Now it’s time to work for real health care reform — Medicare For All, say Greens
• The Democratic “insurance company enrichment” bill burdens millions of Americans and imposes mandates that enrich insurance companies
WASHINGTON, DC — Green candidates and party leaders said today that the passage of the Democratic health care bill, with its increased financial burdens on millions of Americans, should not slow the movement for Medicare For All (single-payer national health care).
Physicians for a National Health Program said in a statement on Monday, “Instead of eliminating the root of the problem — the profit-driven, private health insurance industry — this costly new legislation will enrich and further entrench these firms. The bill would require millions of Americans to buy private insurers’ defective products, and turn over to them vast amounts of public money.” (http://www.pnhp.org/news/2010/march/pro-single-payer-doctors-health-bill-leaves-23-million-uninsured)
• Dennis Spisak, Green candidate for Governor of Ohio (http://www.votespisak.org/governor): “Now that this bill has passed, those of us who support real universal health care must keep up the demand for Medicare For All. Every American deserves the same high-quality guaranteed health coverage that Congress members enjoy. We will challenge those who insist that further health care reform is no longer on the table. The Democratic bill was mainly written to give the appearance of reform. It forces people to buy insurance or face a tax penalty. It works like a regressive tax, in which in the uninsured — in the midst of a recession — must pay for insurance they can’t use due to the likely high co-pays and deductibles. Especially vicious is the amendment prohibiting states from enacting their own single-payer programs.”
• Jill Stein, physician and Green candidate for Governor of Massachusetts (http://www.jillstein.org): “”The position of most Democrats and Republicans on health care is that Americans have no right to medical treatment, but private insurance companies have every right to enrich themselves on our need for health care and to send hundreds of thousands of Americans financial ruin over medical costs. According to Physicians for a National Health Program’s critique of the bill, about 23 milion Americans will remain uninsured after nine years, resulting in ‘an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually and an incalculable toll of suffering’. In the media coverage of health care reform, the angle was whether President Obama could prevail against the GOP and uncooperative Democrats. It was all about personalities and a horse-race competition. Whether the Democratic legislation — or obstruction of reform by Republicans — actually helps people became a side issue.”
• Rich Whitney, Green candidate for Governor of Illinois (http://www.whitneyforgov.org) : “The real story of health care reform over the past year is how the insurance and other health lobbies sent millions of dollars in campaign checks to both Democrats and Republicans to make sure their interests came first. We’ll get real health care reform when Americans get angry enough to stop voting for Democratic and Republican candidates who are addicted to corporate contributions, and elect Greens, who call health care a basic human right.” (Visit the web site of the Center for Responsive Politics to learn how much these corporations donate to each Congress member: http://www.opensecrets.org)
• Nancy Allen, farmer and long-time Green organizer from Maine: “Some of the Tea Partiers showed their true colors this past weekend, when crowds hurled racist and homophobic epithets at Rep. John Lewis, Rep. Barney Frank, and other Congress members. How much did Republican politicians, insurance companies, and other industries encourage such behavior? How did these corporations successfully convince so many Americans that their own medical care is less important than corporate profits and power?”
• Rodger Jennings, Green candidate for US Congress in Illinois, District 12 (http://www.rodgerjennings.org): “The winners are the largest for-profit health insurance companies. Both Democrats and Republicans made the bottom lines of the insurance cartel the top priority, rather than every American’s need for quality medical care. Private insurance adds cost to health care but provides no value — physicians, nurses, and other professionals do the actual medical work. The administrative overhead, including CEO bonuses and salaries, of private insurance raises health care costs by up to 31%. The administrative overhead for Medicare is under 3%. By eliminating the corporate insurance middle-man, we’d reduce health care spending from over 15% to about 9% and cut the price of coverage and care dramatically, and every American would enjoy guaranteed, quality health care.”
On Christmas Eve morning, Senate Democrats followed through on their promise to pass their version of a health insurance reform bill before the Christmas Holiday, delivering what has been hailed by many liberal commentators in major media outlets as an "early Christmas gift." However, American workers concerned about the rising costs of health care, the poor quality of service provided by private insurance for those who can even afford it, and the millions of people left behind by for-profit, market based health care ought not get too excited about the Affordable Health Care for America Act. This "early gift" is more like a lump of coal!
