Bailout for all, not just a few
Incrementalism is costly, do it right the first time!
By Jack E. Lohman
As bailouts go, here’s an idea that will help all citizens and all US industries at the same time, not just AIG and banking and not just GM and Ford: Implement a “Medicare-for-all” system that transfers health care costs from all businesses to the public.
It protects the citizenry and their children in the process! And it bails out all industry, not just a few favored companies, and it uses the same taxpayer dollars. It’ll reduce employee costs for all companies by typically $6000 per employee per year, provide 100% health care to all Americans, reduce (for example) car prices by $1200-1500 each, save $400 billion in national healthcare costs, and make corporations more competitive with foreign product. It will save ALL corporations money and keep jobs in the country!
It boggles my mind that we still have some business leaders that want to control their employee healthcare. Do they not have better things to do?
How can we afford not to do this?
Medicare-for-all is simple. You get sick, you get care, and the caregiver gets paid. Simple as that. The hospital or doctor sends their bill to a different payor, the Medicare contractor. You will go to the same doctor and hospital as before, they’ll just send their bill to a different payor.
This would eliminate the 31% of healthcare costs that are currently consumed by the wasteful insurance bureaucracy. These are costs like high broker commissions, high executive salaries and bonuses and stock options, shareholder profits, cherry-picking and lemon-drop costs, and even lobbying and campaign contributions that are added to the system and passed on to the patient. Medicare’s administrative costs are just 3% of the total.
More of the same is not the answer.
And don’t you believe that we’ll turn into a Canadian system with its wait times. They spend just 10% of GDP and we spend 16.5%. We don’t have wait times now, and if the politicians are on the same system we’ll not have wait times then. And over 59% of physicians and 80% of nurses support the change.
The only industry that won’t like it is the insurance industry, and the business associations and politicians that take their money. Let’s hope they don’t win this battle and put the country further under.
– Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate and publishes http://MoneyedPoliticians.net. He authored “Politicians - Owned and Operated by Corporate America” and can be reached at jelohman@gmail.com.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Will the doctors and nurses then be government salaried employees?
November 10th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
No, they aren’t under Medicare and they wouldn’t be under a Medicare-for-all system.
November 11th, 2008 at 9:45 am
How would that work if they are no longer independent businesses - they are paid by the government in national healthcare countries. Where else would they get their money? Medicare for all is national healthcare then.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:04 am
If that were the case they are no longer independent businesses now because they take Medicare patients. Under the plan proposed above they are subcontractors to the government for 100% of their patients, rather than the 30% they get today.
Yes, that’s effectively national healthcare, and if you are “fat and happy” now with employer-provided coverage, you may not like the sound of that. But if you are part of the 95 million Americans that are either uninsured or under-insured, it sounds pretty good. Or if you are subject to losing your job, this is a good option for you.
That said, read the complete description at Medicare-for-all before making your decision. Taiwan studied all systems worldwide and settled on a Medicare-for-all system for ALL of their systems.
But as well, if we are going to bail out industries with taxpayer money, I’d rather we do it this way instead of giving them cash.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Correction: systems = citizens
November 11th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Most doctors have some Medicare, and even some Medicaid, but also have private pay patients as well. Physicians and hospitals make up their losses for government paid services by charging more for private insurance paid patients. I see a mass exodus of physicians if national healthcare and/or national Medicare becomes reality.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
That won’t happen under the scenario you mention, because 59% of physicians already support a single payer system and the rest will come on if it is the only system under which they can practice.
We aren’t talking about decreasing their salaries, just simplifying their billing operations. What you hear as a mass exodus simply is the scare tactics used by the insurance industry.
However, if we DON’T do something physicians are likely to bail because the for-profit insurers are getting between them and their patients, in effect limiting the care they can give. And as well, the for-profit hospitals are buying up the physician practices and then pressuring them to see more patients in less time.
It is not a pretty picture.
November 11th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Let me qualify what I said about reducing physician salaries. Currently there are some physicians who are over-ordering tests because they are profitable, and a single-payor provider (the taxpayers) could institute stiffer regulations that would prevent such fat (or over-billing). So in that scenario they could see their billings go down, but justifiably so.
It should not surprise you that those physicians currently over billing are the most vocal against reform of the system.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:22 am
59% of physicians do NOT support a single payer system. That’s the poppycock put out by proponents of single payer. Watch a mass exodus of MD early retirees, medical school applications and more concierge medicine if a government single payer system is pursued in this country. There is already a shortage of physicians–what will happen then? Mass importation of ESL doctors from other parts of the world and a dumbing down of medical applicants and even that will not bridge the shortage of physicians for at least a decade or more–and at the height of the baby boomers coming on board Medicare.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:07 am
Don’t know where you are (not) getting your numbers, hoads, but the 59% comes from a survey of physicians in Minnesota, but the numbers are surely higher and lower elsewhere. One hospital in California has shut out all insurances and accept only Medicare patients. That wouldn’t happen were they being underpaid by Medicare.
And you should look at http://www.pnhp.org, a group of thousands of physicians who are fighting to get rid of our mish-mash.
Shortage? Yeah, we need 350 more family practice physicians in Wisconsin, but that’s because specialists are overpaid and FPs are underpaid. My grandson is a pre-med student in his 4th year and has a score of 98 on the national SAT tests, and he’s playing hell finding a med school because they are all filled up.
Yes, there are physicians who do now and will then avoid Medicare, and that’s because Medicare reimbursements are fair and private insurers, at least in the past, have reimbursed up to four times more than Medicare. Will the rich find ways around the system? Yeah, they already do. But you best take a look at where the other 95% of the public is going. It isn’t a pretty sight.