Saving Money With Universal Healthcare
By Cernig Monday Aug 25, 2008 8:30am
Uninsured Americans will spend $30 billion a year in out of pocket expenses and incur another $56 billion in government-subsidized expenses, says a new study for healthaffairs.org by Jack Hadley of George Mason University in Virginia and a team at the Urban Institute.
"The uninsured receive a lot less care than the insured, and they pay a greater percentage of it out of pocket. Contrary to popular myth, they are not all free riders," Hadley said.
Current estimates show that 47 million Americans lack any health insurance, and 28 million have gone without for some part of the year. The U.S. Census bureau is scheduled to release new estimates on Tuesday.
The study goes on to suggest that if the uninsured were covered, they would spend more on healthcare. An insured person spends about $100 dollars more a year, on average, out of their own pocket than does someone without insurance.
And in the meantime, Sen. Bernie Sanders has a sensible suggestion for a filler measure.
For a relatively small amount of money, we can provide primary health care to every American in need of it through an expansion of the successful Federally Qualified Health Center program. On a budget of only $2 billion a year, this program, which has enjoyed widespread bipartisan support, now provides primary health care, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs to 17 million people through 1,100 health center organizations in every region of the country for an average cost of $125 per patient per year. The doors of these centers are open to all, including patients with Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, or no insurance at all, with sliding-scale fees.
... for a total of $8.3 billion a year, we could have 4,800 centers caring for 56 million people in every medically-underserved region of the country.
This upfront investment – which constitutes less than 0.5 percent of overall U.S. spending on health care – would more than pay for itself. The centers are among the most cost efficient federal programs in existence today. On average, medical expenses at health centers are 41 percent lower than in other health care settings.
Most importantly, from a financial point of view, by treating people when they should be treated, we can save billions by keeping patients away from emergency rooms and expensive hospitalizations.
What's not to like?
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You would become commie pinko bastards like us europeans.
looks like a workable plan!
if we can somehow afford a multi $$$ billion (wrongly unnecessary) war in Iraq, we can afford a few penny's for a practical universal health plan.
"Most importantly, from a financial point of view, by treating people when they should be treated, we can save billions by keeping patients away from emergency rooms and expensive hospitalizations.'
preventive medicine not only helps financially, but improves one's quality of life tremendously!
Please, not all of us europeans are bastards.
The vested interests, protected by their political stooges, will NEVER let this come to pass. Doing so would explode the myths on which the "health care system" is built. Their job is not to provide care but to generate maximum profit.
The economic argument is a no brainer. We spend about twice as much, in absolute dollars, on healthcare as Canada does, and get shittier outcomes, especially in the area of mortality and morbidity. Most of this excess cost comes from insurance company bullshit and the high cost of treating the uninsured in emergency rooms. Paying more for less is the definition of stupid.
The well worn neocon straw-man about 'paying for all those freeloaders with MY tax dollars" is nonsense, since we're already doing that, and in the most expensive way possible.
Hard to argue against care. However, I do have a concern that this may take enough pressure off the system to allow us to not do a comprehensive fix and therefore continue with a broken system.
You'll never get it past the Republicans unless you can show them how it will make them and their corporate supporters richer.
If it makes the Democrats look good in any way, the Republicans will oppose it as a matter of principle.
Maybe after the next election we won't HAVE to get it past the Republicans.
The GOP Healthcare Plan.
Don't get sick and get back to work, ya slackers.
As a practical matter upon implementation, are there enough primary care physicians, PAs, and nurses to staff all of those new facilities?
Totally smacks of elitist, commie, socialist crap! (j/k)
I think of that episode of The Boondocks where they are holding a BET board meeting and there's an orange set in front of each chair and the CEO says 'The orange is your new health plan.'
But...but...but...socialists!
Noah @ 4:
AMEN!
"What's not to like?" .. well.. it does kind of assume the US healthcare system isn't based on insanity to begin with.
Or perhaps not insanity but at least historical accident. (Going back to the WWII wage freeze and the subsequent widespread implementation of employment health benefits) It's not even a proper 'capitalist' system.
But what are you gonna do when the opposition screams "Oh so you want FRENCH healthcare now?".. Naturally from people who've never set foot in France, much less seen the inside of one of their hospitals.
