Economist told a packed state House that a single payer plan would be 25% cheaper

[midnight]

for consumers, businesses, and the government than the current system of private health insurance, saving about $500 million in just the first year.

This is from 2011 but an interesting side note was what the incoming Gov. did with this info. He passed a Single Payer insurance plan to kick into effect by 2017. He also discussed how he didn't have to attack collective bargaining the way Scott Walker did.... If you have already read this, I hope you don't mind me re-posting, because it shows us we can have Single Payer without Austerity..

"The data emboldened Shumlin, the legislature, and the single-payer advocates who had organized throughout the past decade, even as Shumlin’s Republican predecessor dismissed their ideas. Last fall, Shumlin had campaigned on twin themes of job creation and health care reform, and he often cited his experience as the owner of a successful travel business. (“I know firsthand that the biggest obstacle to job growth is the 10, 20, 30 percent increases in insurance premiums.”) He slammed the current “unsustainable system that will...bankrupt us.”

Single payer advocates have been a constant and visible presence around the state. The independent Vermont Workers’ Center launched its “health care is a human right” campaign in 2008—inspired, said health care organizer James Haslam, by the desperate calls the Center was receiving on its workers’ hotline. “It was becoming more of a health care hotline,” he said. The group’s members went door to door, conducted numerous forums for legislators and organized health care rallies that drew thousands.

Health care providers also spoke up. Dr. Deb Richter, a family physician, moved to Vermont in 1999 from upstate New York, where she despaired at seeing her patients getting sicker and even dying as a result of problems with health insurance. As chair of Vermont Health Care for All, she gave 500 talks around the state, and helped bring along many reluctant health care providers. Richter was beaming when I saw her in the State House lobby last week. “I feel ecstatic,” she told me. “It’s like giving birth.”

Shumlin, a wiry, hyper-energetic lawmaker who often insists on shaking every hand in the crowd, staked his gubernatorial candidacy on single payer. It was a bold and risky move. The former president of the Vermont Senate, he was narrowly elected governor last fall after winning a five-way Democratic primary by some 200 votes, and defeating a popular Republican Lieutenant Governor by just 2 percent. Shumlin pointedly ignored the national Democratic strategy of tacking to the center, and instead championed progressive issues, from abortion rights to closing the state’s lone nuclear plant, to health care reform. I asked him why he’d hitched his star to single payer."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/vermont-single-payer-health-care

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[lalalu]

2. We all know this is true but congress couldn't care less.

Guess who elects congress? If the public can't vote into congress people who actually work and do their best for them then it's our own fault.

[iemitsu]

4. well, sort of.

we do what we can with the choices we get.
and those are mostly determined by the uber-class.
in our local elections we have an incumbent (D) running against a repub., who labels himself a (D).
a confusing situation for voters, to say the least.

[lalalu]

5. I get what you are saying but

we have people complaining about lack of healthcare and dying family members. Then they vote for people who tell them they shouldn't get "government healthcare". The same people who are elected to office and now have a lifetime of government healthcare. It just doesn't make sense.

[iemitsu]

6. yes, that is true and hard to figure.

except that in any society those at the top of the economic ladder and those at the bottom are always conservative.
in tough economic times the numbers of conservatives jumps. church attendance jumps too.
the top is conservative because the system favors them and the bottom is conservative because they fear any change will make their lives worse.
this is why the republicans want a lousy economy.

[0rganism]

13. they believe government is bad at everything except war

bad as their private insurance health care is, many people have been trained to believe that even moderately regulated markets, let alone single payer systems, will be worse. A lot of money and effort goes into this training, and the results speak for themselves.

[iemitsu]

24. you said it.

psy-war. 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, 52 weeks per year since 1917, at least. non-stop fear mongering about any topic that might benefit the public at the expense of corporate and individual profit. the economy should correctly be termed, plantation capitalism.

[genxlib]

3. Even better

The real economic benefits would extend far beyond the simple savings.

Releasing businesses from the burden of having to pay this cost would unshackle a tremendous amount of cash flow.

