Nancy Pelosi On Single-Payer Health Care

[esmith]

Oh, oh. Did Nancy screw-the-pooch on this one?
"That is, administratively, the simplest thing to do, but to convert to it? Thirty trillion dollars. Now, how do you pay for that?”

Source:Pelosi on single-payer health care: 'How do you pay for that?'

 

[joe1776]

Pelosi sounds like she may be representing the insurance and healthcare industries. The single payer plans will save consumers money. Let's take a stab at the amount. How about $100 a month for the average citizen?

If the average citizen's taxes go up $300 a month but his $400 a month insurance bill goes to zero, he saves $100.

She doesn't want to dismantle the ACA? Why not? Who will that hurt if not the industry?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Oh, oh. Did Nancy screw-the-pooch on this one?
"That is, administratively, the simplest thing to do, but to convert to it? Thirty trillion dollars. Now, how do you pay for that?”

Source:Pelosi on single-payer health care: 'How do you pay for that?'

Reading between the lines.....

How to completely exempt myself and get other people to pay for it.

 

[Jeremiah Ames]

Oh, oh. Did Nancy screw-the-pooch on this one?
"That is, administratively, the simplest thing to do, but to convert to it? Thirty trillion dollars. Now, how do you pay for that?”

Source:Pelosi on single-payer health care: 'How do you pay for that?'

We spent $20 trillion, by simultaneously creating lots of billionaires and millions of poor people. Perhaps $30 trillion to create a more healthy populace doesn’t look so bad.

 

[PureX]

The gigantic impediment to achieving universal healthcare in the U.S. is that every other nation on the planet that has universal health care has realized that they have to STOP THE PRICE GOUGING that is inevitable in any free-market economy because HEALTH CARE IS NOT A FREE MARKET. "Pay or die" is not a choice that's emblematic of any version of a free market to anyone with any version of a brain. Therefor, all these other nations realized that they would have to set price caps on all goods and services involved in health care to keep the costs to a level that their population could afford. And this idea absolutely freaks out every major business conglomerate in the U.S. because even if they are not involved in health care, they know they are price-gouging the citizens because they know that nearly all of them are operating in captive markets (not free markets, as they have us all stupidly believing). Because the only markets in our modern highly regulated and interdependent societies that are actually free, are the luxury markets. Energy is not a free market. Communications is not a free market. Transportation is not a free market. Housing and municipal utilities are not a free market. We cannot decided not to buy these offerings in a modern society. And that means that the people who sell them know we have to buy from them, and that they can price-gouge us until we literally has no more money left to pay.

Once the American people wake up to the fact that they are being price-gouged for nearly everything they buy because they are NOT living in a free market economy, and they agree to let the government set price caps to stop the price gouging, the big corporate profit gravy train will finally end. And there will be no more CEOs making millions and billions of dollars based on the giant profits they rack up for their investors. And this is why they will fight tooth and nail, with lies and bribery and threats and even murder to make sure that we do not get universal health care, with it's necessary and requisite price caps. It's those price caps that the investor class in this country absolutely cannot tolerate, and will do ANYTHING to negate, no matter how many citizens go without health care, and end up sick, dead, or destitute because of an illness. Our lives and well-being will not be allowed to stand in the way of their profits.

 

[Shad]

Oh, oh. Did Nancy screw-the-pooch on this one?
"That is, administratively, the simplest thing to do, but to convert to it? Thirty trillion dollars. Now, how do you pay for that?”

Source:Pelosi on single-payer health care: 'How do you pay for that?'

Pelosi is trying to appear as a moderate as the leftists in the party spilled the beans.

 

[dianaiad]

Pelosi sounds like she may be representing the insurance and healthcare industries. The single payer plans will save consumers money. Let's take a stab at the amount. How about $100 a month for the average citizen?

If the average citizen's taxes go up $300 a month but his $400 a month insurance bill goes to zero, he saves $100.

