ing chicken**** to say so.[/QUOTE]

Doesn't mean he isn't right.

If this ACA turd is as bad as it looks, it might be enough to crash the system, which is the only way you're gonna get change. For a lot of people, this is a concern on the level of a war in the Congo - it's there, it's bad, but it doesn't affect them in any meaningful way. If you're on Medicare, or you have insurance thru your employer, you're (mostly) good, and you have other issues that you perceive as more important to you.

Which is all kind of strange - Medicare actually is mostly functional, and if we'd agree to bump up the funding a bit and open it up to most people it would probably work out OK - and I don't see any particular reason that you couldn't keep the private insurers open. Medicaid, OTOH.....

But this all stopped being about health care years ago, anyway. It's about the true believers duking it out in DC. Heath care is kind of beside the point.

MM MD

Does it really make sense to think of healthcare in isolation? The entire social contract in America needs to be re-written.

Given the status quo, an Urban Institute analysis of the Sanders' single-payer plan estimates an increase in government spending of $32T over the next 10 years.

At a growth rate of 2.5% on a '15 GDP of $18T, this would imply economic stagnation across all other sectors for the next 40 years. Ignoring questions of "political will", that is completely insane. It should not soak up the productivity gains of TWO ENTIRE GENERATIONS to provide universal healthcare.

Society needs to be redesigned from the ground up so that most people are not trapped in such dysfunctional and inherently diseased bodies.

I mean, healthcare would be a trivially solvable problem if we had a population of people with the metabolic profiles of the iconic unemployed lumber worker and his wife circa 1939.

Today you'd guess these were upper-middle class people on a Western-themed marriage retreat, because who else can afford to look this healthy in their 30's? (Answer: random unemployed people in the '30s.)

You don't think the business community, and particularly small businesses, wouldn't get behind a plan where they no longer have to shell out ~$10k per year per employee for a health insurance plan?

And then on top of that you also remove co-pays and deductibles, and lower the cost of prescription drugs? Can't think of a single person who wouldn't see that as a better deal. Rand Paul maybe.

The US is too big and diverse for gradual changes. We needed 9/11 to change airport security. Australian had a major gun rampage that got the country behind major gun changes. We, individually, have almost zero power to do anything.

Here comes the metric system.

NPR talking to some R senator or state senator from Kansas, asked how the religious right is dealing with the massive cuts to health care for the disabled, said her friend asked their pastor how to square that circle with their religious beliefs and the response was, "People are too dependent upon government, they need to be dependent on the church."

Senator said she was floored by the response.

I don't agree with the premise, but it's beside the point. Whether the change is sudden or gradual it's still resisted in the US.

@sub: It would not increase govt spending by 32 trillion, only federal govt spending. It saves 4.1 trillion in state spending and 21.9 trillion in employer and private spending. So to make up the actual difference, you have to come up with 600 bil or so per year of taxes. That is achievable using only taxes on the 1 percent. Although, I will say that a plan drafted by Sanders (on his own? designed with a serious intention of being enacted into law as is?) will not be close to the best possible, so saying his particular proposal is too costly does not make the case against the idea of single payer in the US.

The guys suffering from polio tended to not take vacation photos.

You're making the same mistake Vox did and not accounting for the decrease in private spending in conjunction with the rise in public spending.

Seeing that the new talking point is that Medicaid spending was 'out of control' and was going to eat up the entire GDP eventually or whatever.

Cutting taxes while gutting the program kind of sabotages that point though.

for single payer, wouldn't we just jack up the "medicare" tax rate on both employees and employers? at least then it's much easier for employers to calculate the cost of an additional employee.


but lol @ subfallen coming in here thinking he's slam dunking on single-payer proponents and completely discounting that many companies would pay literally millions less in healthcare expenses each year.

There's a lot to unpack in that post, but let's recognize that "a population of people with the metabolic profile of the 1930's" effectively reduces to "let's let the sick ones die in the streets."