Health care workers, activists, and patients, as well as labor leaders and rank workers in general -- many of whom voted the Democrats back into power in the "hope" they'd deliver a Universal, National Health Service -- have been left feeling confused, frustrated, and downright betrayed. The Senate bill, like the House version, cedes even more power to the already influential private, for-profit insurance industry: the same industry that financed the Democratic Party and President Obama's victorious electoral campaigns in 2008 while simultaneously padding the war chest of the Republican Party. They also bankrolled the fear-mongering and reactionary tea party "movement," which turned the longstanding American tradition of town hall meetings into an "at your own risk" excursion in 2009. That is to say, the health care industry funded both "sides" of the "debate," and now stands to reap a tremendous profit from their investment; all at the expense of the American working class.
The Senate bill differs little from the version passed in the House back in November. For the first time, individuals will be required by law to purchase insurance policies and maintain coverage, or pay punitive tax fines for non-compliance. Much of the language of the regressive Stupak Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds "to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion," is included in the Senate bill. A tax on so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans will hit unionized workers especially hard and undermine generations of struggle by workers for a decent standard of living. The insurance industry will receive billions of dollars in additional profits, guaranteed by the personal mandate, fine scheme and taxpayer funded subsidies, and gain access to new markets as the privatization of Medicare/Medicaid continues unabated and Medicare faces upwards of $400 billion in cuts. The industry also gets to keep its decades-old anti-trust exemption.
This scheme will cost American taxpayers over $800 billion dollars over the next decade and will do next to nothing to control costs; handing the great bulk of that money to the same private, for-profit insurers who have made a killing (literally!) denying Americans coverage or providing extremely limited and unreliable coverage, driving up costs and forcing many working class individuals and families into bankruptcy and poverty. Even more despicable is the 12 year market protection extended to Big Pharma for name-brand and high-tech prescription drugs, effectively a government guarantee of private corporate profits. Over 20 million people will still be left uninsured by the Senate bill, and countless more will be left without access to the health care they really need because, as many people have learned in the recent economic crisis, insurance does not guarantee access to actual care, especially not "affordable" care.
Of course, the only health care guaranteed to be "affordable" to all is universal, FREE health care and we can only have this by demanding, organizing for and winning a "Medicare for all" reform that includes everyone and leaves no one out, along the lines of the now-defunct HR 676 or SB 703. Public opinion polling has consistently shown for nearly a decade that Americans prefer such a national universal program over market-based proposals, and back in 2005/06 many leading Democrats paid lip service to such legislation, even promising to pass it if only American voters would deliver Democrats a "super majority" in the House and Senate. Well, the Democrats got their wish, and all American workers got was this lousy bill for $800 billion, which we get the "gift" of paying for over the next decade.
As many Americans crowd the post-holiday lines at our local department stores, seeking to return or exchange unwanted gifts, we ought to remember that the party-line vote to approve the Senate Democrats' bill was 39-60, with the Republicans favoring doing nothing and the Democrats supporting what amounts to a multi-billion dollar handout to the industry which is directly responsible for the death of 60 people in the US each and every day and the bankruptcy of thousands. Neither of these corporate, capitalist political parties represents the interests of the American working class, who make up the vast majority. America needs a working class party, an independent, mass party of labor based on the unions to fight uncompromisingly for the real interests of the majority. Only thus can we end the rationing of health care services based on economic privilege and win FREE, QUALITY health care for all as a human right!
In my earlier diary "The big stupid of health care reform", I argued first and foremost that our most basic problem in the health care fight derived from the overall deficiencies of fragmentary, short-term, ad hoc leftwing organizing vs. hegemonic, long-term, strategically pre-planned rightwing organizing. Among other things, I wrote:
Unlike us, the right builds long-term institutional infrastructure. With that infrastructure in place, it's a relatively easy task to pull together a coalition to do whatever it is you want to do. You are not assured of success, of course. But you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you need to go into battle. And as a result you can afford to go all out, and risk losing everything, because the cost of doing it all over again is not prohibitive. In fact, if you do it right, you can actually gain more from the repeat effort than it costs you.
Compared to that, our organizing methodology is doomed to failure.
Indeed, if ever there was an issue custom-made for shifting the country into a predominantly progressive political direction, it is the issue of health care for all. Indeed, this is precisely why the Republicans rallied to defeat health care reform under Clinton-even though that effort was itself a mixed-up half-measure. If the left realized the need for hegemonic struggle, and then looked around for one specific issue to use as a vehicle to wage such struggle, we would be very hard pressed to come up with something better than universal health care. And yet, instead of seeing this struggle as something that benefits us-as an opportunity to bring more and more people around to seeing things from a progressive perspective-we see it as something that puts us into peril, in panic mode, frightened into giving everything away.