She doesn't want to dismantle the ACA? Why not? Who will that hurt if not the industry?

If this goes through....

I have Kaiser Permanente. It is a 'Senior Advantage' plan, where Kaiser accepts, as the premium, the Medicare premium portion that is held back from my Social Security. I also have financial aid to help me with copays. As a result, I have access to health care...very good health care...including two six week stays at the City of Hope for bone marrow transplants (roughly half a million dollars each), medication which is billed at $36,000 per month, chemotherapy infusions which are billed at $25,000 per infusion,, and right now I am going every other week. Medicare has this odd pricing system where, if you are 'out of pocket' for more than a certain amount, your medication co-pays go way down. However, that 'starts over' every January, so my prescription co-pay for the Revlimid I take is nearly four thousand dollars.

Kaiser has me on that financial aid, however, so I don't have to come up with it. Good thing: my monthly income is about half of what that January co-pay would be.

If the things that the Dems want to propose go through...if that 'single payer' system goes through, I'm toast. I would have the same problems that Canadians, Brits and Australians have; my treatment would be decided upon by some committee, based, not upon whether I need the medication or whether it would cure me or put me in remission, but on whether it costs too much, or whether I was worth the effort.

I have seen the guidelines for my particular problem in Canada, the UK and Australia. If I lived in any of those nations, I would have been dead five years ago.

Perhaps my view of this is a little too selfish to be objective. Shoot...I know it is. I don't care. I'm not in any way unique here. If you want to change the health care system, then do it some other way than going 'single payer,' or even Obamacare. It's not working.

 

[PureX]

If the things that the Dems want to propose go through...if that 'single payer' system goes through, I'm toast. I would have the same problems that Canadians, Brits and Australians have; my treatment would be decided upon by some committee, based, not upon whether I need the medication or whether it would cure me or put me in remission, but on whether it costs too much, or whether I was worth the effort.

See, this is one of the big lies/threats that the corporate conglomerates are going to spin ad-nauseum because they are panic-stricken by the idea of the government setting limits on their price-gouging. They will claim that these pricing limits will be used to let us die because it will cost too much to save us: "death panels" they'll call them, and so on. When in reality what the panels will do is set price caps on medical goods and services so that an MRI that costs $200 everywhere else on Earth, instead of $2,000, as it does here, will cost $200 here. And just as no one dies in any of these other nations because of "death panels" declaring them unworthy of a $2,000 MRI, no one will die here from it, either. And the MRIs will still be available, because the truth is they are still profitable at $200. Just not excessively so. But oh how the conglomerates will lie, and shriek, and threaten death and all manner of mayhem! Because the price-gouging gravy train will come to a halt, and they really, REALLY, do not want that to happen.

 

[dfnj]

Oh, oh. Did Nancy screw-the-pooch on this one?
"That is, administratively, the simplest thing to do, but to convert to it? Thirty trillion dollars. Now, how do you pay for that?”

Source:Pelosi on single-payer health care: 'How do you pay for that?'

Making money off of other people's misery is completely unethical and is immoral.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Making money off of other people's misery is completely unethical and is immoral.

It does surprise me that Health Care costs remain unregulated and unchecked in comparisons to other services that are deemed essential.

 

[joe1776]

If this goes through....

I have Kaiser Permanente. It is a 'Senior Advantage' plan, where Kaiser accepts, as the premium, the Medicare premium portion that is held back from my Social Security. I also have financial aid to help me with copays. As a result, I have access to health care...very good health care...including two six week stays at the City of Hope for bone marrow transplants (roughly half a million dollars each), medication which is billed at $36,000 per month, chemotherapy infusions which are billed at $25,000 per infusion,, and right now I am going every other week. Medicare has this odd pricing system where, if you are 'out of pocket' for more than a certain amount, your medication co-pays go way down. However, that 'starts over' every January, so my prescription co-pay for the Revlimid I take is nearly four thousand dollars.

