Is DK the only hope for single payer? - Hillary suggests mandatory employment policy is likely way

[papau]

it will go. So Hillary says mandatory employment health care likely (not single payer)

While she notes in comments later on ABC that Medicare is single payer and that people in general are very happy with the system - she suggests employment based insurance company coverage with insurance company profits is the most likely way - I can't tell if this is her preference - or just her evaluation of how many in Congress will vote to keep insurance company profits/CEO Salaries at the current levels or higher. But it is very discouraging. I need to go to work and not think about how upsetting this is.


http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2981027&page=2

Sen. Hillary Clinton Answers Iowans; Questions
GMA Headlines


(Page 2 of 3)
<snip>
Steve Eckstat: Sen. Clinton, I was part of your 1993 Health Care Task Force. Obviously we weren't very successful at that time, so as president would you try to create a plan for universal health coverage again?

Clinton: I certainly would. It's one of the reasons I'm running for president. … I think we're in a better position to do that today than we were in '93 or '94. … It's hard to ignore the fact that nearly 47 million people don't have insurance. But also because the people who have insurance find that insurance companies deny what you need.

It's really hard for small businesses to compete in the economy … if they have to compete with the cost of health care.

We spend more money than anyone in the world by a very big number. … For all those reasons I believe the American people will make this an issue in the campaign. … I'm very excited about this, and I know that we can do this.

Many of the features that any of our health-care plans will have are going to be the same because there are only a couple ways that we can get to universal health coverage. … We can build on the current employment situation. … The other big way of doing it … is to move towards a system that would have Medicare for everybody. … A kind of single-payer system.

I think we have to have a uniquely American solution to health care because we're a different kind of country than anybody else.

==================================================================================
I think we will move toward requiring employers to participate the way Massachusetts does or the way California is considering. … And if you don't insure your employees you're going to have to pay some kind of per-employee amount so that everybody can be given insurance.
==================================================================================

During this campaign I want the ideas that people have. I want to hear from you that have different perspectives about what can work.

We don't have informational technology in health care the way we need to. … I'm fighting to get electronic medical records for every American. The reason is it'll save money, time, avoid duplication.

We're going to have universal health care when I'm president. There's no doubt about that. We're going to get it done.

Kathy Byars: Why do members of Congress get the Mercedes of insurance plans and pension plans while many of their constituents are just trying to pay for the basic necessities?

Clinton: I believe that one of the ways we can get health care for everyone is to open up the federal plan that's available to members of Congress … to everybody. That would be one way that we could say to you that you have the same right as anybody in Congress

I think it is past time for the Congress to do for everybody else what we do for ourselves.

I believe we can no longer continue with Cadillac policies for people in Congress unless we give other people in America the same policies. <snip>

[Deep13]

1. That ain't much of a hope.

Nothing against DK. I used to live in his district and met him a few times. I just don't think his campaign is going anywhere.

What have Obama, Edwards and Richardson said about this? I mean, Jesus, we are going to have to compromise anyway with the dissenters in Congress, why should we start the negotiations in a compromised position? Seems like the powerful interests want the status quo and it doesn't matter what the country wants or needs.

[papau]

7. Edwards has Hillary care plus a Medicare option- better than nothing - indeed best non-DK yet

Obama in the debate in Vegas said "nothing yet - but come back in 6 weeks - this is new campaign and I have not thought about it"

Hillary did again show she knows the subject matter better than any of the others (in she seems to know all the subjects better than the others - she is the definition of the smartest kid on the stage) - but while she noted that single payer is the definition of Medicare and that folks really like Medicare, she did not choose to endorse it in the interview or even push for it.

[Demeter]

2. The Only Way We Are "A Uniquely Different Country" Is Our Obtuse Politicians

like Hillary, who insist on trying to have it both ways.

No, what we have doesn't work, and we have ample proof of it. What other countries have is working for them, keeping their manufacturing sectors viable in an age of global trading. THEREFORE, let us follow the lead of successful nations (and I don't mean Britain, which is starving its health care by refusing to provide adequate funding).

[mike_c]

3. hillary is a corporatist tool....

Utterly bought and sold.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. As long as it is employment based you will lose people who

are self-employed, people who switch jobs, people with seasonal jobs...

If you really want to keep it insurance/employment based, create a universal system that sets the baseline for everyone in the country - the employers can then return to offering health insurance as an enticement to workers, making it supplemental insurance on top of the universal care offered by the government.

Our healthcare is not the most expensive in the world because of a surfeit of MRI scanners - it's because no matter what the ailment, the insurance companies skim off 30% up front for themselves.

[obaman08]

5. There was an article about how bad Canada's system is..

and the writer basically said hat you had to wait weeks to get an MRI, etc. I asked someone who was from Canada what the story was with the health care up there and he said that if it was urgent you would get the MRI immediately an that their system was flawed, but nowhere near the way ours is. If there are any other Canadians in here, maybe they can divulge what their healthcare is like. Can you see any doctor? Are there long waits? I know someone who went to a county hospital and had to wait 24+ hours to see a doctor because they do not have insurance, and does that occur in Canada?

[papau]

8. Canada has excellent care - live 2.5 yrs longer than we do - see below

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php#canada_ration


Won’t this result in rationing like in Canada?

