Medicare for All 'Is What Patients Need'

[guillaumeb]

Medicare for All 'Is What Patients Need': New Harvard Study Shows Even Those With Private Insurance Can't Afford Care

From the article:

The for-profit U.S. healthcare system is so broken that a growing number of people who are fortunate enough to have private insurance coverage are still unable to afford doctor visits and other essential services due to soaring costs—leaving a larger number of Americans with unmet medical needs today than there were two decades ago.

That's a central finding of a new study by Harvard University researchers published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Internal Medicine, examining 20 years of government data between 1998 and 2017.

The study found that despite a major expansion of insurance coverage in the U.S. during that period—most significantly through the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA)—"most measures of unmet need for physician services have shown no improvement, and financial access to physician services has decreased." The study's authors noted that the rise of "narrow networks, high-deductible plans, and higher co-pays" has contributed to the growth of unmet medical needs in the U.S. since the 1990s.

To read more:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/27/medicare-all-what-patients-need-new-harvard-study-shows-even-those-private-insurance?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email

The ACA was an improvement over what existed prior to its implementation, but the actual solution is a single payer system.

[Hoyt]

1. Although I agree with need, CommonDreams' headline is not what the Harvard Study

concluded. CDreams has a bad habit of that.

If less than 20% of population can’t afford care (which is what article essentially says), voters don’t seem sure about MFA, and Congress is not likely to enact MFA, maybe subsidies that do a better job of insuring that 20% would be a better approach short-term, rather than failing again to improve healthcare coverage.

Longer term, major changes are definitely necessary. Hopefully, Congress will change, so that’s possible.

[guillaumeb]

2. I always post the actual headline.

And 20% of 325 million is 65 million people.

Those subsidies are the equivalent of bandages on a bleeding wound.

[Hoyt]

3. You post CommonDreams' headline that is presented as if it is conclusion

of study. Not blaming you, just CommonDreams.

[guillaumeb]

4. Understood.

One frequent poster here called out one headline I posted that had what I felt was an obvious grammatical error. I left the error in.

Now, if there are spelling and/or grammatical errors, I either note them with (sic), or I correct them and avoid the wrath of teachers.