While we haven't organized around this for hegemonic struggle in the past, that doesn't mean there aren't things we can start doing right now to change things-both short term strategies and tactics to make significant gains and reset the terms of terms of struggle, and a long-term shift in thinking based on preserving the state-level single-payer option, so that we can use state-level fights for hegemonic struggle in the future.
On the eve of what was thought to be, perhaps, a sign of progress in the six-decade long health care reform debate, joblessness mounts. Depression increases. The intensity of illness is on the rise. Few if any can afford to visit a doctor. People are unemployed, under-employed, and if an individual has an income, hours are reduced. There is barely enough to pay the most basic bills. let alone insurance premiums. Yet, staffers have been asked, no told, by business owners, workers must pay a larger portion of their health care coverage. Bosses bellow in unison; with profits down, certainly the corporations cannot continue to offer perks. Medical indemnities are a privilege, not a guarantee. If you feel ill, if you are injured, take two pills and call no one in the morning.
Do not dare telephone the Democrats. They have made their peace with the health care crisis. Republicans will not respond to the cries of a public, and Independents are, as you know independent! The decree; health care reform was dead on arrival.
I am still in a haze over the deal struck last night on the public option, not helped by the fact that they are keeping the details close while CBO scores the bill. As anyone who has read my past blog posts knows, I think the "details" on all these deals are incredibly important, and I don't believe in rushing to judgment until we have had a chance to analyze them. Clearly, though, there is both a lot of bad news in the reports coming out so far, and some good news as well.
The worst of the news (obviously, from my perspective) is the demise of the public option. Without knowing the details, it is hard to assess just how bleak things are, but the early reports make it sound like they have come close to killing it for everyone under 55, and above 150% of the poverty line. The one thing that could still salvage something decent is the nature is the trigger language, but I'm not hearing encouraging things about how good it is. And I am not going to sugarcoat this for you: this is a bitter disappointment. The result is a deeply flawed bill that will not control costs or provide a check on insurance company power the way it could or should have. I also think the politics of this are going to be very tough for the Democratic Party in both 2010 and 2012: people mandated to buy insurance without a public option they can go to will result in a lot of heartache for Democrats with middle class voters, and the disappointment the base feels on this issue will mean it will be much tougher for Democrats to recruit volunteers, raise money online, and turn out the base vote. They have just screwed themselves politically with this deal. Joe Lieberman, the conservative Democrat who absolutely refused to compromise or bargain in good faith, has just leveled a tough blow to his entire party.
However, there is some good news in reports of the compromise (again, waiting on the details):
opening up Medicare to people under 65 for the first time would be an important substantive and symbolic victory, and would allow progressives a wedge to keep pushing in years to come to open it up even further.
forcing insurers to pay out at least 90% of their revenue out in benefits (compared to the 82% on average they pay out now) is a very big and important victory, stopping the private insurance race to the bottom in terms of providing benefits that has been plaguing us for the last couple of decades.
forcing insurance companies to offer more choices, similar to what federal employees get now, is actually a significant victory even though there is no public choice. Members of Congress are always going to make sure there is decent competition for themselves, and if getting a package like theirs means we get more competition for everyone, that helps.
I will be writing more on this in the coming days. The loss of a public option is a bitter pill to swallow, but there is still plenty of good in this package. As details emerge, we will know more.
By blogging on a certain website, we help to legitimize its viewpoint. We generate advertising revenue for the site through our own hits and through hits that are a result of responses to our posts from others. We contribute to any reputation the site may have for being especially renowned and important. We contribute to the personal reputation of its editors and founders and help their voice extend further and sound louder than it might if we stayed away. In exchange, we get a place to share our views and learn about others.
I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that the views being presented right now on health care at Daily Kos are, at least at this time, doing more harm than good in the fight for reform. First among my concerns is the total failure by the editors to promote any kind of national health care system, which could but does not necessarily have to be Medicare for All. Given public opinion polling showing that a majority of the public probably would favor Medicare for All given the choice, the current monotone focus on the public option is simply a red herring that does more to hurt the fight for real reform than to help it. Secondly, even this focus is not what it claims to be. As Kip Sullivan has said, it's a "bait and switch."