V @ 9:
I like your thinking!
John Doheny @ 5:
stop! you're making too much sense for trhe amurKKKan brain!
1) Universal health-care is communism.
2) All the former communist states in Europe kept their public health care
Hence..
3) We know more about how bad communism is than they do.
US is finding out now that somethings dont function well with overt greed attached to them.
I'm all for universal health care, but I also know it will cost us. This is a snow job, because we have examples, as mentioned above, of how much universal health care costs. The bottom line is it doesn't matter how much it costs, it is always better for society to ensure the public is healthy.
Whats not to like?
Because it would mean millions of people would not have to worry as much about
working themselves to exhaustion staying in crappy jobs that happen to provide HC ...
and could spend more time ... oh lets see ... organizing, campaigning, informing themselves about who is really profiting from running the US into the ground ...
we don't want that now do we?
Ordinary people running the country?
NO!!
Keep the Super Rich in power!
Poopyman @ 11:
Yes and no. They already exist in private practice. But we would still need more to provide the additional primary care if we shift from our current focus on tertiary medicine to preventative medicine. Many could come from the subspecialty areas that would be used less if we provide more preventive medicine. Existing private clinics could be brought into the FQHC program. The savings occur by eliminating the private insurance and HMO overheads, which account for up to 30% of our HC dollar spent.
The private carriers would take a hit. They would still be able to sell insurance to those who want additional private coverage. But their stranglehold on the insurance market would be removed. This they will not accept.
Bravo to the Federal Qualified Health Centers. As a Board member of one in California I can attest to the quality and accessibility of their services.
Heres some comments about their expansion:
Any attempt to increase accessibility will create shortages of health care workers especially primary care physicians and nurses. This has to be addressed by a nationa wide concerted effort to increase enrollment in medical school including more Federal money for scholarships and free education.
The current administration, and the Republican presidential candidate see the private sector as the answer. In fact, it is the problem. It takes 20 or 30 % of your health care premium to operate the private insurance system. IT TAKES LESS THAN 3% TO OPERATE MEDICARE. The risk pool size is the critical element. The larger the risk pool (people paying into the system) the less the individual cost is to you and me.
Keep the pressure on Congress. Tell them to support and vote for HR676 (Conyers) It will create a Medicare system for all
Shan @ 8:
Get a Democratic president and a veto-proof Senate and it doesn't matter what the republicans think of the matter. They can piss themselves on the sidelines all they want.
Don't you people get it? This is the equivalent of the military industrial complex. Call it the health industrial complex. If you try to pay them LESS money, they will try to destroy you.
We live in a society where it's ok to pay millions to keep an old person alive for a few more weeks, while our kids are stuffed into sardine sized classrooms. The logic here comes from the entrenched HIC mentioned above.
Its madness!
But, but, then we'd become a third-world hellhole like England or Canada or Germany or Norway.
Steve @ 20:
A valid point. But I actually believe, truely, that universal health care would be relatively cheap. Yes, it's a lot more cost-effective (and that much is pretty well established). But there's a lot of other factors that come into play which rarely seem to be taken into account.
First, there's the increase in productivity - from a healthier population in general, and also because the poor end up putting off doctor's visits until it gets really bad, and end up having to have more sick leave than if they'd been able to see a doctor earlier.
Second, there's an increase in competitiveness. Economists who've looked into it say so at least. That is, US companies spend on employment health-benefits, which businesses in the rest of the developed world generally don't. It more than outweighs the increased corporate tax burden. That's to say if there even is one - the US corporate tax rate is comparable if not higher than the rest of the world.. or would be if they actually _paid_ their taxes.
This summer my uninsured son, age 30, had to go to the emergency room with a kidney stone. He and his young family are paying the bill. Now he cannot get insurance at any price - pre-existing condition.
I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 because of the health care issue. We were self employed and buying our own health insurance, then my husband got sick and was hospitalized for several weeks. The health insurance paid the bill and then dropped him. The state insurance plan was more than double in cost and we could not pay.
Now, in 2008, I'm still voting for universal healthcare. Nothing! Nothing has been done. To my vote has been added my son's and my daughter's-in-law, a former Republican.
