FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY: SIngle-Payer is NOT Socialized Medicine!!!

[Yael]

We have GOT to get people to understand that. The (R) machine is scaring the crap out of the elderly with this shit.

Single-Payer means that the hospitals/Doctors remain PRIVATE and have ONE place to submit for payment as opposed to the myriad of insurance companies with their myriad of codes and payment terms. Australia, Japan and Canada are all single-payer systems.

Socialized Medicine is where the hospitals are OWNED by the government and Doctors are EMPLOYED by the government. The UK and France are Socialized systems.

If I hear one more (R) candidate on the stump railing about Socilaized medicine when not ONE of our candidates is promoting that, I think my head is going to pop right off my body.

</rant>

[MannyGoldstein]

1. And Both Work Far, Far Better Than The Nonsense We Have (nt)

[Mz Pip]

2. Excellent definition

Brief and to the point. Thank you. I've been trying to figure out a way to counter that claim and you've done it perfectly.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[GeorgeGist]

3. I want my anti-social medicine ...

:freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :sarcasm:

[trayted]

4. In single-payer, the government provides the "coverage," it does not own the hospitals

It's simple to explain, as you did. Democrats don't do it enough, probably because many of them 1) can't explain it, 2) don't want single-payer, and 3) are afraid that they will be accused of being socialists even if they do explain it.

In socialized medicine, the government owns the hospitals and employs the doctors.

In single-payer, the government provides the "coverage."

Huge difference.

[izzie]

5. Military med. is socialized and by the way it was always fine with me.

If your taxes are going to do this. Pay for hospitals, doctors education or a good part of it, the care to get you to a hospital with town services etc, the cost of new drugs and machines, it is time you got to use it all with out more cost. Or little cost. I would like socialize medicine my self. I would take a single payer type also.

[trayted]

7. Yes, it is. And it's being privatized, which is the problem with it today. With that said

one of the problems with any system in this country is the rigged elections system. The GOP will eventually strong arm it's way back into power, and when they do, they'll put hacks over any government health care system, and ruin it just like they've ruined other institutions over the last 6.5 years.

That's the main fear that many people have, although they frame it as "not trusting government." No, the problem is, the GOP would eventually come to power again, and use that system to screw people over.

[izzie]

38. I hate to hear that. Any time I hit a private part of it it was bad.

I was usually under Navy care and when we ever hit Army care we used to try and get out of the care and into out side care with service paying. I was told that the Army had different standard for their doctors and it was so low that they were bad. That was just looking at it from a Navy point I must say. I am not sure it was true but Navy and air force care was always better than the army. I have ended up in air force hospitals for some thing and transfered right over to the navy. This was a good 15 years back to the 50's so I am not sure about how it works now. Now I am under old age stuff.

[FormerDittoHead]

6. You were watching the Guiliani "talk" on CSpan, eh?

He hammered this point quite well, along with some other cherry picked stats about prostate cancer success rates in US versus UK...

But thanks for chiming in - we have to steel ourselves for the battle of a lifetime - we're looking to unseat companies the likes of which compensate their CEO a BILLION dollars:

http://www.startribune.com/1069/story/386343.html

[Yael]

8. Yeah, I was

I have to tell you -- he is scaring the shit out of people. They think they are going to be dying in the streets and denied blood pressure medicine by the likes of the FEMA with all of the efficiencies of the DMV.

Thanks for the link -- I will add that to my blog.

You are right -- it is going to be a HUGE battle and it will be messy. This is why I switched my support from DK and HR676 to Edwards. I think Edwards has the right formula to bring about this change -- by giving the choice to WE THE PEOPLE and forcing the insurance companies to COMPETE for our business as opposed to their current policy of cherry picking the healthy and denying people who broke a wrist 30 years ago as 'high risk'.

http://johnedwards.com/issues/health-care/

[Vinca]

9. Ghouliani is such a fool. His solution to the healthcare issue is

to hand out tax deductions. When a woman asked him where she was going to scrape up $10,000 or $11,000 for a policy his answer was, "I don't know." If they steal another election and Rudy is the chosen one, I'm outta here.

