So how does the pivot on 'universal' healthcare work?

[HereSince1628]

I am assuming this is mostly a semantic/branding/parsing thing that will allow the candidate to be for something that isn't what it appears.

Am I correct in assuming that universal healthcare when used by the more conservative/centrist candidate to be a term that refers to mandated coverage with private health insurance as it's backbone rather than referring to a single payer/Medicare For All as used by the more socialist/lefterer candidate?

[Recursion]

1. That's the most common form of universal healthcare worldwide, yes

That doesn't necessarily mean that it's how the US would do it, but if I had to guess I'd assume that's where we'll eventually end up ("that" being mandated insurance purchase). Another option is single payer, like Canada, Austria, and pretty much nobody else does. Another option is government-operated systems like the UK.

Part of what's so frustrating about this is that around 2009 or so a lot of Democrats were convinced that "single payer" and "universal healthcare" mean the same thing, when they don't.

[djean111]

2. For Hillary, "universal health care" will actually be "universal mandatory private insurance",

would be my conjecture.

Let's see - last week, grandson had no insurance, and a new prescription for risperidone.
.5 mg, twice a day. No insurance.

Public pharmacy - $186.00
Costco pharmacy - $14.75 ($22 for 180 pills, 3 month supply).

Costco is not losing money on this.
Private insurance is fucking us all over.

Anyone who seeks to perpetuate this can never get my vote.

[tecelote]

3. +1!

[HereSince1628]

4. Costco also has a $55 dollar membership that 'encourages' consumers

to get a benefit from that fee by focusing shopping on Costco. To get the 55 dollars down to some reasonable percent of each purchase you might be motivated to spend a thousand or more.

But, yes, I'm sure that there is a lot of 'all the traffic will bear pricing on medications for uninsured folks.

If you actually charge some unfortunate people outrageous prices, you can claim the difference between the outrageous prices and a profitable price as something that will provide "in network savings" to the insurer that can then be used as a promotion by the insurer/hmo to garner customers.

[Lars39]

5. Costco membership isn't needed to access pharmacy

depending on state law.

[djean111]

6. Sorry, but a Costco membership is NOT needed to get prescriptions from Costco.

You just tell the nice greeter at the entrance that you are going to the pharmacy.

Oh, and even if a $55 membership was needed - that is a hell of a lot cheaper than the $186 that the insurance company and Pharma are colluding on.

[HereSince1628]

7. Thanks I didn't know that, no Costco's anywhere around here

It appears from above comment that might depends on jurisdictions...

Does a non-member who accesses the pharmacy get the same price as a member?

[djean111]

9. I think there is a very small - 3%? discount.

My son has PTSD and agoraphobia and panic attacks. About five or six years ago, we could afford the $60 for the psychiatrist, but no insurance for the meds. I still have my spreadsheet on Google drive for this - for a month's worth of four meds, Walgreens, Walmart, and Publix cost between 1200 - 1600 dollars. Generics where available. Costco - 171 dollars. I literally broke down and cried at Costco when they told me that. The big places cannot meet Costco prices, but we did negotiate down to Costco's prices at a little independent pharmacy, for a while.

Now my son has Medicaid (my grandson just got signed up in the ACA marketplace, we don't know how good the coverage is, as yet) - but the glaring thing to me is that Pharma and insurance just fill each other's pockets, with an ever-increasing pile of our money, through premiums and subsidies. This, IMO, will not stop, and will get worse, as long as we do not have anything like medicaid for all or single payer.

[longship]

8. One pivots so there is no universal healthcare.

That's the entire purpose of the pivot, to both deny and to prevent.

Some folks are scaredy cats. But universal healthcare is not anything new to the entire rest of the world. It is just new to the horribly newness adverse USA.

It is the same reason why every presidential candidate must be an openly professed Christian.

Fuck all of that!

[ljm2002]

10. Yes, she said she would fight for...

...universal health coverage "for every man, woman and child" in America.

Not the same as health care, of course.

I expect the usual "but single payer is still just coverage" remarks. By the same people who claim that Sanders supporters simply don't understand anything about these systems. Most of these people currently have coverage that they are satisfied with and apparently could give a hoot about the millions upon millions without coverage at all, and the even more millions and millions who can't use their overpriced coverage for anything but wellness checks, emergency care (and even then they will be paying big deductibles) or catastrophic illness.