Hillary's health care plan will not cover everybody

[Cheese Sandwich]

Everybody deserves to be able to see a doctor. It should be a basic right. Especially in the richest country on earth.

I'm sick and tired of policies that leave part of our population to get ground up in the machine. Health coverage should be a basic part of society, not a welfare program people have to qualify for. Not a subsidy that we have to qualify and apply for. That plan sucks. People need help and they can't get it because they can't prove they are desperate enough. Or they can't get through the paperwork. There's too much bureaucracy by having a ton of different qualifications and plans and rules. Corporations always exploit the maze of rules for profit and people suffer as a result.

It's time for a national health insurance plan that covers EVERYONE. It's the most direct way to cover everyone and end the barbaric cruelty of working class families getting stuck with thousands of dollars in health bills we can not afford to pay. WE CAN NOT AFFORD TO LIVE. The capitalist insurance system is literally killing us. Other countries provide better health care to all their people while spending far less money. We still have millions of people uninsured. It's an emergency. We need this now.

[kennetha]

1. You don't necessarily need single player to get to universal coverage.

http://truecostblog.com/2009/08/09/countries-with-universal-healthcare-by-date/

[Cheese Sandwich]

2. It's the best way right now. It's the most direct way right now. It's what the American people want.

[kennetha]

3. Bernie Sandes Supporters do not equal the American People.

Just a small slice. Lots and lots of people disagree with you. LOTS!

[restorefreedom]

4. you don't agree that everyone should get to see a dr? nt

[kennetha]

7. That's a red herring

We're trying to figure out the best way to get to Universal Healthcare from where we are now.

[Cheese Sandwich]

14. We've already got it figured out.

The easiest way to cover everyone is obviously to simply cover everyone.

[restorefreedom]

25. simplicity. its an amazing concept. nt

[restorefreedom]

22. but its not a herring. look at the aca,

everyone is supposedly mandated to be insured, but many are still not insured and many of the insured can't afford their copays. the problem is getting the insurance companies out of the way, and that is best accomplished with sp.

[Cheese Sandwich]

28. This

[restorefreedom]

29. yes!!!!! nt

[JaneyVee]

8. I think the disagreement is about how.

There are other ways to achieve UHC without single payer.

[restorefreedom]

24. as i see it, the biggest problem is the insurance companies

many insured people STILL can't afford care because of the copays and deductibles. so getting rid of the insurance companies would seem to be a key, which means government funded through all of us, i.e.,medicare. could someone come up with a government funded multiple payer system that works which will not replicate the greed and waste of the insurance companies? it might be possible. but we have to get the insurance co out of the picture. we already have a system that works (medicare), so expanding that to everyone would seem to be the most expedient and efficient path to universal coverage.

[Avalux]

9. Please tell me exactly HOW the current healthcare system is a good thing?

Personally, I have a good job and employer-provided health insurance. Even still, my monthly premium is $260 and my deductible is high.

We have problems with people not being covered, and we also have problems with people who have insurance being under-covered.
It's a horrible system.

SO please, tell me why you disagree, why you support a profit-driven system, instead of one that puts the health of Americans first.

[Cheese Sandwich]

18. No but the majority of people do want it.

[ljm2002]

26. Over 80% of Democrats want single payer...

...and I'm sure you'll agree, not all of them are Bernie Sanders supporters -- unless you think his support among Democrats exceeds 80%, which even I would dispute.

[JaneyVee]

6. We have 90% coverage and you think the best way..

To attain UHC is by collapsing the 90% instead of filling the gap?

[Dems to Win]

13. We most certainly do NOT have 90% coverage

WalMart offers 'insurance' to its employees with a $5500 yearly deductible.

Since they have employer-provided 'insurance', they can't buy real insurance thru the exchange and get subsidies for REAL coverage.

No WalMart employee making 10 bucks an hour can afford to go to the doctor. They effectively have NO health care coverage because they have to pay full price if they go to a doctor and can't afford it. They can't afford to take their kids to the doctor, either. Wal-Mart employees are part of that '90% coverage' number, but in reality, they have no coverage.

I have a family member who works at WalMart and could only get his knee replaced because another family member paid the $8000 out of pocket cost. Without that help, he'd still be crippled and applying for disability. Many Wal-Mart employees don't have relatives who can afford to help.

So many hard-working people are left out under Obamacare. Far more than 10%.

[JaneyVee]

15. Ok.

http://time.com/3992969/number-of-americans-health-insurance/

[hobbit709]

16. Health INSURANCE does not necessarily mean you have actual health CARE.

If someone can't afford to pay the high deductible, just how much care do you think they're going to get.

