Gov. Shumlin has signed the Single-Payer Healthcare for the State of Vermont..

[Cal33]

It won't come into effect right away, of course, but once it starts
in one state, the rest of the nation will see how good it is for the
entire country, it will snow ball. Health Insurance will become a
RIGHT for the American people.

And no amount of lies from the Medical Insurance and Phrmaceutical
companies will be able to stop the avalanche from happening.

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12726

[kenny blankenship]

1. I doubt it will have much effect.

They will still have to pay rates for everything that will be bascically determined by what goes on in the larger, external health care market as run by the corporate insurance cartel (soon to be the insurance corp+fed. government monopoly). Vermont has about 620,000 residents. In an overall market of 310,000,000, that fraction of 620,000 won't budge prices of anything.

Medicare (govt run social insurance) plus Veterans Administration Tricare already represents something like 45% of the total health care expenditures of the nation, yet prices are still crazy and spiraling upwards. That's because basic health care delivery-the usual trips to the Dr's office and ER- remains a captive market effectively controlled by the insurance mafia.

Vermont will have a hard time showing dramatic benefits by going to "single payer" because they will still have to pay rates almost entirely pegged to rates prevailing outside of their system. When prices go up outside Vermont, they will go up for Vermont as well. Critics of Single Payer will say "See?! There is no benefit - let's stick with our shitty system of privatized health care extortion! Nothing else works!"

Sometimes a large problem has to be approached like eating an elephant: one bite at a time. But sometimes a very large problem can only be addressed by a very large systemic solution. It actually took WWII and its aftermath- the complete wreckage to Europe's cities and its established socio-economic organizations- to bring gummint run "socialist medicine" to most of the European countries who have it now. At the least we should expect that health care in the US will have to experience a systemic breakdown too, before it can be significantly reformed. After all the dominant political party of our lifetimes is completely opposed to any provision for public health on philosophical grounds. They are probably more strongly opposed now than at any time since Hoover. And the Democrats are only a tiny bit better. They don't join Republicans in saying the moral order of the universe, as we know and approve it, depends on individuals struggling against a hostile environment, seizing whatever goods they can seize from the Earth -or from their fellow man- and hoarding it from each other jealously with guns, and living by themselves and with their nuclear family, whom they control utterly, just like any other form of their private property, until death, at which they will distribute their property from beyond the grave according solely to their own will and intent, without regard for the existence of any other people besides themselves and the ones that they directly control. Democrats don't openly say the war of each against all is what is Good, and Beautiful, and True with the same fervency as Republicans, preferring to say "We love competition and the Uniquely American Way!", but they refuse to articulate and unite around a clearly opposed vision. Typically they wind up incoherent (no clear philosophy) and politically split, with at least half of their members in government objectively promoting the Reagan Republican world view, which just gets more extreme and pitiless with every passing year.

Will the revolution that rolls all this back begin in Vermont? I doubt that very much.

[Cal33]

2. I wonder if you know that American pharmaceutical companies charge far less

for their drugs abroad than they do here in their own country? It prices vary
from country to country. It is already signifacantly lower in Canada. In Asia
it might be only one-fifth or less than what we pay here. And these drug companies
are still making huge profits -- even in Asia !! Drug companies are robbing the
American people blind !!

The Federal Gov't doesn't dare to supervise and limit the price-gouging
practices of the Pharmaceutical and medical insurance companies now. I hope
Obama will make a recess appointment of Elizabeth Warren as head of the Consumer
Protection Adm. She apparently has the guts to do it.

When the single-payer system in VT will have actually been put into practice,
a lot will depend on how willing VT State will be to bargain over prices with the
companies. Will VT hang in tough? The same will apply with hospitalization and
treatment costs. 600,000+ is still a lot of people, and a lot of money which
corporate America is very eager to put their hands on.

The average hospital stay of one day in America costs about $1,000. In
Switzerland it costs half that amount, and the Swiss have a higher per capita
income than we do.

If VT does well, other states will follow suit. This will take time, of course.

Corprate greed is causing the misery and death of millions of Americans. It has
to be stopped. We can no longer go on like this. We've reached our limit.

[Cal33]

3. It is the "for profit" insurance companies that are jacking up the cost of healthcare.

With the government-run healthcare, the for profit part is cut out. That,
alone, already represents a big saving for the people. In addition, the
gov't can bargain with the pharmaceutical companies for the price of their
drugs.

We will find out soon enough whether or not VT healthcare is worthwhile.
Then the other states will follow suit, or not, according to the results.