America Has A Single Payer National HealthCare Plan. It's Called Medicare

[Yavin4]

Everyone who works pays for it with their payroll taxes. Every check that I get, there's a deduction for Medicare. The one problem with our Single Payer system is that it's restricted to only the elderly.

By removing this restriction, we can have healthcare for everyone. Now, in addition to my Medicare deduction, there's another one for my HMO health plan. For example, my HMO deducts $41 out of every check, and my Medicare deducts $57 out of every check. A Single Payer plan would merge these two deductions into one, which will probably work to less deductions overall.


So, why won't our politicians consider this simple, cost effective idea? Because the HMO industry pumps too much money into our political system.

[LostinVA]

1. Your last sentence says it all

[NewJeffCT]

2. Not just the HMOs

The big pharmaceutical companies as well.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Well, I'm on MaineCare and if weren't for that I wouldn't be able to get

my meds or see a doc. But my hubby is perilously close to making too much money and then we would be in no man's land. Too 'rich' for MaineCare and too poor to pay for our own insurance.

[blondeatlast]

6. At least you are in very good company; how many tens/hundreds of

millions of other Americans are teetering on that slippery edge?

If we were to somehow lose our coverage, it's quite simple--financial ruin or my death.

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Yah *hugs* So glad Michael M. Made "Sicko". Gotta get people to think about this.

Well, the ones it isn't happening to, at any rte.

[blondeatlast]

4. Dear God no!!! That's socialized medicine!

And it has made contributing citizens of our wisest population for over four decades.

[antigop]

5. HR 676 is called Medicare for All -- Kucinich is a co-sponsor n/t

[thethinker]

7. We do, and it works very well

Medicare has very low administration costs. There are no huge CEO salaries or advertising cost with Medicare.

The insurance companies and the HMOs should be done away with. The government should negotiate a price with the drug companies just like Canada and other countries do.

The only reason we have not already included everyone in Medicate is lobbyists buying our congressmen. We already pay enough in taxes. We have to make sure those taxes don't go to fund endless wars and make rich richer.

[CountAllVotes]

8. Medicare is not just for the elderly

and the cost is $95.50 a month or higher if you are one of the few very rich people in this country. Medicare recipients are also the disabled if they happened to have worked and paid into it long enough prior to becoming disabled and are qualified.

Many people on Medicare also have supplement to Medicare plans that are very costly but cover things like prescription drugs and other costs that Medicare does not pay. Some even have added benefits as well. Again, when I say costly, I mean it - like add another $300 or $400 a month for the supplemental policy. Even the best supplemental policies do not cover long-term care which I think really sucks, esp. considering that this means a well-insured Medicare recipient could very well be paying as much as $500 or more a month for medical care that is not that great.

So, it is not free and not just the elderly are eligible for Medicare.

more here: http://www.medicare.gov/

:kick:

[thethinker]

11. It is not perfect

but it is a lot better than what many people have now.

Medicare pays 80% of most things. A really good supplemental policy (to pay the other 20%) can be bought for 80-180 per month.

If everyone was on Medicare. I am sure we would see a lot of improvement very quickly.

Medicare actually pays more than many insurance policies.

[peaches2003]

9. Hey, watch it!

Watch who you're calling 'elderly'! Todays's 65 is yesterday's 50.;-)

[Fridays Child]

10. It would decrease your deductions overall, if they could manage to cut all of the bureaucratic BS...

...asociated with qualifying/disqualifying customers, preauthorizing, denying benefits, telling doctors how to treat their patients, etc.

You're sick, you get treated, the doctors and facilities get paid. I've read that conducting health care in this manner would cut costs by more than half.

[Yavin4]

14. Yes, The Admin Headaches For All of these HMO Plans Add To The Costs

Each plan has its own payment and fees schedule. Thus, healthcare providers have to go through a maze of red tape just to figure out what to charge the patient directly vs. what to charge the HMO. It's crazy.

But, this is the system that we will always have because our political system and our media are bought and paid for by the wealthy.

[fed-up]

12. In California the bill is called SB 840, awaiting passage from the house and Arnold's sig (he vetoed

last year)