Also, the incidence of personal bankruptcy would plummet making a far more stable economy.

Most importantly, it would unleash an explosion of entrepreneurship as people were able to break lose from jobs that they were locked into. Talk to 100 people who want to start their own business and 99 will tell you that health care is their biggest hurdle.

[AllyCat]

15. Releasing businesses from the burden of having to pay this cost would unshackle

a tremendous amount of cash flow." Wouldn't this idea alone make conservatives jump on the single-payer bandwagon? I know, that is not right-wing logic, but this idea makes me wonder why small businesses are not pushing for single-payer in DROVES.

[Savannahmann]

7. So the question I think most of us have is this.

Why can't the national party just do the same thing? We know Progressive policies work with the people. We see it time and time again. So why does the national party spend so much time and effort worshiping at the alter of the NeoCons?

[Patiod]

8. The insurance industry isn't about to allow that

Wasn't Dick Armey, the insurance lobbyist, the one who seeded and nutured the Tea Party? How else could a national movement based on "hell, no, I don't want more accessible, affordable health care" start?

Nor is Big Pharma, and I should note I am one of Big Pharma's biggest apologists on this site (recap: They are not sitting on a cure for cancer or diabetes, they don't give a flying fuck about marijuana, and they don't control the FDA - they hate it). But they would fight tooth-and-nail against single payer, and they have DEEEEEEP pockets.

So it's unlikely to happen.

I was applying for health insurance last night and just wanted to cry. SO expensive, so complicated, and the policy I can afford without an employer contribution covers nothing but catastrophe. God bless America and all that, but last night, I was really wishing I was Canadian.

[Dustlawyer]

9. Best of luck Vermont, we are counting on you! A national single payer system depends on you now!

No pressure! Lol

[glowing]

10. I thought Bernie's waiver Allowed them to do this in 2014.

They may not be ready to go live in 2014, but there aren't that many people I VT.. Less than live in NY city.

[eomer]

19. I don't think Bernie was able to get that passed, so ACA allows the waiver no earlier than 2017.

That seems to be the status from what I could find. For example, this from an article in June:

Helpful as the federal money will be, she said the ACA also delays the implementation of single payer. That’s because the federal law bars Vermont from seeking the waivers it needs to proceed with single payer until 2017.

http://www.vermontforsinglepayer.org/decision_hailed_in_Vermont

[glowing]

20. I though Pres Obama said that if a state could

find a way to implement the ACA (cover all people with health care) in a better manner than the Federal Govt, that state could choose to implement the plan... That's the "waiver" I was talking about.

This would allow VT and I think Montana (it's a western state) to go ahead with a plan that is more similar to single payer in 2014, rather than having to set up one system in 2014 and change it again in 2017...

[eomer]

22. Yes, we're talking about the same waiver.

ACA allows a state to get this waiver, but to be effective no earlier than 2017.

Bernie had a bill he was proposing that would move the effective date earlier so the waiver could be done starting in 2014. This bill hasn't passed so unless it does in the future Vermont will have to wait until 2017.

That's my understanding of where it stands.

[midnight]

25. Thanks for this input... I had been aware of this attempt, but did not know the status...

[glowing]

11. BTW, when he represented a certain section of VT,

he was an ass... It was obvious to some that he was heading "up".

[cleduc]

14. Single payer would never have passed.

So they could do what Clinton had to do: give up and get nothing.

Or they could do what they did: get something

Your claim that they had a super majority in the Senate is basically erroneous. They had 60 senate seats with Independents like Lieberman, who supported McCain, and Blue Dogs for 60 days or so - very briefly and very generously. With that mix, single payer was NEVER in the cards.

If Obama wins, then Obamacare will be very difficult to get rid of as it will be fully functional when his second term ends. When folks see what it does, it will go up in popularity towards (not as high as) Medicare in how much folks will come to appreciate it and rely upon it.

From that Obamacare framework, they can adjust the law to improve it. The major health care debate would be over. Adjustments will be easier to come by than tackling the whole issue. Over time, I think the US will migrate towards single payer.

