Trump could throw a hissy fit and stop the Cost-Sharing Reduction payments to insurers, which are due Thursday. This would cause a melt down of the individual market.

http://acasignups.net/17/07/18/trump...ether-he-knows

Though I don't follow this issue very much, I believe that I have read that those countries that have single payer spend quite a bit less per person on healthcare than the US does. Which is good. And I know that I have read that you have to wait quite a bit longer to see a doctor for non emergencies. Which is bad. So the question seems to be whether the fact that everybody gets healthcare breaks the tie in favor of single payer.

But I have a question that I have not seen brought up elsewhere. Since America is willing to spend more per person than other countries, why not continue to spend it but move it into a single payer scheme? Would that not (after a period of adjustment) result in a reduction of wait times, compared to other countries, similar to what we have now?

Lol willing to pay more.

You would certainly think so. There are massive cost savings to be have with moving to single payer. If we kept the outlay the same then it reasons we would indeed have fewer problems with regular visits.

There are other issues that would have to be hashed out including doctor availability and compensation. I think primary care providers need to make more money and I think overall physician compensation does not need to be reduced. There are other areas with serious fat that could save a lot of money.

Honestly though I think we could end up with our overall healthcare expenditure going down and having above average results compared to other countries with single payer. You also get into more esoteric areas like preventive medicine that could potentially save a lot of money on the back end but would require better front line access. Delayed non emergency care is not a good platform to establish effective preventive medicine.

Single-payer is now inevitable, so I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Plenty of UK folks here. Is your employer able to pay some or all of your mandated contribution to the NHS as part of your overall compensation package? I assume not.

If it's an individual tax just forcefully deducted, that should be pretty fun. There's no way most employers are going to hand out pay raises equivalent to their bottom-line insurance savings. I can hear the screams of foul play already.

I also wonder what happens to people who enjoy Cadillac coverage through their employers now. Does the UK have a way to pay extra to avoid the 2 month wait for a strep test? Healthcare Fastpass? Or is that just what the private system is for over there?

Can you imagine the Black Friday-style internet videos that will get released in the US on the day when you can officially visit the doctor for "free"? The USA might be the greatest country on Earth, but when thepeopleofwalmart.com meets no-questions asked "free" healthcare with no barrier to entry, you're going to have a bad time if you're a medical professional.

Who determines the price list, and what is and isn't covered?

Will the government pay for prosthesis if you have BDD and chop off your own limb?

Does government fund abortion no questions asked? Is it one and done? "Some limitations may apply"?

What happens to experimental medicines and clinical trials that bloat expenses?

Are there age restrictions for certain procedures?

What will we do with the hundreds of thousands of freshly unemployed administrative staff in the medical industry?

So many questions!

California Legislature Tables Single Payer as Cost Estimates are $400 Billion Annually to Implement

Six Reasons Why Vermont's Single Payer System Was Doomed From the Start

NHS Problems Unacceptable

Monthly abortions, whether needed or not.

We will repurpose admin staff to arresting illegals and digging holes.

Nope. Eliminating employer paid healthcare is way too risky politically at this point in time in my view.

..,,

Kind of like how "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," "The arc of the health care debate is long, but it bends towards more coverage." And the ultimate in "more coverage" is a single payer system.

Can you believe we might have to provide health care to people who shop at Walmart? Unacceptable! Inso0 needs to know those people are suffering horribly so he can feel better about himself.

You joke, but it's a contentious issue and just one example of many things that are going to be a nightmare to work out for the US socialized medicine system.

Financially, paying for abortions is a no-brainer. God-Emperor Inso0 probably writes the healthcare law that your third or fourth one comes with a free and mandatory Tubal Ligation, though.

Replace digging holes with a more specific "digging footings for the new border wall" and you might even get bipartisan support, even with all the taxpayer-funded baby killing.

those poor medical professionals

To answer this question, no one's suggesting the US do what the UK did and nationalize their healthcare. Single payer is different than the UK, it's not nationalization, as is Obamacare which is an insurance mandate.

Yeah bros, I don't know about y'all, but I'm going to camp out OVER****INGNIGHT to get to that sweet, sweet doctor's appointment the moment it's free, needed or not.

Inso, do you just think the US is much dumber than the rest of the world? You realize most of these 'questions' have been answered in multiple ways - by multiple countries.