The U.S. Supreme Court recently established that rationing is fundamental to the way managed care conducts business. Rationing in U.S. health care is based on income: if you can afford care you get it, if you can’t, you don’t. A recent study by the prestigious Institute of Medicine found that 18,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance. That’s rationing. No other industrialized nation rations health care to the degree that the U.S. does.

If there is this much rationing why don’t we hear about it? And if other countries do not ration the way we do, why do we hear about them? The answer is that their systems are publicly accountable and ours is not. Problems with their health care systems are aired in public, ours are not. In U.S. health care no one is ultimately accountable for how it works. No one takes full responsibility.

The rationing that takes place in U.S. health care is unnecessary. A number of studies (notably the General Accounting office report in 1991, and the Congressional Budget office report in 1993) show that there is more than enough money in our health care system to serve everyone if it were spent wisely. Administrative costs are far higher in the U.S. than in other countries’ systems. These inflated costs are directly tied to our failure to have a publicly-financed, universal health care system. We spend at least twice more per person than any other country, and still find it necessary to deny health care.


Lessons from Three Countries with Single Payer
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2004/august/lessons_from_three_c.php

Statement by Dr. Elinor Christensen on Lessons from Single Payer Health Systems in Scotland, Norway, and Finland

Available for media interviews and lectures on health care reform and the flawed Bush and Kerry health plans

I am a family medicine physician whose medical career of 40 plus years has included private practice, inner city maternal and child health clinics, twenty years of college health, including medical administration, and rural health care in two underserved communities. I learned so much from each of these experiences, serving patients to the best of my ability with a variety of encumberances.

My most satisfying experience was working for twenty years as staff physician and later as medical director at a private university with a mandatory, low cost, comprehensive single payer universal health plan covering all students enrolled in the university. We were able to deliver high quality comprehensive health care at a very reasonable cost because everyone was in a single risk pool. Also the administration of the plan was simple and cost effective.

Since retirement I have spent a week each of three countries with single payer universal health programs which are successful and enthusiastically used and appreciated by their citizens. The countries I have visited are Norway, Finland, and Scotland to study their successful programs including services provided, how it is funded, how it is administered, maximum out of pocket expenditure per person per year, and any problems. These countries are spending half as much per capita as we are spending and having better outcomes because everyone is covered from birth to death and everyone is included in a single risk pool (single payer) and everyone has easy access to the personal physician of their choice. Health education and prevention, as well as early intervention, play an integral part in the success of their universal health care plans and excellent outcomes.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. That university plan she mentions sounds like the Yale Health Plan

I got all kinds of medical treatment while I was there and never saw a bill. I knew people who had babies delivered, who had abortions, who had major emergency surgery, all without any charge beyond the Health Service Fee, which was rolled into tuition.

[AndyTiedye]

6. We Tried to Take on the Insurance Industry in 1993 and Lost, Badly

Even just the threat of being forced to cover people who are in less than perfect health was enough to mobilize the insurance industry to run us out of Congress in 1994.

Single-payer would effectively put the entire health insurance industry out of business, and its employees on the unemployment lines.
They will fight this with everything they've got.
They've got a lot more than we do, in case you hadn't noticed.

This is not a battle we can win.

[papau]

9. ins. co's now accept low margin-but highly profitable -claim service only contracts from Medicare

Part B

And they would be doing the same under single payer - very few would lose jobs.

And the ins co's could sell very profitable supplemental policies as they do now for Medicare.

But you are correct - the major health ins company rape of the body politic would end, and the rich will fight like hell, telling their workers win this or lose your job ( a lie but all is fair in the game to be the greediest rich health ins company) to keep those easy dollars flowing into their bank accounts.

It may be a battle we can't win - but we will never know until we try.

[AndyTiedye]

10. "The Rich" are Actually Rather Divided on This Point

If we are going to get universal health care, we will need some help from "the rich"
people who are spending $$$$$$$ on employee group health insurance policies.
Some of them have already said that the cost of these is making their businesses uncompetitive.

People who work selling or handling health insurance are likely to fear job loss
in the event of univeral health care, even without any prompting from their bosses.
Any campaign to implement single-payer will have to address this directly.

[papau]

11. true - a lot of millionaires from the automatic sale of auto liability - and group health - but

individual health is not a big part of an agents life the way long term care is.

I really do not see much of a problem - but we will need to make that point.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. But don't START by compromising

Hillary's proposal was a compromise position, not single payer. She tried to play nice with the insurance companies, and they STILL shot her down.

The lesson: Don't play nice with the insurance companies. They certainly do not deserve it. Demand full single-payer and nothing less, and maybe you'll get something acceptable as the compromise, like a combination of private and government insurance. But don't START with that as your first position.

[Desertrose]

14. I completely agree, Lydia.

Never start with less than 100%, cause if you have to come down, least you might have something left.

But starting at less than what you want....never end up with much of anything you'd originally hoped.

[awaysidetraveler]

15. It's too bad. What are Hillary's lobbying ties to the health industry?

I've heard that she was instrumental in leaving things as they have been, and not reforming medicaid. At least that's what I remember from her stay in the White House. I've also heard that this may have been due to her own medical lobbyist connections. This is one of the main reasons that I don't trust Hillary, though to be fair I should have more information.

I've got a new article with references on the Obama-Rezko scandal, if you're interested.

Thanks!