Until you mandate any insurance company involvement in health care as a serious crime, you will never accomplish truly universal health care. Private insurer's sole purpose seems to be corporate profit--the public be damned! If they don't like that environment for doing business, let them leave. Let them find a better deal elsewhere. Their days of plundering in this country should be dramatically and forcefully ended.
Steve @ 20:
overhead for medicare/social security is around 1 percent. no profit motive.
overhead for corporatized medical coverage: 31% at least.
http://pnhp.org/ is a good place for info
http://familiesusa.org/ has some great info
http://everybodyinnobodyout.org/ has some more.
http://www.wnpj.org/pdf/health.pdf is an interesting, informative short document.
SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!!! ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!
IF PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE OF PREVENTABLE DISEASES FOR THE SAKE MY SILLY SLOGAN THEN SO BE IT!!! SLOGANS TRUMP PEOPLE!
I don't understand why US job instability isn't used as an argument for universal healthcare. Increasingly US companies use layoffs as a standard financial management tool. This leaves laid-off employees to fend for themselves, and COBRA is not adequate because it is expensive, and it doesn't run long enough. Most unemployed people don't have enough income to afford COBRA, and the average amount of time an American worker is out of work and between jobs grows longer and longer, so that COBRA's 18 months of life plays out before many workers find another job that offers health insurance -- if they can find such a thing, anymore.
Off Topic, Breaking News, 3 Arrested in plot to assassinate Obama.
They're down playing this story, But you know it's real.
Roger @ 23:
Steve @ 20:
Essentially the same argument for Social Security...and why it works, and why privatization of it is bad. Also applies to Head Start, Pell grants and any other large program funded by "contributions" from Americans.
This is all about ideology. What the GOP has done over the last 30 years has used slogans...such as "welfare queens", "cheaters", "onerous regulation", "imposition of the government on personal lives", "over taxation"...to convince middle america to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
This is the heinousness of the GOP which I abhor. Reagan did it when he used the example of a woman putting her dog on welfare during his State of the Union address. It was reprehensible politics then, and it still is. It played to the bias and bigotry..."the lesser angels"...of blue collar america...and it is solely responsible for the divisions that we have in our country today.
god forbid that your country would do something that might actually make sense and help people
Roger @ 23:
Roger,
Are you supporting CA SB 840?
Ferengi @ 32:
the ultimate point is that corporation use the tax code among other things as justification for layoffs. employee benefits actually double the cash cost of a fully-covered employee.
so two things have to be done:
1) change the tax code to reward the creation of american jobs and penalize the elimination of american jobs.
2) eliminate the corporate cost of health care to make employing americans in america more enticing.
europe and asian countries have done this and their companies do not look to save money via layoffs. their business and customer base grows, america's base does not.
Well thank you , Sen. Bernie Sanders, for injecting some common sense into the medical health equation. It's frickin' about time!! I agree with Cernig... what's not to like?
mudshark @ 33:
Three pinheads with nary a brain among them. The right wing, moronic stormtroopers of the GOP.
mudshark @ 33:
still off topic
sniper scope on one rifle.
Liberal AND Proud @ 39:
egged on, no doubt, by the hateRadio in Denver.
the assassination plot needs a thread!
Doesn't the US already have socialized police, fire and emergency services?
John Doheny @ 5:
when in actual fact it's those freeloaders in the neocon stratosphere of the Bu$h administration that are being supported with "MY tax dollars"...
Col Kilgore @ 19:
Well said, Col... thanks for saying it out loud!!
didn't Reagan also try to claim that ketchup was a vegetable,
as far as kid's school lunches?
we're living through a bunch of crises thanks to Ron Reagan's
policies and de-regulations.. I can't believe that people think
that the guy walked on the water or something..
I used to live in the US and now live in Quebec Canada. The inevitable objection to a Canadian style system are the long wait times for certain procedures and less than cutting edge facilities and equipment. Those are valid objections, but they aren't caused by the single payer system itself, but because of government underfunding of the system. It was decimated during the cutbacks in the 1990s that ended Canada's budget deficits, and is in the process of slow recovery as the government has run surpluses.
I think the single payer system would be a step up for the US. It is incredibly easy to navigate. But it's only going to work if there if there is a minimum standard of funding that can match pricing and inflation rates. That is where the biggest vulnerability lies.
