The current state of healthcare in the US is a joke.

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Government doesnt have to operate on profit. they cannot offer a service and be competitive with normal market forces.

So you admit that it wouldn't be competition because the government is essentially a non profit? I guess I can't argue with paying less for overhead...

Single Payer will not work, because someone has to pay for the coverage. Its not just FREE, unless youre assuming doctors hospitals, equipment all of the sudden become FREE and Surgeons are ok making 10$/hr? Or substantially less money then they are really worth.

By myself I'm paying $75 a month for insurance with a $2k deductible. So with a public option, I can either

a) Continue to give that money to BCBS, who is for profit, so they have a bunch of overhead, advertising costs, Ferraris, beach homes, etc. Your work pays the balance. This is what already happens.

Or

b) bump my taxes up at the end of the year $1000-$1500, rolled in with Medicaid/Medicare to a department of healthcare or something who has less overhead since they are essentially a non profit. Your work pays the balance, like they do already, set a copayment, deductible, make it all progressive like income taxes (a little more progressive than income tax). Withhold for it on your w2 so you never even see the money.

Or

c) Choose neither, pay for healthcare at the point of service.

Or make it universal, everyone (citizens, taxpayers) now pays for insurance b, no copays. This takes the guy at the hospital bumping up non-insured bills to cover non-payers out of the equation. These inflated costs obviously add to the current cost of healthcare, GONE. No more $100 bills for 50 cent Tylenol since everyone is now paid up It MAY BE an investment up front, but a healthier nation will use it less in the long run, and healthier people are more productive, especially if they (lower, middle class, the producers) aren't worried about a $20k bill for a broken arm

The public option gives insurance companies an actual incentive to compete in prices and reigns in windfall profits. There is currently no real market for health insurance. The end user of such a product has effectively zero input. No one wakes up one day and says "I think I'll take a bullet to the abdomen today! or how bout I get cancer next week! lets go hospital and insurance shopping"

US govt took in 2.3 TRILLION last year alone. Theres no way to raise the extra 1.7 trillion without massive tax increases, which would bring down single payer anyway (people would flee the country)

Out of all the industrialized nations, those that have universal healthcare spend half as much as the US.

Would you flee the country if you had to spend the same amount, or most likely less than what you ALREADY pay, to a universal healthcare system rather than a private healthcare system like we already have?

If you did flee the country because you thought healthcare taxes were too much of a burden, where would you go? Everyone else already has universal healthcare. Lol.

[David88vert]

So you admit that it wouldn't be competition because the government is essentially a non profit? I guess I can't argue with paying less for overhead...

By myself I'm paying $75 a month for insurance with a $2k deductible. So with a public option, I can either

a) Continue to give that money to BCBS, who is for profit, so they have a bunch of overhead, advertising costs, Ferraris, beach homes, etc. Your work pays the balance. This is what already happens.

Or

b) bump my taxes up at the end of the year $1000-$1500, rolled in with Medicaid/Medicare to a department of healthcare or something who has less overhead since they are essentially a non profit. Your work pays the balance, like they do already, set a copayment, deductible, make it all progressive like income taxes (a little more progressive than income tax). Withhold for it on your w2 so you never even see the money.

Or

c) Choose neither, pay for healthcare at the point of service.

Or make it universal, everyone (citizens, taxpayers) now pays for insurance b, no copays. This takes the guy at the hospital bumping up non-insured bills to cover non-payers out of the equation. These inflated costs obviously add to the current cost of healthcare, GONE. No more $100 bills for 50 cent Tylenol since everyone is now paid up It MAY BE an investment up front, but a healthier nation will use it less in the long run, and healthier people are more productive, especially if they (lower, middle class, the producers) aren't worried about a $20k bill for a broken arm

The public option gives insurance companies an actual incentive to compete in prices and reigns in windfall profits. There is currently no real market for health insurance. The end user of such a product has effectively zero input. No one wakes up one day and says "I think I'll take a bullet to the abdomen today! or how bout I get cancer next week! lets go hospital and insurance shopping"

Out of all the industrialized nations, those that have universal healthcare spend half as much as the US.

