When did single payer become synonymous in people's minds with universal health care?

[Recursion]

2009 or so? Maybe I should go look back at DU2 and see if there was a moment when that switch was made. My spotty memory is that people mostly went from "never having heard of it" to "instantly conflating it with the idea of universal healthcare".

[DanTex]

1. I don't think it happened until this primary. In 2009, the far left wasn't nearly as anti-Obamacare

as they've become. At the time, it was understood that the objective of Obamacare (or of Hillary's campaign healthcare proposal) was universal coverage. People were disappointed when the GOP and Joe Lieberman blocked the public option, but they also appreciated the immense improvement that ACA represented over the status quo. Sure, there were people in favor of single payer, but for the most part they understood that it was one way of getting universal coverage, not synonymous with universal coverage.

During this primary, I've noticed a shift, with many people actually claiming that single payer literally means the same thing as universal coverage.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Both are inexact terms for a universal public non-profit health insurance system not tied to

employment that covers all citizens as a right. The ACA is not that.

[Recursion]

3. Well, no, single payer has a very specific meaning. Always has.

It means one and only one entity pays all claims, and providers are obliged to submit claims only to that entity (generally assumed to be the government, though I guess in theory it could be a private entity).

Sanders's plan will be single payer if it legally requires doctors to bill through it like Canada does.

[Warren Stupidity]

41. Just like for you "Medicare for all" meant nothing

could change about Medicare except the age of eligibility.

you formulate predicates to your endless arguments against single payer universal public health care in order to satisfy the arguments du juor you are making against them. That just ends up a meaningless argument over definitions.

I think we all get that you don't want a universal public health care system.

[FBaggins]

4. Are there any first-world countries that have one and not the other?

[dsc]

5. yes several

France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and a whole host of other countries have universal care without it being single payer.

[FBaggins]

7. Apologies... I meant the other way around

Do any have national single-player yet exclude some people from eligibility?

[dsc]

8. I don't know

You might count places such as Russia, and Eastern Europe who denied medical care to undersireables. If white south africa had universal care under apartheid they might count too.

[Recursion]

10. Sweden is talking about it right now (nt)

[Recursion]

6. Most. Single payer is relatively rare (nt)

[Bluenorthwest]

9. First prove to me your assertion about what is in other people's minds. Then demonstrate that those

persons previously thought otherwise. A good start would be to define 'people'. Who exactly are these people? Obviously you count yourself outside that group of people, but how exactly do you determine which other people's minds are not thinking right? Do you use one of those e-meters they have at Scientology or what?

[Fumesucker]

11. When the ACA started coming with massive copays and deductibles

It's not universal health care, it's universal insurance coverage and people are starting to wake up to the very great difference.

[Recursion]

12. Single payer is also just universal insurance coverage, not universal care

It only becomes universal care if we can require providers to accept it.

[Fumesucker]

13. If everyone is covered under the same system are the providers going to refuse everyone?

That's a good recipe for going broke.

[Recursion]

14. Sure, if they can make more money by not accepting it

The important question is how many people would be willing to pay more for that. If the number is low; then it won't make sense for doctors to do it. If the number is high then it becomes a vicious cycle where doctors leave which drives more patients off the system.

[Fumesucker]

15. Not that many people can afford to pay for health care out of pocket

That's a fairly small subset of all health care consumers.

[Recursion]

16. Ah, but if you don't outlaw private insurance...

then people will still buy it, and still use it to finance healthcare.

And since this would overturn the ACA, they could cherry-pick only the people without pre-existing conditions. So you'd have an affluent healthy population with concierge doctors, and poor, old, and sick people with overworked Medicare accepting doctors.

[Fumesucker]

17. Private insurance will be cheaper than single payer for the same coverage?

I find that hard to believe.

[Recursion]

18. Who said "cheaper"?

People may consider it worth it, though.

[Fumesucker]

19. The UK has an actual NHS and hasn't made private insurance illegal

There are people who buy private insurance there but a large majority don't.

[Recursion]

20. True, though there are doctors in the UK calling for ending it

The UK found a way to make this work, but it wasn't by avoiding the question and just hoping it worked out. The UK government actually employs the physicians directly, which isn't what happens under single payer.