[Dragonfli]

23. Exactly, see post # 20 /nt

[Avalux]

5. Hillary wants to keep the current system of for-profit insurance cos and pharma cos in charge.

She believes that this system, with competitive pricing, must be maintained, can't be changed. So when she says "universal coverage" she means expanding the current system to cover as many people as possible. Still employment based.'

Her 'plan' is nothing new.

[kennetha]

10. She actually wants to use the bargaining power of the US government

To negotiate for lower drug prices.

He plan builds on structures in place to get to universal coverage. Again, many countries with universal coverage adopt similar models.

You seem to think the only model out there for Universal coverage is single payer. But that's just wrong.

[Avalux]

11. I never said that. The model I WANT for Univerals coverage is single payer.

It's time we put people's health above profits.

[kennetha]

12. Such simplistic sloganeering

Will get you nowhere in serious debate.

Look politics is the art of the possible. But the possible is highly path dependent. Given the path we have traveled on health insurance, starting in the 1940's under Truman, and given how far we have come along that path, with a highly diverse insurance system that includes several government insurance programs (Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP), employer based insurance, private insurance, an individual mandate, etc, etc. And given how traveling that path has arrayed various incentives, taking us completely off that path and trying to basically start over is a fools game. It isn't going to happen. And the opportunity costs associated with trying to make it happen would be enormous.

[Cheese Sandwich]

17. Puh-lease. People who need help can't get it. Millions are still uninsured

We need a plan that covers everyone.

[Avalux]

19. I've never been a "glass is half empty" person. Sorry. n/t

[Dragonfli]

20. It is a three tiered plan that places the value of human life on a financial scale

Even after navigating the maze to receive this insurance. Also, the most important part to remember is Insurance is not health care, merely a convoluted gateway to the land of actual care.

And it is completely regressive, completely backwards in how it gives out allotment of care.

If you are well off yet not rich enough to avoid involving yourself in such nonsense, you are valued as a gold citizen and can receive care with a minimum of hassle.

If you are a struggling middle class household you are a silver valued citizen, you may receive care but pay dearly for the plan meaning maybe your vacation now involves a barbecue pit and not Disneyland, and if you need care, you must dip into ever decreasing savings or credit cards in order to actually receive it when you pay yet again at the door.

If you are struggling working class you are a bronze valued citizen, you can not really afford the insurance but eat more rice and beans and put off auto repairs to pay the premiums (hoping the car will last until the tax credits kick in), but you can't afford to ever use your insurance because your cards were maxed out long ago (probably to pay a premium), you have no money in the bank to speak of, and nothing in your pocket at the end of the month to pay the highest deductibles and co-pays possible under this system, custom designed to be the highest for the poorest, least valued citizens, the bronze people.

What could be more regressive than a system that is designed so those with the most need are given the highest bills (ones they can't pay) in order to obtain actual care at the door (so they never get to use their MANDATED insurance) and the well to do have plans designed for them to pay what is just change in their wallets at the door when they need care?

I could not think of a more regressive plan without involving leach pits for the poor myself and I have a good imagination.

Their should be no tiers in a system of health care rigged to insure the least affluent have the least chance of ever receiving care, if their must be tiers, they should be reversed into a progressive model where the poor pay the least when they need car and not the most, the pyramid is upside down people and the only reason this could make sense is if one wanted to force the working poor to pay premiums on insurance designed for them never to be able to actually use in order to make it cheaper for the well to do to get care while still providing obscene profits to unnecessary insurance middlemen and Viagra pushing pharma vultures.

Of course Hillary wants to build on this, she values people by their income just as this ass backward regressive system does.

The conclusions I leave to each to personally make as to why we have the regressive system we have and why Hillary wants to keep it this way.

[Attorney in Texas]

21. Hillary's health care plan will be whatever Paul Ryan sends her because she has no plan to change

the game in Washington.

Sanders is fighting to change the electorate; Clinton is fighting to get her name on the plaque of those ran the ship as it was heading toward the iceberg.

[Dragonfli]

27. After much bipartisan working across the aisle, they will release groundbreaking

And brilliant "improvements" that will help save the taxpayers money and allow the least among us more dignity by paying more for premiums without depending a bit less on government handouts, allowing us to grow and prosper as responsible citizens like welfare reform helped so many in similar ways. They will also unencumber Insurance Companies and Pharma by relaxing burdensome regulations allowing for more profit and COMPETITION that will surely result in a renaissance of price reductions to the consumer by the invisible hand that will be released from the handcuffs placed upon them by such ACA regulations that were the only real flaw in the plan that was much better when it left the Heritage foundation.

Hillary knows how to get things done! Remember?

[Romulox]

30. When poor people die, that's called "savings"!