[tigereye]

10. my only concern with this is bad experiences as someone billing govt.

insurance systems for work that I do. Sometimes, not always, the commercial systems do do a better job. I guess I don't really like the idea of all insurance being billed from one place - it seems like the bureaucracy could be even worse.


Maybe if they paid and had a consortium of private insurers like BC/BS to take care of billing and payment. I want everyone to have insurance, I'm just not sure that one system should administer it all. JMHO.

[Yael]

11. This I can appreciate

My watershed isn't about who is going to run the system -- it is about the 180 of taking the profit motive out of coverage. Doctors and hospitals should make a profit on their services to stay effective, but insurance companies being motivated and rewarded by care denial is beyond the pale.

[tigereye]

12. yes there are some terrible companies out there

but there are good ones as well.

:hi:

[IndianaGreen]

13. Like the GOP, the DLC Democrats are in the back pocket of the Health Insurance Industry

They are opposed to single payer because it will threaten a very profitable investment for them. This is why at the Chicago debate Hillary made the point of having "all the parties at the table." She is the "girl" of the Health Insurance corporate behemoths, and she will block any attempt at single payer. Hillary is on the side of the accountants that second guess our physicians' diagnosis in order to protect the profit line of the insurers.

Why would Hillary use that bizarre comment about her not believing in "socialized medicine" at a recent campaign appearance? Is she going to label single-payer as "socialized medicine" in order to protect the interests of her business backers? Americans have been conditioned since birth to fear the mere mention of "Socialist"!

Socialism treats health care as a human right.

Capitalism treats health care as a profit center.

[Yael]

15. I missed that

but will be listening. I hope she does jump on the Rudy bandwagon with that rhetoric. Just more polarization of the base for her then.

[The River]

16. Absolutely Right

The media has been instructed to never use the term "single payer"
in a good way. It's to be conflated with the negative aspects socialized medicine only.

Joe Bageant got the money quote from Hillary in his "Dispatches from a Chinese Landfill"
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2007/01/dispatch_from_t.html

"Another political wish upon a star is that Hillary Clinton, a woman marked by so many (corporate) hickeys that she looks like a victim of massive hemangioma -- but with botox -- will reform our brutal health care system without pulling up her skirt for the insurance industry. Like she says, there is "no possible governmental solution that does not include the insurance industry."

[rodeodance]

14. it is a lazy mantra recited by lazy people

[BrklynLiberal]

17. Some intelligence, a bit of common sense and desire to know the truth are required to see the

distinction...
Great post.

and I would even take Socialized Medicine over what we have today.

[McCamy Taylor]

18. Single payer cradle to grave is the only HEALTHY insurance

from a prevention viewpoint.

I should make a macro of this so I can cut and paste it.

In the current system, people leave insurance plans so often that there is no reason for them to invest in preventive care that will lead to cost savings twenty to forty years down the line. Most people will not feel the effects of years of neglect until they reach Medicare age--and are the federal government's responsibility. If they are unlucky enough to get AIDS or go on dialysis, then they go on Medicaid and are the federal government's responsibility. Everyone who is healthy enough to work is on private insurance through their job or does without. They switch insurance whenever they change jobs. Even if they stay with the same company, they may switch plans every year or so since their employers use the tactic of negotiating new contracts with new providers to keep health insurance costs down.

Now, in a country which provides cradle to grave insurance to everyone with a single payer, it suddenly makes economic sense to make sure that little Jason does not grow up obese or sedentary. You want to keep his cholesterol down and his HDL up. So, you invest heavily in prevention, knowing that it will save your health care system loads of money later in Jason's life. You do everything you can to keep Jason from smoking.

The reward for Jason is that when he hits middle age, he is healthier. When he is old, he will live longer. He is less likely to die of a heart attack or stroke. He is able to work longer and more productively which is good for his family and the economy.

This is what people need to be talking about.