That is the big question everyone is wondering about these days. Most of the traditional media is drooling over the idea of a train wreck, hyping the disagreements and hoping for failure. But the disagreements are also quite real and quite significant. Conservative Democrats don't want a public option, progressives are insisting on it. Conservatives don't want to spend too much, progressives want to be sure insurance is actually affordable to the middle class.
Conservatives don't want businesses to pay anything for their workers' health care, progressives don't want businesses to get a free ride, especially if their workers are being forced to buy insurance. Conservatives want workers taxed on their health plan if it's a good one, progressives would rather have the super rich pay more in taxes instead of the middle class worker with a decent insurance package.
These are tough issues to work out, but I am confident that the White House and the legislative leaders will figure out a way. When legislation is this important to pass - substantively and politically - leaders figure out a path to getting it done. I have seen it happen many different times over the years- seemingly impossible to solve policy differences worked out with patience, muscle, and creativity.
Take the public option. In what is either a sign we will pass health reform, or sign of the apocalypse (or maybe both for certain fundamentalist Christians), conservative Blue Dog Mike Ross and I, one of the original hard core public option advocates, actually agree on something related to the public option. Ross is now suggesting that "instead of creating an entirely new government bureaucracy to administer a public option, Medicare should be offered as a choice." I have fought like crazy for a new public health insurance option to be created for people under 65 years old, but I actually think that this idea is a very reasonable compromise: don't create a new entity, just open up the perfectly good public option we have - Medicare - to anyone who wants to buy into it. That would actually strengthen Medicare because younger, healthier people would be joining the risk pool. And it would satisfy progressives by giving some real competition to the private insurance industry.
Or take affordability. For the fiscally conservative Democrats, they can take reassurances on that issue from the latest CBO report which says that both of the two House bills comes close to (one slightly above, and one slightly below) the $900 billion amount targeted by fiscal conservatives, but they also cover more people, are far more affordable and are deficit neutral.
Here's the bottom line on middle class affordability: the compromise the Blue Dogs forced on the House Energy and Commerce bill made the cost for middle class families $551 a year more, while the Senate Finance bill was a staggering $3,900 a year more for middle class families than the Senate HELP Committee bill. And yet the CBO now says that the better House version of the bill (which is closer to the Senate HELP Committee) is just as fiscally responsible as the "centrist" alternatives that cost the middle class families so much more. When you look at the actual numbers and policy implications of the bills, it's easy to come to terms. In this case, the House bill allows both fiscal conservatives and those of us who want more affordability for the middle class to win.
When conservatives and progressive Democrats in the Senate and House sit down to look at these bills, compromise ideas like Ross' idea of letting everyone buy into Medicare will emerge, and when the merits of the bills are analyzed, I believe that people will come to understand that the political and policy logic of going with the better alternatives in all these areas. This is too important - to the country, to the President, to the Democratic Party - for this not to get resolved.
And if Mike Ross and a lefty like Mike Lux can find a common ground, then anything is possible.
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee passed the Baucus health care bill.
What a disappointment. No public health insurance plan. No universal coverage. No real price controls. Billions of taxpayer dollars for insurance companies.
The U.S. health system has left 46 million Americans uninsured. [1] 45,000 people die every year due to lack of insurance. [2] Insurance companies deny coverage to thousands more when they actually get sick. And insurance is simply too expensive for millions of people and businesses.
The Baucus bill solves none of those problems.
By contrast, Medicare is so efficient that it could insure all Americans for the same amount of money that we now give to private corporations.3
Under such a single-payer system, you still get to choose your doctor... except without a profiteering insurance corporation standing between you and your health care.
Will you ask Congress to support real reform -- in terms they can understand?
(1) "Income, poverty and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2008." Census Bureau, September 10, 2009.
(2) "Harvard study finds nearly 45,000 excess deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage." Physicians for a National Health Program, September 18, 2009.
(3) "Single payer system cost?" Physicians for a National Health Program.
The chart at the top of this post shows what happened to per-capita costs when Canada went to single payor. What's interesting is that before Canada went single payor, per capita health costs in Canada were higher than in the US. Over time, after single-payor was implemented, they they stayed even until about two-thirds of US costs, and then they started rising again. The rate they rose at was about the same as American health care costs, but they stayed at about two-thirds of the cost.
In other words, single payor is the simplest way to get a one time savings in health care costs. It has worked for every other country which has tried it (and yes, most European systems are variations on single payor. They aren't "pure" but they are still essentially single payor).
