It's not because of Republican opposition. Well, not officially <wink, wink>.

It was "your" idea. Ain't that sweet?

State lawmakers acknowledge lobbyists helped craft their op-eds attacking Medicare-for-all

Remember when "liberals" meant progressive?

No way they would do that! These are elected officials they're accusing.

Medicare for all doesn't work on its own because you're still on the hook for at least 20% of your medical bills under Medicare.

You will still need a supplemental insurance plan.

We should have a true single-payer system, but I would settle for “Medicare Extra For All,” so long as bankruptcy-inducing co-pays and "patient responsibility" bills are eliminated.

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Sarcany
Medicare for all doesn't work on its own because you're still on the hook for at least 20% of your medical bills under Medicare.

You will still need a supplemental insurance plan.

We should have a true single-payer system, but I would settle for “Medicare Extra For All,” so long as bankruptcy-inducing co-pays and "patient responsibility" bills are eliminated.

I too would like a single-payer system, but the Medicare model with supplemental works in that it keeps the private insurance sector working. Closing out the private sector totally could cost upwards of 500,000 jobs.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.”
-- François de La Rochefoucauld

"WE CALL BS!" -- Emma Gonzalez

You'll never get costs under control if you don't eventually remove insurance companies from the equation.

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RgrF
You'll never get costs under control if you don't eventually remove insurance companies from the equation.

This. Because Medicare/Medicaid ONLY works because the rest of us pay out the hoo ha.

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RgrF
You'll never get costs under control if you don't eventually remove insurance companies from the equation.

I think the theory a lot of moderate Democrats think makes sense is that by the government providing more efficient, better quality and cheaper health care through a public option that we would evolve away from private insurance.

I have no idea if there is a way to fashion a public option where we do get such an evolution away from private insurance (I think some form of private insurance will at least persist in some more limited manner). As a purely political consideration, I do think a public option has more appeal to that small segment of persuadable voters than does Medicare for all.

IMO, a stepwise plan is far better, but politics being politics its probably easier to make one big change rather than a series of small changes over time - after all, look at the evolution of ObamaCare.

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cbelt3
Because Medicare/Medicaid ONLY works because the rest of us pay out the hoo ha.

In basic terms, that's how ALL insurance works: homeowners, auto etc.

Those who don't utilize/need payouts subsidize those who do.

(Dammit, I never had no car accident, so my insurance payments been goin to all them lousy drivers!)

Getting insurance companies out of it is tough. Not just because it would result in the loss of a lot of jobs, but also because of how our political system has been perverted to allow massive influence from large corporations.

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Classic.

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In an interview, Kelker said it is common for state legislators to publish under their name op-eds that they did not write. “That’s pretty normal," she said. "Actually, most of the time, for legislators, at least in Montana, [they] are written by someone else. You know, a helper-person, not necessarily a lobbyist. I normally write all of the text for my op-eds.”

She added: “I suppose I’m fairly naive. … As a legislator, you learn to sort out who is a good guy, and who is not, in terms of the lobbyists, and [MacDonald] has always been really straight. I don’t hang out or do anything with lobbyists much, but I really do trust him."

Oh. I don't know about fairly naive. I'd go a lot further than that.

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Sarcany
Medicare for all doesn't work on its own because you're still on the hook for at least 20% of your medical bills under Medicare.

You will still need a supplemental insurance plan.

We should have a true single-payer system, but I would settle for “Medicare Extra For All,” so long as bankruptcy-inducing co-pays and "patient responsibility" bills are eliminated.

Medicaid For All is what they should be pushing. As you said, Medicare doesn't cover everything. How these people think Medicare For All would eliminate private insurance plans is beyond me.

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Ombligo

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Sarcany
Medicare for all doesn't work on its own because you're still on the hook for at least 20% of your medical bills under Medicare.

You will still need a supplemental insurance plan.

We should have a true single-payer system, but I would settle for “Medicare Extra For All,” so long as bankruptcy-inducing co-pays and "patient responsibility" bills are eliminated.

I too would like a single-payer system, but the Medicare model with supplemental works in that it keeps the private insurance sector working. Closing out the private sector totally could cost upwards of 500,000 jobs.

This is the other thing I keep asking about (not here but elsewhere). Where will all these employees find news jobs? I get crickets when I ask this.

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It's what capitalists call 'creative destruction'.

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$tevie
This is the other thing I keep asking about (not here but elsewhere). Where will all these employees find news jobs? I get crickets when I ask this.

99% of the company CEO's and lobbyists, 90% of high level administrators, and 45% of bottom line employees will lose their jobs, the rest will go to work for Medicare.