Would you flee the country if you had to spend the same amount, or most likely less than what you ALREADY pay, to a universal healthcare system rather than a private healthcare system like we already have?

If you did flee the country because you thought healthcare taxes were too much of a burden, where would you go? Everyone else already has universal healthcare. Lol.

The government isn't "non-profit". It just doesn't make a profit for its shareholders - the taxpayers. It is supposed to be a management entity, not a for-profit business.

Senators, Congressmen, the President, his Cabinet, and every Dept all cost money - they have a "bunch of overhead, advertising costs, Ferraris, beach homes, etc. This is what already happens.". Currently, it takes $2.45 trillion in tax revenue, plus they still have to borrow. Somehow, you expect them to provide more services without massively increasing tax revenue - plus unemployment for all of the people put out of work if we implemented a single payer system for healthcare?

[Vteckidd]

Currently, it takes $2.45 trillion in tax revenue, plus they still have to borrow. Somehow, you expect them to provide more services without massively increasing tax revenue - plus unemployment for all of the people put out of work if we implemented a single payer system for healthcare?

Exactly.

BLank, how does $1000-1500 in extra taxes get you to the 1.7 trillion extra in revenue you will need to BREAK EVEN if we had universal healthcare. Sounds like you are just making numbers up without adding it up. SImple math here

$1000 x the TOTAL number of people in the work force (146,743,000 circa 2007, i suspect there are FAR less now)=146,743,000,000 BILLION

Congrats, you are 1/17th of the way there.

This is my point, you guys dont understand what it ACTUALLY costs to give everyone healthcare coverage, its NOT PRACTICAL, IT CANNOT HAPPEN. YOu cannot TAX enough people to get the money you would need to pay for it. You would need to tax 4 times the average tax payer what it costs for our DEFENSE budget TO BREAK EVEN. Its NOT possible. It cannot work. You really want to go to poor and struggling families and tell them they get to pay for $10000-15000 in extra TAXES per year so they can have free single payer healthcare? OR do we just set a ceiling and say, everyone over $100k gets to pay for it?

YOu guys have zero rational way to pay for it. Healthcare is a FOR PROFIT business because it HAS to be FOR PROFIT. THat is how you get the best doctors, the newest equipment, the best surgeons, the best R&D, etc.

I wont even address the "ferrari and boats" comments because that is completely 100% unfounded. Rich people buy rich things, and hold jobs that pay them a lot of money. you cant dictate they make less. Their job pays what the market says their job is worth.

[BanginJimmy]

why dont you read the law before you bash it, and look at the meat of what it's actually trying to accomplish.

So educate me. Other than massively increasing costs to consumers, what is it trying to accomplish?

I hate that bullshit. They're seizing an opportunity to pass along a cost of doing business that should otherwise be absorbed by them, and then trying to make you feel bad about it.

So a business should not pass their costs to their customers? Where the hell did you come up with this? How is a company supposed to stay in business if they should give away their products for free? That has got to be one of the absolute dumbest things I have ever seen posted here.

When Single payer/public option becomes an option. With all the socialism rhetoric behind the idea, and all the lobbying against it, probably never.

-Tort reform
-Price fixing
-marijuana legalization

Some steps that could be taken in the meantime

Single payer would be FAR more expensive than the current overpriced healthcare we get. Please tell me how legalizing marijuana would bring down health care costs. I need a good laugh.

Sure it is. You choose the government option, you get a tax increase. Cut out the middle man. You're gonna pay it one way or the other.

What about the 50+% of American households that dont pay any taxes now? Are you going to expect them to start paying their fair share?

I think someone said "People love capitalism until they're on the losing side of the competition, then it becomes socialism." Or something to that effect.

People also like liberalism until they realize they are expected to pay for it.

So you admit that it wouldn't be competition because the government is essentially a non profit? I guess I can't argue with paying less for overhead...

Paying less overhead for govt. HAHAHAHA, you are on a roll today. You pay more for govt overhead than you do for private sector overhead.