CoIntelPro for Pronktastic Victory Over SCLM, DIEBOLD, ESS and SEQUOIA! @ 42:
OH! I'm sure it's coming!
{ We have a thread on this coming in about an hr. SiteMonitor}
Cernig said, "Whats not to like?"
I say well, first off trusting the federal govt do do anything whatsoever is ridiculous...public schools suck, social security fund has been plundered and the FDA, CIA, FBI, SEC, and every other alphabet agency is corrupt and is working for the corporations (not we the people.)
I would rather trust Lucy to hold the football...
Lets gain control of the gov't again, pull back our imperial legions from across the globe and then talk about it!
"NBC in Denver is now reporting, "Sources tell NBC the two men had tattoos and jewelry popular with white supremacists.""
earl @ 43:
Yes, Blackwater and Fema
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/26/mikes-blog-roundup-369/
an almost open thread
Milquetoast @ 51:
I wouldn't exactly call FEMA 'services'.
Economic benefits of single payer health care:
School districts biggest expense behind teacher salary is health care. At 12-20k per employee, you could end the education funding crisis and remove it from the proerty tax burden.
State and local government would save 10-20k per employee, thus reducing budgets dramatically and lowering property tax needs and state income tax needs.
Major corportions would save 10-20k per employee, thus putting it back into the factory or reducing the costs of goods, or heaven forbid, being able to increase labor's wages thus stimulating the economy.
All of this might cause a small raise in federal income taxes and corporte taxes, but the savings in expensive individual plans would be immense.
Universal health cre would be a boon to our economy the likes of which has never been seen!
Pat Riot @ 46:
you must admit that this country HAS been DUMBED DOWN!
CoIntelPro for Pronktastic Victory Over SCLM, DIEBOLD, ESS and SEQUOIA! @ 16:
I hope you're correct. (not right - right is wrong)
mudshark @ 33:
Oh its real alright...Cointelpro is definitely real.
sounds to me like the Pizza guys who were gonna take over Fort Dix N.J.
or the terrorist who was gonna take down the brooklyn bridge with a blowtorch
or the guys that the FBI setup to "take down" the sears tower...
{ Save it for the thread we have coming. SiteMonitor}
Milquetoast @ 57:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/26/mikes-blog-roundup-369/
let's take it here until the real thread opens up.
has anybody else been having problems with crooksandliars servers?
CoIntelPro for Pronktastic Victory Over SCLM, DIEBOLD, ESS and SEQUOIA! @ 41:
Isn't that Cletis in the middle?
CoIntelPro for Pronktastic Victory Over SCLM, DIEBOLD, ESS and SEQUOIA! @ 53:
FEMA = Dis-service.
blahblah @ 59:
Big Time. American Quality.
I find it interesting that no right winger has figured out that government supplied health care it the ultimate spying tool to know everything about Americans. Medically that is a good thing I believe. For example, having a database that will point out people suffering from the same illness living in a small geographical area might lead to early detection of the cause. However, assuming free health care will encourage regular visits to a doctor, any change in a person can be noted in that persons record.
Now imagine having your new tattoo noted in your medical record, when you got it (18 years old), with a picture of the Harley logo now adorning you scanned in to your file.
Your transfer to a new location is noted when you visit a new facility the first time and of course the doctor will ask about the new job, or reason for the transfer.
I was surprised several years ago when I saw a picture of me at a social function in my medical folder. My doctor cut it in from a newspaper and told me he saves any information he see about any of his patients.
Yeah the cons are really missing out on this one which leads me to believe that Chimpy's agenda is not really to spy on us to protect us, rather just a reason to create another avenue for transfering OUR tax dollars to corporations.
Universal Healthcare would be the best thing that ever happened to this country. Too bad the Democratic candidate and, by extension, the Democratic Party does not support it.
Barack Obama has no plans for Universal Healthcare. His healthcare proposals, like all of his policy positions, are so vague they are meaningless.
His Chicago School economic advisors preach a libertarian approach to economic and benefits programs.
