What is being discussed?
Aug. 20th, 2009 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumLots of terms are being tossed about in the healthcare debate. We hear about "socialised" this and that, we hear, "single payer", and, "public option."
What to they mean? Nieman Watchdog explains it all for you
The term “single payer” describes a model of health care financing in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private. Most European countries, Canada, Australia and Taiwan have single payer systems. This is socialized insurance, in that public revenues are used to pay for the health care of all citizens, as we currently pay for other public services, such as the fire department.
Here's the thing, when all is said and done... we are already paying this, and not getting the benefits. Between Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, the healthcare paidfor to federal employees, Tricare (military members, and their dependents), and the tax break for healthcare, something like 60 percent of or healthcare budget (the highest in the world) is gov't money.
That's to say, we are paying huge taxes and not getting our money's worth. Our present gov't expenditures on healthcare are more than we'd need, in a well run system, to pay for everyone to have good healtcare.
Instead we have somehing like 40 million people who have no insurance, and who knows how many more without enough insurance. We have apparatchiki in insurance companies (many of them straight out of school) deciding what gets covered; denying treatment to make money.
Trading lives for profit.
We can do better. We must do better. If we don't want to collapse into a mess of broken people and enclaves of the lucky few; or rip ourselves apart like France in 1798, we have to do better.
What to they mean? Nieman Watchdog explains it all for you
The term “single payer” describes a model of health care financing in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private. Most European countries, Canada, Australia and Taiwan have single payer systems. This is socialized insurance, in that public revenues are used to pay for the health care of all citizens, as we currently pay for other public services, such as the fire department.
Here's the thing, when all is said and done... we are already paying this, and not getting the benefits. Between Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, the healthcare paidfor to federal employees, Tricare (military members, and their dependents), and the tax break for healthcare, something like 60 percent of or healthcare budget (the highest in the world) is gov't money.
That's to say, we are paying huge taxes and not getting our money's worth. Our present gov't expenditures on healthcare are more than we'd need, in a well run system, to pay for everyone to have good healtcare.
Instead we have somehing like 40 million people who have no insurance, and who knows how many more without enough insurance. We have apparatchiki in insurance companies (many of them straight out of school) deciding what gets covered; denying treatment to make money.
Trading lives for profit.
We can do better. We must do better. If we don't want to collapse into a mess of broken people and enclaves of the lucky few; or rip ourselves apart like France in 1798, we have to do better.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 09:46 pm (UTC)(Presumably existing private insurance plans would be subject to the new regulations such as no pre-existing conditions, no recission, no termination, etc, but this is not entirely clear to me.)
The public option would be able to compete with existing private plans on the basis of size, as you point out, but also on the basis of not having to make a profit, simply breaking even. This, of course, is at least part of what makes it so frightening to private insurers.