I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Not a Brit but when I was last in London, you could walk into a Boots (the British equivalent of a Walgreens) and get a rapid strep test for 8 GBP.

Inso0 and adios absolutely furious that tens of millions didn't lose coverage this week.

@adios: Your California link is unclear on whether those costs factor in Prop 98, which basically forces a match in education spending (so the bill costs twice as much as it should). As for raising an additional 200 billion, if that is indeed what is needed, it would be just about doable, but tight (five grand in taxes per person per year, although obviosuly not distributed equally).

I've heard reports that everyone knew Prop 98 would tank any single payer effort, so the legislature proposed this bill as a bit of political theater. I haven't read it, but I'd guess it's probably stupidly generous (since that's easier to campaign on) and generally not well thought out.

The Forbes link I didn't have time to read, maybe later. But tbh it's a Forbes opinion analysis, for which my default expectation is that it will be AIDS. I already saw the word "rationing" in scare italics, so I don't have high hopes.

The Telegraph is a Brit tabloid iirc, so I didn't click.

Maybe the reduction in administrative staff will offset the difference in doctor salaries, but phrases like, "if you're going into medicine for the money, you're doing it wrong" get thrown around when talking about the NHS. That's in stark contrast to the state of things in the US.


You can already afford healthcare, so I doubt it.

Also, you forgot to put free in quotes. For you with your enormous privileged white male income, it will be anything but free.

ill have a crack at a couple of these

there's not an nhs contribution tax, so no

we dont go to the doctor for a sore throat cos we're not bonkers. take a couple of paracetamol mate and you'll be alright

if you really must see a gp immediately for your sore throat then pay your 55 quid and go see them. there's an appointment available at 11:15 tomorrow near liverpool street station if that is convenient.

btw it probably wont be 2 months through the nhs, avg wait for non-emergency stuff is currently about 13 days

u think british people just go to the doctor for ****s and giggles cos its free? i haven't been for 4 odd years cos i haven't been especially ill and its a massive pain in the arse to take a day off work and go sit in a waiting room for an hour or more. in fact i should probably go for a few routine checkups every now n then since i'm paying for it but w/e

nhs determines what is available. dunno what you mean by price list

i haven't the foggiest

i think the nhs will provide abortions as requested as long as the foetus isn't older than whatever the cut off age is

dunno

not in general but there are a couple things where you have to meet certain criteria. eg if you want IVF treatment on the NHS you need to be of childbearing age (obv), not be a smoker, not be a massive fatty

idk same thing they did with all the wheelwrights in 1910 i guess. send them off to find jobs which contribute to society

title change.

Even if the Republicans eventually get their way, that doesn't mean there's no reason to celebrate today. I'm going to die someday, but between that day and this one, I plan to celebrate a little.

And I'm sure you realize why the US situation is much different than those countries. If not, I'm certain you'll figure it out.

In the future, just pass over the Reply button and keep your LOL Inso0 to yourself. Leave it to the experts.

Poor example on my part. However, we're both old enough to remember when things like the Walgreens QuickCare Clinic didn't exist. What effect will a removal of the profit motive in the US have on medical advancement in the future?

AFAIK the usage rate between the US and the various universal healthcare countries isn't much different, it's the price per unit that's much higher in the US.

Also most medical research is done at universities and non profit hospitals. Single payer would practically only remove the insurance profit motive which is fine because not a lot of innovation has been coming out of the insurance sector of the healthcare industry

Uh, is your thesis here that GlaxoSmithKline doesn't actually exist?

How are people like Murkowski winning elections? Obamacare is the worst thing ever......besides my own party's healthcare plan!!!

This might be the most consistently misused phrase in American business.

If you have a non-profit hospital with annual revenue of 10 billion dollars, and you raise prices by 20% to pay for a new 2 billion dollar research project, you haven't suddenly become a "for-profit" institution.

There is a ****load of profit to be made in non-profit. It's just sort of like government budgets. Use it or lose it! That's how you wind up with CEOs of non-profit organizations with multi-million dollar salaries. I'm not saying they don't deserve it, but if you think "non-profit" equates to "low-cost" then you are sorely mistaken.

So when the hospitals are suddenly only able to bill the government $X for a procedure that they used to get $XX for, those cuts are coming from somewhere.