It's the CEO's getting together and paying hundreds of millions to lobbyists that keeps the current system in place, and is the reason our health care costs are so much higher than the other first world countries.

Countries in green have universal health care.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

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Filliam H. Muffman
99% of the company CEO's and lobbyists, 90% of high level administrators, and 45% of bottom line employees will lose their jobs, the rest will go to work for Medicare.

It's the CEO's getting together and paying hundreds of millions to lobbyists that keeps the current system in place, and is the reason our health care costs are so much higher than the other first world countries.

This. Employees won't go into a black hole. Not having 100% of the answers to, "What happens next? I mean, what exactly happens afterwards?" is not a good reason to not move forward with obviously better ideas.

This is effectively, our "not invented here" syndrome writ large. F.U.D.

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Filliam H. Muffman
Countries in green have universal health care.

Yes, yes, but they're all going to Hell. Haven't you heard how exceptional America is? We're truly special. And better. That map proves it obviously.

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$tevie
This is the other thing I keep asking about (not here but elsewhere). Where will all these employees find news jobs? I get crickets when I ask this.

Guv'mint?

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rj
AKA
Vreemac, Moth of the Future

I like the public option. It's less scary to implement, can morph into Medicare for All and get the bugs out in the meantime, and would help the greedy insurance companies and medical companies stay in line in the meantime.

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$tevie

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Ombligo
Closing out the private sector totally could cost upwards of 500,000 jobs.

This is the other thing I keep asking about (not here but elsewhere). Where will all these employees find news jobs? I get crickets when I ask this.

Buggy whip factories.

I fail to see how government could do it worse than the way health care insurance and billing is done now. Copays, coinsurance, deductibles, family limits, negotiated discounts, denied/allowed procedures, pre-approval requirements, drug formularies, one procedure generating bills from multiple providers and a partridge in a pear tree. THIS is the system we think is a capitalist dream?

Everybody wants single payer. Broadly presented, everybody likes the concept. When the elimination of private insurance and tax increases are included, support plummets. It will be impossible in this country to take something away from someone in order to replace it with something that "may" be better.

With the public option, anyone could choose that route. If it provides a reasonable substitute, then either private insurers would have to be competitive or just lose the business.

The song said "Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year?"

Why waste a minute of it on fruitlessness?

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Acer
I fail to see how government could do it worse than the way health care insurance and billing is done now. Copays, coinsurance, deductibles, family limits, negotiated discounts, denied/allowed procedures, pre-approval requirements, drug formularies, one procedure generating bills from multiple providers and a partridge in a pear tree. THIS is the system we think is a capitalist dream?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the government would do it worse but have you seen any of the behind-the-scenes nuts and bolts of Medicare and Obamacare? There is some spectacularly complicated stuff there.

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I’m with Vision and Dennis S. Give us a public option in the exchanges, make it revenue-neutral (ie, premiums + standard subsidies needs to cover expenditures, just like the private plans), and see how it flies. I tend to think over time that would move us toward a public health care system.

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AllGold
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the government would do it worse but have you seen any of the behind-the-scenes nuts and bolts of Medicare and Obamacare? There is some spectacularly complicated stuff there.

Absolutely. And so?

You’re seeing the sausage of necessary workarounds and political compromises (read: sabotage) made just in order to get it to exist at all.

It can be improved because at its fundamental core, it’s an old and sound idea. Just not one invented in ‘Merica.

Things our government still needs to work on.

1. Departments of Motor Vehicles
2. Stopping spam and robocalls
3. You ever walk into a Social Services office? That.
4. Can't stop guns
5. Can't stop drugs
6. County Hospitals.
7. Can't stop Republicans. They're not going anywhere.

I'll stop there.

If we get Medicare for all who want it (ie: the public option) then every year, there will be a migration of people who have lost their insurance (by losing a job, for instance) into the public option. The fact that the public option is always there and can't be taken away from you makes it the obvious choice, particularly if the premiums and payouts are better than you can get in the private sector. The predictable result would be that most small companies will stop providing insurance because their employees will go to the public option. The medium term result is that private insurance will dwindle as part of the economy.

And what of all those people who used to work in the insurance industry? Some of the money that went to pay their salaries will be generated through taxes, and some of that will go to pay salaries as workers migrate into more productive sections of the medical economy. For example, we are in need of people to provide care to the elderly and child care workers.

But yes, there would be some unavoidable unemployment, particularly of a temporary kind, just as there have been losses in coal mining and in steel mills. If we were being rational, we would be creating the solar energy industry on a large scale, and this will create millions of jobs of all kinds.