Can the USA Afford Universal Healthcare?

[Cutlass]

Nah, three months. You're a priority case.

I feel so special.

 

[civvver]

The thinking is wrong. Right now health care is largely paid for in the US by employers, with an ever increasing portion paid for by the insured. The government should not need to raise any new taxes, but instead if what employers pay health insurance companies now were paid as taxes, and what individuals pay now as premiums were shifted into a universal program the cost should go down. It's just a shift in resources. So we can definitely afford it. The opposition is usually based on choice and control, that people don't trust the government. But I'm way past that. You have zero choice and control over your health care now. Your company picks a provider and then that provider pretty much dictates what's covered and what's not, and what prices you pay. No normal person can afford to choose their own plan right now. So as long as it's cheaper and the quality stays the same I would favor universal care.

 

[rah]

Most companies that I have worked for offered at least 2 or 3 options in selecting your plan type. My current employer offers 5 different plans.
So yeah, some employees have considerable choices.

 

[civvver]

Most companies that I have worked for offered at least 2 or 3 options in selecting your plan type. My current employer offers 5 different plans.
So yeah, some employees have considerable choices.

That's more like an exception, but either way I think government run health care could support the same options. I was more getting at what's covered or not covered, because due to regulations it's all pretty much the same. Your networks are pretty much the same. The difference is just going to be payment structures like hsa vs traditional plan.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Most companies that I have worked for offered at least 2 or 3 options in selecting your plan type. My current employer offers 5 different plans.
So yeah, some employees have considerable choices.

Choices in how much of a deductible (and thus how much you pay), but not choices in choosing completely different insurance companies. What was covered and what wasn't was very similar across all plans, just the choice was "Do I want a lower premium but high deductible, or higher premium for a lower deductible?"

I believe there are 3-4 'choices' with walmart, but there is another option (at least in years past) that the premium was so high it realistically was only available to the higher ups in the company, as if you picked the option, you'd get a call from company HQ to confirm it since it was more than most people's entire paycheck.

 

[rah]

Ours includes three different insurers. You guys must work for sucky companies

And regardless of any government covered plans there would always be supplemental insurance just like with Medicare.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Ours includes three different insurers. You guys must work for sucky companies
.

True, but then 90%+ companies are sucky by that definition. How many employees does this company have (that are eligible for these choices) ? Smaller companies (in workforce size, not in earning $) probably get little to no 'group discount rates' so the employer is not paying much difference than if you got a plan on your own (minus the 10-20% the employee has to pay). So if the employer is paying basically "full price", yeah, might as well let the employees do the shopping.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ours includes three different insurers. You guys must work for sucky companies

And regardless of any government covered plans there would always be supplemental insurance just like with Medicare.

I'm guessing from the context of posts, that you do fairly well, rah. Not a criticism, in fact I'm happy that you do. But a mandatory trip to the Dr.'s office if one was sick enough to request staying home from school was an effective deterrent of hooky for a reason, and it wasn't because the Dr.'s office and hanging out with Dad was particularly unpleasant.

 

[rah]

I work for a Global company with over 75,000 employees worldwide.
But our choices are the same for all the 4 thousand or so employed in Illinois. (since most insurance plans vary by state)
But I will admit that my wife an I choose the more "premium" plan, since we're older and require more care.

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm fortunate as well. If I ever manage to transition to something I like better, I'm pretty sure that the loss of BCBS HMO as an option will be a relatively major life structure repercussion.

 

[Estebonrober]

I'm fortunate as well. If I ever manage to transition to something I like better, I'm pretty sure that the loss of BCBS HMO as an option will be a relatively major life structure repercussion.

This has probably been one of my biggest factors shifting my opinion in this topic. The issues with switching employers that people face especially when they have families to considering can be daunting. Effectively this locks employees into jobs and limits their ability to improve their lot in life. It’s sort of like a strange for of indentured servitude.

Switching to Medicare for all erases that and moves the discussion to just supplemental benefits your employer might provide.

 

[Hrothbern]

Switching to Medicare for all erases that and moves the discussion to just supplemental benefits your employer might provide.

yes

And consider as well a multitude of people with fingers too thick for a small lap top keyboard, confused from to many complicated commercial choices, that "just" want to have that fair basic health care.

 

[Farm Boy]

I know too many obese women that type 90+ wpm for that to be a terribly hilarious jab at their competence.

 

[Hrothbern]

I know too many obese women that type 90+ wpm for that to be a terribly hilarious jab at their competence.

I know too many of those thick fingered hands with the people attached..... that have no chance and need help

 

[Lexicus]

Imo the American path of tying many social benefits, of which health insurance is only one, to employment turned out to be a problem. It reasonably approximated genuine universal social benefits under a policy regime of full employment, but when that was abandoned it became inevitable that services would not be accessible to people shut out of the labor market for whatever reason (thus fueling the pernicious idea that government programs should be means-tested or otherwise applicable only to those who "genuinely need help") but additionally that many people would be shut out of those benefits by the profusion of precarity, conditions of work that provide no social security whatever and which people only accept because there is no better, more secure alternative.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Imo the American path of tying many social benefits, of which health insurance is only one, to employment turned out to be a problem. It reasonably approximated genuine universal social benefits under a policy regime of full employment, but when that was abandoned it became inevitable that services would not be accessible to people shut out of the labor market for whatever reason (thus fueling the pernicious idea that government programs should be means-tested or otherwise applicable only to those who "genuinely need help") but additionally that many people would be shut out of those benefits by the profusion of precarity, conditions of work that provide no social security whatever and which people only accept because there is no better, more secure alternative.

And the right is going toward work requirements as fast and as hard as they can get away with. I believe some states are trying to tie food stamps to work now that they have managed to tie unemployment cash benefits to it.

It's disgusting the raw deal we hand our own population and yet people keep voting for it.

 

[Lexicus]

The state has the power to fix this: to act as the spender of last resort.



Notably, many countries in Europe had already achieved virtually universal coverage and shifted to government-run systems because tying it to employment imposed all those costs on firms. Socializing them turned out to work better...

 

[Kaitzilla]

Younger people are a lot healthier than older people on Medicare.

I really don't have an objection to Medicare-for-all any longer.

Costs are simply getting crazily high.
Doctors are getting overruled by pen pushers already.


If a Democrat had the guts to run on it, I would vote for them.
Things have progressed to the point where the Democrat option has turned from a negative into a positive.

 

[tetley]

Other countries can afford universal healthcare because they don't spend trillions on their national offense.

 

[Estebonrober]

Other countries can afford universal healthcare because they don't spend trillions on their national offense.

I'm sure we can afford both, presuming our rich don't actually all flee to Monaco or Andorra. I think last year the US economy was 20 trillion dollars last year.