Our current system rewards people for getting sick. The health care industry makes money when people neglect their health for decades them come in sick as shit and need to be put back together. The health insurance industry is like a lottery. A few people get to be put back together at great expense--and they are never as good as new again. The rest get to die miserably like dogs.

[Exultant Democracy]

19. You got that right. n/t

[JeffR]

20. Nails it beautifully

Well done.

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. I dunno.

Our taxes pay for the roads we all use, (some more so than others) but the taxes are largely paid to private contractors.

Are not highways socialized?

:shrug:

[ooga booga]

22. We need to parse the issues here......

Universal healthcare CAN be a single payer system, but it doesn't have to be. I heard a guy on NPR pointing out that the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Israel all have universal healthcare but with a multiple payer system in each case. Citizens can choose a payer system from a number of options.

Now, single payer MAY be better. I really don't know. But, universal healthcare should be the main objective, I think.

The "socalized medicine" language is a scare tactic that's been rambling around medical care for decades. I can remember our family physician in the 60's having some sign in his office warning against "socalized medicine."

We can debate signle payer and multiple payer systems, but let's stay focused on UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. We can do it. We all oughta have it.

[Yael]

23. I do not disagree with you

And you are correct about Israel -- there are choices and those choices are not unlike what John Edwards is proposing to kick his system reform off.

The scare tactic is what is pissing me off. Even doctors are touting UHC -- the very group that fought it in the 1940s that jump started the mess we have today. THEY don't want to invest their resources in fighting profit machines any more than we like being denied care.

The point is that single-payer and multi-payer are NOT socialized medicine. Not a SINGLE ONE of our candidates is promoting socialized medicine and until the sheeple understand the difference they will look at the health care coverage reform plans as some kind of communist plot to take away their meds.

[WCGreen]

24. Most of the elderly have single pay with Medicare....

[dugggy]

26. Unfortunately, medicare is projected to run out of funds.

I don't recall the exact year and extent, but this situation
is well known by all experts.

[eridani]

37. That wouldn't be the case if the public could get its hands on the money--

--that private insurers are stealing to give to CEOs and shareholders.

[dugggy]

39. Medicare payments have nothing to do with private insurers!

I am on medicare, and after medicare pays part of my bills,
then I have to submit the unpaid portion to my private
insurance for additional reimbursement. The two are totally
separate. It is impossible for a CEO or anyone else to get
their hands on medicare funds. Medicare pays the provider,
NOT the insurance company. In fact medicare is
essentially in competition with private insurers. Please
do not post complete untruths.

[eridani]

42. Medicare could be fully finded with the money now wasted on private insurance n/t

[eridani]

46. I'd call displacing 1-2 million farmers a lot worse than things were in the old days n/t

[WCGreen]

41. It will only run out of funding if they stop funding the program...

2.9 Percent of every person who get a paycheck is paid into the medicare fund...

[dugggy]

25. What happens if the "single payer" does not have enough funds to pay

for ALL the bills of ALL the people? Does the government have
enough funds to pay all the bills for as far as the eye can see?

Obvious answer is NO! In fact even medicare which is A SINGLE PAYER
system is projected to run out of funds.

So, what's next? Rationing?

I have no problem with rationing of healthcare. It exists in Canada,
UK and others. But I would like to know how exactly this rationing
will be administered. After a thorough discussion of this, we can all
decide realistically what we get and what we don't get.

I am willing to forego certain health services if I know ahead of time
what we are getting into. I want to know how long it will take to take
care of non-life-threatening problems such as chronic backaches or
headaches.

[IndianaGreen]

27. We always have funds for war and war machinery

If we end the war in Iraq, give up our imperial designs on the world, we can provide quality craddle-to-grave health care for the cost of running one carrier battle group.

[dugggy]

29. Medicare (single payer) was in trouble before Iraq war

I agree with you we spend more than necessary on war.
But like I said, the other EXISTING single payer system
already in the law books for seniors, medicare, is costing
more and more than earlier projections.