[Fumesucker]

21. That's why I used the term "actual" in relation to NHS, it's not just paperwork/accounting

I don't think John Kennedy had the design for the Saturn V in his platform when he called for going to the Moon and yet it happened.

[mythology]

39. If nobody takes medicare as many providers don't currently

then it won't be a matter of cheaper, it will be a matter of do I have coverage I can use? If the answer is that the providers don't take medicare because it doesn't pay enough, then people who can afford it, will absolutely get additional coverage.

Medicare payouts are really low. Providers often lose money on them. What happens when providers decide it's not worth losing money?

[treestar]

24. Well it does not have massive copays and deductibles in my experience

Maybe it is different by state.

[Tom Rinaldo]

22. Because there is no other plauible model for getting universal halth care

There are a number of ways to achieve higher instance rates for Americans - none of them plausibly reach the goal of universal health care or, put mo0re simply, a guaranteed right to health care for all Americans.

[Recursion]

23. What about nearly every other country in the world?

Very few industrialized countries have single payer.

[Tom Rinaldo]

25. I'm not o sure about the "nearly every other country in the world" part

But OK, no one in America with any political credibility that I know of has seriously proposed any universal health care proposal that actually guarantees health care for all outside of something along the lines of Medicare for all.

[Fumesucker]

26. Very few industrialized countries have allowed private insurance to rampage like Godzilla in Tokyo

American exceptionalism again, this time with more cowbell.

[Recursion]

27. That's also true. Now, extend that thinking

And ask yourself what kind of havoc providers will be allowed to wreak if the government simply hands them a blank check. We are exceptional: exceptionally short-sighted and greedy. And changing our health care financing model doesn't fix that.

[merrily]

29. Why assume government hands providers a blank check? Especially since you also post often that

Medicare pays providers too little?

[Recursion]

30. It pays them 20% more than the law says they should and they still complain

And that same dynamic will still be at work. Anybody who tries to claw doctors and hospitals down to what they make in the rest of the world will get attacked as "cutting Medicare".

[merrily]

31. Make up your mind. Providers get from Medicare a tiny fraction--as you have posted on in the past.

So, which is it? Are Medicare patients going to be SOL because Medicare now reimburses providers so little, or is Medicare for All going to be handing providers a blank check. You don't get to keep slipsliding around.

[Recursion]

32. That's the point: it's two unattractive choices

Either we'll do what Medicare does and pay way too much to keep them public (which will be even more costly because it will be for the whole country), or we won't and lots of them will go private.

[merrily]

33. No. That's a false dilemma logical fallacy. And Medicare pays very little. Whose Medicare notices

are you reading?

[merrily]

38. You're the same Recursion who recently posted this thread, right?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511128487

Now, why would providers who are allegedly being overpaid refuse to accept Medicare?

[merrily]

28. "Medicare for All" is close enough.

[Snotcicles]

35. Medicare Part E...... for Everyone. nt

[merrily]

36. I don't know what that means. Is it different from Medicare for All?

Okay. I just googled. It seems to be a plan supplemental to Medicare?

http://medicarepartguide.com/e.php

[mike_c]

34. the progressive goal has always been affordable, accessible universal health care...

...for all Americans. A single payer approach that achieves that goal is one alternative. Some form of publicly funded not-for-profit universal health care is a minimum standard for me.

[merrily]

37. "Medicare for All" is easily understood by the general public and vulnerable to fewer specious

arguments than either single payer or universal health care.

As the many anti-Medicare forces on this board have pointed out, single payer is not single payer. The insurer (private or government) pays, but so does the patient, inasmuch as there are deductibles and co-pays. And who pays the provider is a different issue from universal health care.

ETA: Look what I just found in Latest Threads. www.democraticunderground.com/12511129581

[ljm2002]

40. Yet another post...

...claiming that those on the other side of the issue are simply ignorant and don't understand how things work.

You should get off your high horse. It is really insulting to those of us who would like to see everyone able to access health care.

Quit with the put downs and stick to the merits. If you can.