The next graphic shows the difference in administration costs. This is one main reason why single payer is cheaper than a private system—it takes a lot less people to administer. American hospitals have billing wings. Canadian hospitals have a room or two of people who do all the billing.
This is the single-payer challenge to the public option. Can it hold costs even until they are about one-third less than they would have otherwise been? Until they are about even with the rest of the civilized world's costs?
I'd put my money on a simple, heartfelt no. Look hard in the mirror and try and tell yourself otherwise.
Single payer, or "Medicare for all" isn't a long term solution to health care costs. But it could buy the country a good ten years before costs start rising again. That's a lot of time. A lot of money. And a big challenge for any other plan to meet.
Which leads us to the question of taxes. Every time someone starts whining about how taxes have to rise to pay for universal healthcare I want to smash my head against the nearest brick wall (since that's softer than most of the skulls in Congress or the media). Those per-capita costs above? They aren't for just "insured Americans", they are divided across the entire population. America is already paying more than enough money to give everyone health care, but because so much of it is being wasted, 48 million are uninisured and 62% of all bankruptcies are caused by health care problems, and 75% of those had what in the US is laughably refered to as "health care insurance".
If proper health care reform occurs. Health care reform which holds down costs, taxes might rise, but the overall cost should hold steady or rise only slightly. If employers who provide insurance now are allowed to keep half the money, and required to give half of it as a raise to the employees losing the insurance benefit, and if corporations and employees are taxes, the average person will have the same amount of money as they did before universal healthcare. And very quickly, within a few years, they will have more money in pocket than they would have without it.
Does it matter who you pay your health care money to? The government or the insurance companies, as long as you get care? And if the government can do it for cheaper, so you'll have more money left over, for better care (and yes, Virginia, every country in the world with real universal health care has better overall results than the US) why wouldn't you want that?
But no politicians comes out and says this. "We are paying too much for health care. You, my fellow citizens, are paying too much for bad health care. What we are going to do is make sure that you get good health-care for less money. Because yes, my friends, the government is better at some things than private companies, and health insurance is one of them."
This is the bottom line—single payer—Medicare for all—is cheaper and provides better results than the current system.
Can any of the bills going through Congress say the same? If they can, can they say it to the same extent?
That's the single-payor challenge. And like one of those old time boxing challenges where the boxer would take on all comers, I'm betting the public option rube is going to get his clock cleaned.
Which would be no big deal, except that it means a lot of people are going to die and suffer and go bankrupt who wouldn't have if Congress members weren't too beholden to insurance companies to do, for once, what is right for Americans. I don't know why they won't do what's right. I don't know why they won't do what's proven to work, rather than try and cobble together a rickety unproven plan.
But I can only assume it's like the old question we used to ask about the Bush administration. "Evil or stupid?"
Evil - taking health insurance company money and doing what they know is wrong because they've been bought.
Stupid-so ideologically blind that they think that even if every other country who's gone single payer has had it work, it's still a bad thing because the private sector is always better than the government, no matter how many people it kills or bankrupts.
I don't know. But either way, they're failing the single payer challenge.
The Honeymoon's Over: Tell The Democrats To Pass Medicare-For-All. Now. Stop The Shake-Downs, Stop The Corruption, Stop The Betrayal.
The Democrats announced early this year that they were really mad at the credit card industry, they were really going to make some "reforms" of that industry to help the public. So they set up a bunch of meetings between the No-Change President and the CEOs of the major credit card companies. And the Democrats in Congress met with the major credit card companies. Presumably to negotiate enormous bribes to be paid by the credit card companies to the Democrats. What you call a Shakedown.
Because after those secret meetings, there was no "reform" of the credit card industry. Instead, the Democrats passed some completely toothless and meaningless law that says before the credit card industry sends Guido and Carmine out to bust people's knees, they've got to send a written notice. Whoopie. Despite the efforts of a few politicians to have real reform, which means to limit the amount of interest that can be charged to consumers for loans, the Democrats refused to support any such limits. The Democrats refused to pass a law that would "limit" the credit card companies to "only" charging 37% per year on loans. As far as the Democrats are concerned, the higher interest that's charged to the citizens of this country by the credit card companies, the bigger the kick-backs and bribes paid to the Democrats.