[Festivito]

18. Had it passed, the jumping to it would skyrocket unemployment.

That 25% figure is low. It should be over half, closer to a two-thirds reduction in cost taking us from our current $8200 per year to $3000-3500 per year in per capita numbers.

That would put the armies of insurance paper pushers who fight the armies of hospital paper pushers out of jobs all over the country, a 1.5-trillion dollar industry - a tenth of our GDP - gone - overnight.

Overnight, in a bad employment time. Hurting millions for a quicker buck.

[Egalitarian Thug]

26. HR 676 addressed this issue as well. There was no way for it to pass because the people that profit

from suffering make up too large a part of the ruling class in this nation. The largest single reason single payer is so much cheaper is that it takes to profit out of health care. It's good for the nation and good for its people, but it's bad for the parasites.

[Festivito]

27. Too tentacled to fail. /nt

[mountain grammy]

16. The Canadian system began with one province...

When it worked, the entire country embraced it.

[cleduc]

17. I live in Canada

Here are the health care costs per capita for 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_(PPP)_per_capita
United States $7,960
Canada $4,363

Life Expectancy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
United States 38th, 78.2 years
Canada 12th, 80.7 years

Population of United states: 311,591,917, Jul 2011 U.S. Census Bureau

Canada is a single payer system where everybody is covered from birth until death that I think works pretty darn well. I've used it for comparison because many of the laws between the two countries (like labor & environment regs for example) are similar as are the geography, economic structure, and other common circumstances. And I've used it because members of my immediate family also use the US system - mainly through Johns Hopkins, a very good US hospital. So I have a reasonable sense of how they compare. I sincerely don't think Canadians give up much in health care quality.

From those 2009 numbers:
US Health care costs using existing US system before Obamacare
= 311,591,917 people x $7,960 per capita = $2,480,271,659,320

US Health care costs using Canada single payer system
= 311,591,917 people x $4,363 per capita = $1,359,475,533,891

The difference is the United States paid roughly $1.12 trillion dollars more per year than they would have using Canada's single payer system and that over payment delivered a life expectancy of 2.5 years less than Canada. Over ten years (like the budgets Romney & Obama are talking about), that's a $11.2 trillion dollar difference that could cover 70+% of the current deficit.

Now whether the government or an insurance company or a health care institution like a hospital collects money to pay for health care, one way or the other, it comes out of the pockets of those who use the system. If you pay more for it, you have to be paid more to do your job to afford it - which unfortunately, not everyone can afford in the US. But being unable to afford it hasn't reduced US health care costs.

Ignoring the obvious health benefits for a moment, do you think that Americans could have more jobs if they cost $3,597 per year less to employ while taking home the same dough? I think so as would the laws of economics. Or one could split the difference, giving half of the savings to the employees and half to the employers. Whatever. It would be a gigantic win for everybody in the United States except the health insurance/private health companies. You could even leave some money in to insure the US has the best health care system and life expectancy in the world and still have mega bucks left over.

Romney complains about the US corporate tax rate being higher than the rest of the world. When your country spends 45% of what the entire world does on military, the only way to pay for that is with higher taxes. These corporations enjoy the security the US military provides them. After all, according to Romney, "corporations are people" too. So the quality and security of life comes at a cost to Americans and their corporations. But I do wonder how long America should continue to take it on the economic chin so that their health insurance companies can make out like bandits at the great expense of everyone else in the country. If Romney wants the US to compete with the rest of the world, he should step up and address these health care costs like much of the rest of the industrialized world already has because the difference in those costs are dramatically higher than the the differences in world corporate tax rates and they affect ALL Americans directly - not indirectly through corporate profit & loss.

Obamacare doesn't get America all the way to where it needs to be but it's a significant step in the right direction. I agree that the sooner the US gets single payer, the better off the US will be - and not just financially.

[midnight]

21. That is a huge savings-11.2 trillion over 10 years.

[Mnemosyne]

23. K&R