Kaiser has me on that financial aid, however, so I don't have to come up with it. Good thing: my monthly income is about half of what that January co-pay would be.

If the things that the Dems want to propose go through...if that 'single payer' system goes through, I'm toast. I would have the same problems that Canadians, Brits and Australians have; my treatment would be decided upon by some committee, based, not upon whether I need the medication or whether it would cure me or put me in remission, but on whether it costs too much, or whether I was worth the effort.

I have seen the guidelines for my particular problem in Canada, the UK and Australia. If I lived in any of those nations, I would have been dead five years ago.

Perhaps my view of this is a little too selfish to be objective. Shoot...I know it is. I don't care. I'm not in any way unique here. If you want to change the health care system, then do it some other way than going 'single payer,' or even Obamacare. It's not working.

The healthcare industry can charge ridiculous fees because no one cares how much they charge. You don't care because you're insured. The insurance carrier doesn't care because they can pass along the cost to the average consumer.

Fraud benefits insurance companies as long as they aren't paying for more fraud than their competitors because it's better to have a 10% market share of a 1.5 trillion dollar (fraud included) industry than a 10% share of a 1.0 trillion dollar ( fraud-free ) industry.

The U.S. system includes the cost of malpractice suits which includes massive fraud because, once again, the insurance carriers don't care about as long as they aren't hit with more fraud than their competitors. Claimants and their lawyers alike feel like they're living the American dream when they fleece the deep-pocket insurance companies.

I'm glad you are getting the care you need but the ridiculous costs you quoted would not be incurred for the same care in a single-payer system like Canada's.

 

[PureX]

I think it's safe to assume that every career politician in the U.S. is and has long been a political toady for the corporate conglomerates that fund them. And that includes democrats as well as republicans., like Nancy Pelosi.

 

[PureX]

The healthcare industry can charge ridiculous fees because no one cares how much they charge.

Everyone cares because everyone is paying the price for all that price-gouging. Only idiots think they aren't being effected.

 

[Fool]

Oh, oh. Did Nancy screw-the-pooch on this one?
"That is, administratively, the simplest thing to do, but to convert to it? Thirty trillion dollars. Now, how do you pay for that?”

Source:Pelosi on single-payer health care: 'How do you pay for that?'

if universal health care is good enough for veterans, it's good enough for me.

 

[dianaiad]

See, this is one of the big lies/threats that the corporations are going to spin ad-nauseum because they are panic-stricken by the idea of the government setting limits on their price-gouging. They will claim that these pricing limits will be used to let us die because it will cost too much to save us: "death panels" they'll call them, and so on. When in reality what the panels will do is set price caps on medical goods and services so that an MRI that costs $200 everywhere else on Earth, instead of $2,000, as it does here, will cost $200 here. And just as no one dies on any of these other nations because of "death panels" declaring them unworthy of an expense, no one will die here from, either. But oh how the conglomerates will lie, and shriek, and threaten death and all manner of mayhem! Because the price-gouging gravy train will come to a halt, and they really, REALLY, do not want that to happen.

I'm sorry.

But I have seen what happens to people with my condition in those single payer nations. I SEE what they have to go through in order to be treated properly. You are making an incorrect statement when you claim that 'no-one dies' because of 'death panels."

They do.

When I see people who have to wait five years to get knee replacements...resulting in a lack of range of motion and mobility that they could have avoided had they received treatment in a timely manner, I see what 'single payer' government run health care does.

When I see someone who has what I have, the same age as me, having to wait for permission to have a bone marrow transplant until the government can get around to him....and then be told, when he finally gets to the head of the queue, that he is now 'too old' for the procedure because of some arbitrary cut off date decided upon by a committee who has never seen him...that's a 'death panel.' I don't care what you want to call it, that's what it is.

In the meantime, I have had TWO transplants, and am be bopping along being a grandmotherly sort who is active and doing stuff. HE....died a few months ago.