Johnny @ 64:
One must tread lightly on some subjects until we are in a position to effect change. Look at all the things Chimpy promised and what he delivered. A Democratic administration with congress controlled by Democrats will work wonders beginning January 20, 2009.
L.A. Confidential @ 62:
It's just the PUMA filter.
$148.21 per person per year for care.
That is what is being proposed here for medical care: doctors, nurses, support staff, lab work, lights, computers, waiting room furniture, examining tables, lab work, insurance (and lawsuit payouts), etcetera.
8.3 billion dollars spread over 56 million people.
That is what this comes up to. What kind of care can you get for that?
Even just a few seconds of math demonstrates that these numbers are about as accurate as the bush/cheney estimate of the cost of the Iraq War.
Why is this federal program so efficient? Duhbya, Cheney, and Grover Norquist have been lax in turning our government into a worthless monstrosity!
Totally screwed up system where the insured pay more than those that have no insurance. Of course, the increased taxes to pay for emergency room visits for the uninsured are not factored in either.
First step - eliminate insurance companies and their control over the healthcare system. You can still have private medical care, but insurance company leeches should not be allowed to suck the health care dollars dry.
I saw some piece of conservative garbage essay yesterday about the evils of "socialized" medicine. I think it was on the Power Line blog.
They were giving examples of how much better health care we have here compared to, say, the U.K....examples of how we have a better chance of surviving cancer of any kind, one example of us having a better chance of surviving colon cancer, etc., etc.
One of the central themes, of course, was that this "socialized" medicine would cost us a lot more. And, of course, the stupid argument that our health care would get worse.
First of all, if one does not have health care, how would he get that cancer treatment???? Or, even if one does have health care, perhaps if he is not wealthy enough, he cannot afford that cancer treatment.
But it really galls me to hear those idiots say that our health care would get worse. I mean, if we truly have better health care that might prolong our life, that might give us a better chance at surviving a serious illness, then why the hell can we still not have that and at the same time provide health care to all???
Earlier this summer my Democratic Congressman Rich Boucher announced the opening of just such a Health Clinic here in SouthWest Virginia.
Opening of Floyd Community Health Clinic
drb @ 67:
People pay on a sliding scale.
That $148 per person per year is the federal contribution.
Che's Lounge @ 66:
Yup....many problems the past few days. This morning, first time I pulled up C&A, absolutely nothing showed up.
What's a PUMA filter?
General Jack D. Ripper @ 73:
Oops...meant "C&L", not "C&A"
doctor means teacher, thus doctoring would mean teaching, and I assume it means teaching about health. We have very few doctors who doctor (teach) about health. For illness type things (flu, sinus, infection, etc) the majority prescribe drugs for your ailments, and if that doesn't work then they'll cut the offending organ out. For muscluloskeletal problems they give you anti inflammatories, pain killers, etc and /or send you to a physical terrorist to have them watch you do exercises and stretch at $300/ hour (that sometimes helps since they what muscles yo need to stretch/strengthen/exercise but a bunch of cases the problem gets partially resolved then you are let go when the insurance runs out--the better the insurance the longer your program). Perhaps a surgery can help here again.
Its like the high gas prices or a gas shortage; the crisis has to step up and punch the American public in the nose to get their attention. Until we change our way of thinking about health other than relying on an outside agent delivering health we'll never solve the crisis. Health comes from within and we destroy the within by the toxins and non-nutrients that we put into our bodies and being sedentary without exercise to the point of obscene %s of us are now considered to be obese. The crisis becomes a heart attack or cancer or emergency operation, or hundreds of other interventions that are merely shots in the dark at restoring health. (If our system and theories worked we wouldn't be at the bottom of the rankings among industrialized nations in health.)
The drug company sponsored system doesn't give a shit about your health, they would rather you be sick, ill, and in pain. Then you'll buy more of their magic potions to wondrously restore your health. A pill for your gas (stomach and ass), a pill for the bedroom, to sleep or have sex. A pill for your hormones, out of control organs, to make you do whatever your little American brainwashed mind desires just so you don't have to work at it or take responsibility.
I'll back universal health care as soon as we have a comprehensive shift in ideology. But I don't foreseeing that happen as long as we allow corporate lobbying of congress and the drug companies remain the most powerful lobby.