And now we're seeing the same type of manipulation and deception by the Democrats in connection with their promise to "reform" healthcare. First they announce, through several leaders, that they're not going to have single-payer. Then they refuse to even meet with representatives from groups supporting single-payer, and refuse to let those people have a voice in Congress. To explain, for example, that the most cost-effective reform, the one that would provide the most healthcare and save the most money, would be a single-payer system.
Instead, we have a series of secret meetings between No-Change Obama and the leading Democrats, on the one hand, and the CEOs of the Medical Industry on the other hand, presumably shake-down meetings in which the Democrats agree they won't reform anything in healthcare if the Medical Industry pays the politicians enough money in bribes.
Sold out again. Betrayed. Abandoned and deceived.
First No-Change Obama comes out and announces that some of the big CEOs have "promised" they will "really really really" try to not raise how much they charge us so much. Ten years from now, they will really really try. No enforcement mechanism, nothing in writing -- spit is what it is. Meaningless nonsense.
Now we hear that No-Change Obama has also negotiated some deal with the Drug Dealers by which they promise they will really really really try not to charge so much. Meaningless. These Medical Industry people have been raping the American public for decades, and they aren't going to change unless we force them. How much money did the Drug Dealers promise to kick-back to the Democrats in exchange for the Democrats doing nothing to control the prices that average people have to pay.
The Democrats have the majority in Congress and can do anything they want. What they should do is pass Medicare for all. Anybody who wants to stay with private insurance should do so. Anybody who wants to join Medicare should be allowed to do so. People with sufficient income should be required to pay something to buy into the system, something like a premium but a lot less expensive. And anyone who goes into Medicare would be saved from the private insurance company's practice of dumping people as soon as they get sick, or raising their premiums to they are unaffordable.
The Democrats claim that the mean old Republicans won't let them do a Medicare for All. Nonsense. The Democrats have the majority and can pass anything they want.
Some apologists claim that Obama wants to represent all the people, and there aren't enough people who support Medicare for all. Another lie designed to cover up corruption.
The New York Times reports today that in a poll conducted last week, they found that 72% of the public supports Medicare for all.
"The national telephone survey, which was conducted from June 12 to 16, found that 72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan - something like Medicare for those under 65 - that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed. " http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06... If the Democrats don't pass a Medicare-for-all system which allows anyone to join Medicare, then they are useless.
Think about it. They give hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street and the Banks, who kick back millions to the politicians individually. They vote hundreds of billions of dollars to fund more wars in which our military is being used as a private mercenary goon squad on behalf of the Oil Corporations, committing international war crimes, torture, kidnapping, and murder across the world. And they ignore the public's demands that these wars be ended.
They refuse to enforce the laws against the wealthy and powerful by establishing commissions to investigate and prosecute, and seize assets, for the financial crimes and the war crimes committed in recent years in this country. Not one person in our government will even allow hearings to be held to investigate the clear evidence of crimes by the top people from Wall Street and the top people from the Bush-Cheney administration. What do you call a government that refuses to enforce the laws against the rich and powerful? Certainly not a democracy.
We have an actual unemployment level of 17%, predicted to go higher every single month through 2009 and possibly through 2010, and the Democrats have failed to do anything to create jobs programs or jobs for Americans. Instead, they are supporting more trade agreements to send more American jobs out of this country, throw more people out of work.
Being a Democrat is like having the boyfriend who never calls, having the boss who never makes payroll, having the spouse who never brings home their paycheck because they spend it on themselves.
They ignore us, they ridicule us and what we want, they tell us we're stupid and we don't know what we're talking about, they tell us to shut up because they'll do what they want, when we demand our rights they say we're nagging, when we demand attention they tell us they're too busy with somebody else. I'm beginning to feel like I've got the battered spouse syndrome: they beat me up, steal my money, treat me bad, lie to me, cheat on me, then show up on Sunday evening and expect me to have a pot roast on the table, cold beer in the frig. One day they're going to show up on Sunday and we'll all be gone.
STATE BLOGS
The chart at the top of this post shows what happened to per-capita costs when Canada went to single payor. What's interesting is that before Canada went single payor, per capita health costs in Canada were higher than in the US. Over time, after single-payor was implemented, they they stayed even until about two-thirds of US costs, and then they started rising again. The rate they rose at was about the same as American health care costs, but they stayed at about two-thirds of the cost.
The next graphic shows the difference in administration costs. This is one main reason why single payer is cheaper than a private system—it takes a lot less people to administer. American hospitals have billing wings. Canadian hospitals have a room or two of people who do all the billing.