Because some committee in a government run health care system decided that nobody over the age of 65 should be given a bone marrow transplant. Never mind that, at 70, he ran marathons, rode a bike 30 or more miles a day, was incredibly health conscious and physically fit...his age was wrong. So he died.

I don't know precisely how we can fix this, but I do know this: a single payer system in the USA WILL NOT WORK.

The USA is too big.

 

[PureX]

I'm sorry.

But I have seen what happens to people with my condition in those single payer nations. I SEE what they have to go through in order to be treated properly. You are making an incorrect statement when you claim that 'no-one dies' because of 'death panels."

They do.

When I see people who have to wait five years to get knee replacements...resulting in a lack of range of motion and mobility that they could have avoided had they received treatment in a timely manner, I see what 'single payer' government run health care does.

When I see someone who has what I have, the same age as me, having to wait for permission to have a bone marrow transplant until the government can get around to him....and then be told, when he finally gets to the head of the queue, that he is now 'too old' for the procedure because of some arbitrary cut off date decided upon by a committee who has never seen him...that's a 'death panel.' I don't care what you want to call it, that's what it is.

In the meantime, I have had TWO transplants, and am be bopping along being a grandmotherly sort who is active and doing stuff. HE....died a few months ago.

Because some committee in a government run health care system decided that nobody over the age of 65 should be given a bone marrow transplant. Never mind that, at 70, he ran marathons, rode a bike 30 or more miles a day, was incredibly health conscious and physically fit...his age was wrong. So he died.

I don't know precisely how we can fix this, but I do know this: a single payer system in the USA WILL NOT WORK.

The USA is too big.

Please stop drinking that corporate cool-aid. It's really bad for you, and for everyone else.

Try watching this, instead ...

Or this: ...

 

[esmith]

if universal health care is good enough for veterans, it's good enough for me.

Well did you volunteer to serve this country in the same manner a veteran has done?
If not, then as far as I'm concerned you can not compare the VA with civilian health care.

 

[joe1776]

Everyone cares because everyone is paying the price for all that price-gouging. Only idiots think they aren't being effected.

When the hospital presents a bill for $35,000, the insured patient doesn't care if the charges are reasonable and the insurance company doesn't care as long as its competitors would be paying the same amount.

I agree that everyone SHOULD care but not enough recognize the problem which will take a political fix.

 

[Father Heathen]

It does surprise me that Health Care costs remain unregulated and unchecked in comparisons to other services that are deemed essential.

There are people who will refuse treatment they actually need simply because they would be ruined by what they'd have to pay out of pocket. This doesn't happen in other first world nations.

 

[sun rise]

The US death panels are run by insurance companies etc because of their practices which deny health care to those on the bottom at least before Obamacare and would again if the right had its way.

As far as costs go, in the civilized world, basically outside the US, the cost of health care is much less than it is here. From my Taiwan thread:

Harvoni, a drug to treat hepatitis C, costs $2,132 for a course of treatment in Taiwan; in the United States, the same amount costs an average of $32,114

An MRI costs $288 in Taiwan; in the United States, it’s $1,119.

A C-section costs $1,404 in Taiwan; in the United States, it’s $15,106.

Given how bad the US ranks in health care, longevity etc, it's time for a study of true costs if we had sane pricing and not death panel pricing for drugs, tests and treatment.

We need to know the overhead charged by all the middlemen which does nothing to improve health but just creates a bureaucratic system run by gigantic insurance companies who seek to maximum profits by inflating costs and denying care - in effect pricing death panels.

Then we need to consider the costs due to greed run wild drug companies who don't care if people die in pursuit of profit, another death panel in pursuit of profit.

And it's time to recognize that the marketplace does not work when it comes to medicine. Sure I can choose a doctor but when I call 911 due to an emergency,, the idea that I'm going to take time to consider the cost of care and choose alternatives while having a heart attack is incredibly insane.

But if we want to keep the current insane system, we need to have a corporate excess profit death penalty (involuntary chapter 7) for a company convicted of corporate crimes of pricing death panels.