Side-note to all those ill and obese bible thumpers out there, evangelicals, Christians, the whole lot; isn't there a verse in the bible about treating your body like a temple, and aren't you, (your body included), God's creation. Isn't it a bit hypocritical to go around and tell us what to do with our bodies when you don't take care of your own. Suicide is a sin. Ever thought of the number of years you killed off your life(ending it say 10 years early) by the poor maintenance of God's temple, (your body)?
Talk to the lobbyists 'cause the government's not listening
(and you could say the same thing about almost everything that needs fixing)
The fundamental problem is messaging. Unless that is clear, we can talk forever about cost savings and it won't matter. The frame in force for the last 30 years or more is "socialized medicine is bad", defined as giving health care to people who can't earn it and thus don't deserve it, run by government who squanders the efforts. That's what is in force: giving things away is bad and immoral, and government is incompetent. It is the right wing message and it is IN FORCE.
That is why drug companies shuck and jive, why even the American Cancer and Diabetes Associations are influenced by and proffer the talk of the drug companies. That is why insurance manipulates Medicare regulations then says, "If it's good enough for Medicare, it's good enough for us". That is why profit dominates rather than the moral obligation to provide health care and the teaching about health that ought to go with it.
The USA is the ONLY first world nation that does not provide universal health care. That means the right wing message and the rotten so-called "morality" rules. We progressives have failed utterly to change the message, that it is moral, fair, honest, cost-effective and humane to have health care for all. And we have failed to defend the government's responsibility to protect and empower people. That is why we have it, and why democracy is better than dictatorship.
The last eight years have seen authoritarian criminals like Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld jam their illegal acts down the throats of the world and this country unassailed by the rule of law. It goes on as we sit here. They have a sea of authoritarian followers, maybe 25% by some estimates of US citizens, ready and willing to do whatever they say. We progressives have not successfully attacked the for-profit-is-moral myth. How ridiculous is it that pain or not, cancer or not, heart disease or not, depends on profit. That immorality parades around unassailed. The right wing holds a monopoly on bad mythology, and even progressives say "war on terror" instead of something more progressive, like "terrorist prevention". Frames are set in stone by Karl Rove and his minions, and game over.
Until we get organized to redirect the messages mentioned, to explain why universal health care is right and the current for-profit debilitating disease care system is wrong, we will continue to watch as the crooks finish the job of having their fascist agenda fully realized. The melting ice caps and mass species extinctions will eventually "fix" the problem should we allow that, but it's kind of time, don't you all think, to make our majority views into reality?
General Jack D. Ripper @ 74:
It's a sarcastic dig at LA Confidential. PUMA means "Party Unity My Ass", a term used to describe (from my POV) the disgruntled Hillary supporters who threaten to vote for McCain.
In Canada we waste lots of health care money with lots and lots of upper level beaurocrats, studies, travel to meetings etc but I just look at that as a kind of welfare for the Ark B types who fill these positions (and create more). And it does burn me because money should go to doctors/nurses/equipment first. However I would rather see the money go to the beaurocrats than to corporate profits like you folks have in the US. Profit should never be a consideration in health care.
Anyways always call bullshit when some right-winger claims Canadian healthcare is poor cause its just fine. I sure hope you get it down there.
Well...it's cheaper to let them die. Not right, just cheaper.
Yes, true universal health care is the right thing to do.
We need to change the way we speak and think about health care. Call it Health Protection, and speak about health protection the same we we think about police protection and fire protection. We all pay for it and we all get it when we need it.
V @ 9:
Then you'll just have to get is past the Democrats, who take just as much money from the same lobbyists ...
Steve @ 20:
When you take out the extra administration by doctors and hospitals, insurance company overhead, profits for investors, the spiral of cost increases that are are necessary to make up for ever-shrinking insurance reimbursements, the cost of additional care necessary because of the failure to provide timely / preventive care, and the cost of lobbying, advertising and lawsuits BY insurers as well as against them), the costs drop at least 50% and the quality of care increases correspondingly.
" Uninsured Americans will spend $30 billion a year in out of pocket expenses and incur another $56 billion in government-subsidized expenses."
So Jack Teenager decides to do something he saw on Jackass and ends up in the hospital.
Why should I help pay for his knee injury?