Bernie Sanders Single-Payer Healthcare plan

@edgarblythe,

I opposed Obamacare because it was the wrong solution. Single-payer healthcare is the right solution and obviously so.

@edgarblythe

Quote:

I dismiss her as an innovator. Sanders is the only candidate seeking to actually improve healthcare.

I don't know why you'd make that claim. Unless you believe that the person who tried to design and implement "Hillarycare" has become totally apathetic re those goals. Or perhaps that she has been overwhelmingly corrupted by special interests. But if the second is your thesis, I don't know why you would necessarily say the same about Obama.

An alternate thesis here is that Obama and Hillary deem certain steps or policies as not presently achievable (given existing power structures around government) whereas Sanders believes they are (or even were). And on that, though of course I might have it wrong, I suspect Sanders is overly optimistic.

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If you read Hillary's overall moves, beyond the phony progressive slogans, you see she is with the insurance people. She will not do anything to stop them from controlling Obama care and making the public pay outrageously even with healthcare.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

I opposed Obamacare because it was the wrong solution. Single-payer healthcare is the right solution and obviously so.

Why is single payer so much better than a marketplace like Germany has, or government-run institutions like the UK has?

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@blatham,

Quote:

I suspect Sanders is overly optimistic.

If he really believes what he is saying I think he is either lying through his teeth, or dosent have a clue as to the politics in Washington. Who in their right mind believes the repubs. will raise taxes for social problems when they wouldent raise them for 2, 2 trillion dollar wars?

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@edgarblythe,

You are so right!

I have to pay a monthly fee and still have a deductible so high that it is prohibitive for me to get decent healthcare. It is wrong that I'm afraid to go to the doctor or dentist. I shouldn't have insurance and still worry about financial ruin to stay healthy. Health insurance is a deadly scam in this country.

Bernie sanders has a solution.

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@edgarblythe,

Quote:

If you read Hillary's overall moves, beyond the phony progressive slogans, you see she is with the insurance people. She will not do anything to stop them from controlling Obama care and making the public pay outrageously even with healthcare.

Then surely your indictment must extend to Obama as well. I have no disagreement with you as regards what ought to be (I've lived in the US and Canada, after all). But I do not imagine that Bernie is likely to get where he wants to get, other than at an incremental rate which is bound to disappoint many. I may have that wrong but it's how I see things playing out.

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@blatham,

Quote:

Then surely your indictment must extend to Obama as well.

I am pretty sure it does. I give edgarblythe credit, he has been very consistent and critical of a lot of Obama's policies starting with the administration's decision not try and indict any of the people in the previous administration on torture of detainees. Or that could have been jochicago, they have many of the same views and I respect both.

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@revelette2,

I've always liked edgar. He's a principled guy and as people are passionate, disagreements will be voiced. All that is as it should be.

I remember very clearly eight years ago when our choices were the first woman candidate and the first african american candidate. Discussions got damned sparky.

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I was thinking of the National Review's full-on Trump attack. And the Weekly Standard's similar attacks (though rather less concentrated at this point).

What the hell are they going to say and do if he is the candidate?

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The point is to try. Obama and Hillary will not get us beyond where we are now. Which is a losing situation. They are a part of a crumbling bulwark. I wish I could be satisfied with mediocrity, but can't. People say single payer can't be done. I say we have no choice but to do it anyway.

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@edgarblythe,

By all means, push for it as hard as you can. It's a fine goal. But the present isn't a losing proposition. 20 million now covered isn't a step backward.

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Are folks here familiar with Ed Kilgore. A very smart blogger/analyst recently hired on by New York Magazine.

Quote:

One of the subtexts of both the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating contests is how much change can realistically be expected in a political system characterized by partisan polarization and gridlock. Bernie Sanders implicitly accuses the last two Democratic presidents and the Democratic Establishment candidate for 2016, Hillary Clinton, of excessive timidity and an insufficient commitment to thoroughgoing economic and political change. Ted Cruz explicitly accuses his Republican Senate colleagues and presidential rivals of surrendering to liberalism without a fight.

As Paul Krugman notes in his latest column, these demands for boldness are an old story in American politics, and also depend on sometimes-hazy, sometimes-delusional theories of how change happens:

http://nym.ag/1lKnx6C

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@oralloy,

I prefer government-run institutions for healthcare and that falls under what people are calling "single payer" healthcare.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_healthcare

Quote:

Single-payer healthcare is a system in which the government, rather than private insurers, pays for all healthcare costs.[1] Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from private organizations (as is the case in Canada) or may own and employ healthcare resources and personnel (as is the case in the United Kingdom).

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

By all means, push for it as hard as you can. It's a fine goal. But the present isn't a losing proposition. 20 million now covered isn't a step backward.

The step backward is insurance companies manipulating Obama care for high profit. Even with insurance people can't afford good healthcare.

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@edgarblythe,

It also inflates the cost of healthcare if you merely insure everyone, which is America's real central problem (not uninsured people but the fact that the costs are absurd).

It is untenable for America to solve its healthcare problems with the current costs from the private, for-profit system. We already spend more per-capita than other first world nations do (and they get full universal healthcare while we just get rich doctors and hospitals), the solution isn't to spend even more on the broken healthcare system.

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@Robert Gentel,

I agree, wholeheartedly. Whether these people support Sanders or some other candidate, the only workable solution is single pay. But, we could have to wait another eight years for it, if public pressure does not come to the fore.

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@Robert Gentel,

I should add though, that Obamacare yes is still better than nothing. But that is a false dilemma. The options were not Obamacare or nothing. Obamacare thusly has opportunity costs that those who criticize it are often alleging that are greater than its benefit.

I know people of limited means who only have healthcare coverage in America due to Obamacare. I get the short-term benefit and prefer it to nothing. But before Obamacare there was growing consensus that doing nothing was not tenable and now political capital for real fixes to healthcare is spent. This was not a choice between Obamacare and nothing, but now it largely is. That is an unfortunate step backwards that Obamacare represents.

There was political capital for a change, unfortunately we went with the wrong change.

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I do support Obama care, for now. I support anything that adds to the safety net the working people need. I just view it as temporary, until something better can take its place. This incremental stuff they talk about is a way of jerking people around and putting off any real improvements.

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@edgarblythe,

I agree, I am just not sure of Sander's plan. It really doesn't seem feasible or affordable to me. I know we can't afford payroll tax hikes and other ways he has suggested to pay for it.

Sanders' 'Medicare for all' plan may not help working seniors

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Bernie Sanders Single-Payer Healthcare plan

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