I do not mind losing some conveniences of the present system
if I am guaranteed health services for all serious ailments.
So, would'nt it be nice if we knew ahead of time exactly how
the rationing of healthcare would work?

And I know at first hand about medicare since I am on it. And
there is rationing there already. Medicare is selective in what
they will cover and what they won't. But like I said, I do have
no problem with that since I know medicare will cover me for
serious illnesses.

[sutz12]

31. We are already rationing healthcare...

That's another RW talking point that boils my blood.

We ration health care based on wealth and income.

If you can afford insurance, or can pay your own bills (I'm sure there are some uber wealthy that can) you get it. If you can't afford to pay, you don't.

[dugggy]

32. You are correct! So, the majority will then have rationing along with

the minority who currently can not afford healthcare.
So what you are saying is that the 250 million who now
have health insurance should accept rationing so that
the other 50 million can also get rationed haelthcare.

I have no problem with that, so long as everyone is clear
on this. Personally I am willing to ration my own healthcare
for the benefit of the poor.

[area51]

40. You're missing a point.

You said:

"So what you are saying is that the 250 million who now have health insurance should accept rationing ..."

The 250 million with insurance already have rationing. They only get the care that they insurance companies choose to pay for, or the care that they can get by begging, or borrowing the funds. We all have rationing right now.

[dugggy]

43. In my 47 years in USA, there was not a single incident when I was rationed

healthcare. I received immediate care everytime it was
needed. My PPO insurance covers 85% after deductibles
are met. The deductibles and premiums are much higher
now than 20 years ago. And most important, the insurance
covered EVERY procedure which was prescribed by a doctor.
It even paid for my vascectomy, certainly an optional
procedure.

[ConsAreLiars]

28. Socialized medicine would likely be as bad as socialized roads and fire departments

and Park systems. Caving in to the corporatist spin machine and denouncing such solutions is hardly a step forward.

[Yael]

30. First of all

I believe I have said it a few times in this thread, but again -- NONE of our candidates are promoting a socialist system. The (R) machine is cranked up about this though, and God forbid they let the facts stand in their way.

We can either (i) proactively speak out about what our candidates ARE promoting and why we support this or (ii) reactively try to redefine 'socialism' to counter their arguments (which is moot because as mentioned, NONE of our candidates are promoting a socialist system).

I am thinking that being proactive about what we are in favor of (and why it is a GoodThing) would be a bit more effective.

[ConsAreLiars]

34. You are right in that, and at the tactical level that is about all that can be done.

Too bad. The Dem candidates in the US would all be right-wingers in any modern society. So your point is well made -- at the minimum call the Cons on their lies. But I'd rather not see it done in a way that demonizes a more progressive solution, realizing that the availability of health care options should not be decided by the Return on Investment equations of capitalism.

(edit messed up stuff)

[Yael]

35. Oh, I agree with you on that principle

It is the whole profit motive for denying care thing that needs to be the rallying cry.

[ConsAreLiars]

36. Exactly. My comments were intended as more of a

tweak than a critique. I've watched to medical businesses and big Pharma do their best to strip all assets from a dying relative before death stopped their feeding. Not pretty.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[harun]

44. Socialized Medicine != Socialized Health Care

Socialized Medicine means even prescription drugs would be socialized. No candidate is advocating that I am aware of.

Your definition however of Socialized Medicine is what I support but I call it Universal Health Care. It is socialized health care, but we also have socialized schools, socialized libraries, socialized social security, socialized fire departments, socialized police departments, a socialized FBI, CIA, NSA, Army, Navy, Marines, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, Socialized Space Exploration vehicles, a Socialized Space Station, etc.

[Progressive Friend]

45. France also has the best medical system in the world

We should nationalize the entire health care industry too. And the military industries, because that is the only way to break up the 'military-industrial-complex'.

Don't subsidize. Nationalize.

[itcfish]

47. Exactly

But the neo cons and the right wingers love to use the word "Socialized" to strike fear in all those "Commie haters". This administration has used panic words English language to manipulate the masses.