You know, there is a way to give all companies a HUGE financial advantage that costs NOTHING

[Stinky The Clown]

I am posting these tidbits to keep the idea out there .....

Universal Single Payer Health Care will save all companies boatloads of money in employee benefits.

We are already paying as much or more as it will cost it us, but we are getting less. Insurance based health care is a crappy deal.

Universal Single Payer Health Care is the solution to several issues.

Put the insurers out of business but keep most of their employees in the new system. Take away any profit motive. Incentivize good health and preventive care. That will further lower costs.

We can see an economic upturn at the same time we see a decline in overall healthcare costs.

Edit for grammar and typos (change incentive to incetivize)

[aquart]

1. Exactly. Make American business competitive again.

Get healthcare off its back. Treat healthcare as the urgent national security issue it really is.

[Lyric]

2. I don't even think that it will put the insurers out of business. Some of them, yes.

But others can make changes and service the higher-end customer base. Rich people help subsidize public schools, but they still pay more for THEIR kids to have private schools. I'm sure they'll do the same for insurance. They can't stand it when they don't have a "better" version of something than the rest of us, after all.

[Buns_of_Fire]

25. True. They'd happily pay for "designer" insurance.

Add some snob appeal and the companies would have to fight 'em off with a stick. "Any lesser mortal can have silicone implants -- but our company pays for caviar implants!"

[Chulanowa]

28. Great - Another thing that smells like fish

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

3. Totally agree and can't understand why American business does not

come out 100% for this.
K&R

[mdmc]

4. Universal Single Payer Health Care

I wonder if Toyota or Honda would turn a profit if Japan had a for profit health care system?

[tkmorris]

5. I knew what you were referring to without even looking

It is such a no-brainer, even an idiot can see it (not that you are of course). What I can't understand is why more large corporations aren't leading the pack to demand this. On the surface it seems it would so obviously save them tons in labor costs. So why not?

[ljm2002]

27. Why not, indeed?

I think it's because the executive class is a modern form of royalty and they stick together. Insurance is one of the biggest and wealthiest industries in our country, and has been for a long time. None of the other executives will go against them because they're all members of the same club. It's just unthinkable.

[John Q. Citizen]

6. Amen - Global bugeting, negotiated fees for service, negotiated drug costs,

negotiated equipment cost, need based allocation of technology resources.

it's my post election focus for sure. We need to sell it now!

[kestrel91316]

7. I've been saying this for years. Take the profit motive OUT of denial of care.

[Joe Fields]

8. Question: what do you gain by putting another industry out of work?

Do you know how many people derive their weekly or bi-weekly paychecks from the insurance industry and it's related industries?

I don't know, but I'm just asking.

[Cleita]

12. RW talking point number #1008.

The insurance industry will never go out of business. They will always find ways to make up for it by inventing new things to insure. The other surplus health care workers will be absorbed into the new health care system, because they will be needed.

[Joe Fields]

17. You've just proven you haven't the slightest grasp of what you are talking about.

Personally, there is no love lost between me and the insurance industry. But if you can't see the far reaching ramifications of displacing one industry, in favor of another, then there is nothing further to discuss.

[Cleita]

18. Will you listen to some Harvard doctors then who have been studying this

issue since 1987? From the frequently asked questions page of the Physicians For a National Health Plan http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php#insurance_companies

What will happen to all of the people who work for insurance companies?

The new system will still need some people to administer claims. Administration will shrink, however, eliminating the need for many insurance workers, as well as administrative staff in hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. More health care providers, especially in the fields of long-term care, home health care, and public health, will be needed, and many insurance clerks can be retrained to enter these fields. Many people now working in the insurance industry are, in fact, already health professionals (e.g. nurses) who will be able to find work in the health care field again. But many insurance and health administrative workers will need a job retraining and placement program. We anticipate that such a program would cost about $20 billion, a small fraction of the administrative savings from the transition to national health insurance.

PNHP has worked with labor unions and others to develop plans for a jobs conversion program with would protect the incomes of displaced clerical workers until they were retrained and transitioned to other jobs.

Do you have a better source to refute what I don't know what I'm talking about?

[walldude]

14. I'd rather see industries that actually produce something

survive rather than industries that make money betting on whether people will get in an accident/get sick/die. Insurance is nothing but gambling, and the house always wins.

[mzmolly]

24. The insurance agency will continue to exist.

I'm not sure why you're asking.

[lumberjack_jeff]

26. It isn't work, it's extortion. Pay up, and you don't die. n/t

[rucky]

9. Yes, yes, and yes again.

It's GOOD for business (unless you're in the health insurance business)

[ihavenobias]

11. True. n/t

[Cleita]

10. Well, not exactly. Any single payer universal plan is

factoring some of that money formerly paid to the private insurance companies to be used to fund the health plan. What will happen is that the burden will be distributed more fairly among everyone and the companies so that the small mom and pop companies won't be burdened with more than they can afford. Also, since it's estimated that SPUHC can be delivered for half the cost of what the corporate bloated system we have now is costing, everyone will pay less.

[walldude]

13. Yup, Randi talked about this yesterday

She also mentioned that it's funny how the people who complain that health care costs drive up the cost of labor are against single-payer health care.

[mwei924]

15. I doubt it would cost nothing.

[Stinky The Clown]

30. We are already paying for it. We just don't get what we're paying for.

Eliminate the profit motive and the bloated management and we get what we pay for.

Make it a government payer program (NOT government docs and nurses, and techs, etc.) and it is no longer a burden to employers.

It does NOT add to the national burden.

Ergo ..... it costs nothing.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

16. I used to work with a woman who was married to a radiologist

that was a hard core Repig. She told me that he finally came to the conclusion that single payer would save everyone a lot of time and money. One kind of forms, standardized recordkeeping, more efficiency up and down the chain. Better for doctors, better for patients.

[meow2u3]

19. If health care has to be private, let nonprofits run it

It's a first step. It takes the profit motive our of the equation while allowing a gradual transition into single-payer health care.

[Cleita]

23. Single payer is private. The only thing the government does is to collect the

money needed to pay for health care and write the check for the care provided, under certain guidelines of course or it would be a free for all for dishonest people. Everything else is privately run, clinics, doctors, hospitals, etc. everything.

[BrklynLiberal]

20. Absolutely right.

[BREMPRO]

21. You've outlined the BEST arguments for USP health care in the USA.

Helps business reduce costs and be more competitive
Saves overall cost by simplifying administration and taking profit out of health care business
Distributes risk and increases access
Encourages preventive care with govt. stake in health care costs


Also, I would BAN ALL DRUG COMPANY ADS, these are a sinkhole for cost of health care, and completely unnecessary, not to mention ANNOYING AS HELL!!.

[Cleita]

22. I would nationalize all drug companies.

I would let the universities develop drugs and test them. Government factories would produce them. The only advertising would be to doctors in medical journals, the people who prescribe them. This business of a single pill costing $100 has to stop. It's a wholesale robbery of sick people who have no choice.

[surrealAmerican]

29. ... well, not exactly "all companies".

It will help most, but remember, there's an entire industry built up around denying people health coverage in this country.

[Stinky The Clown]

31. That industry will continue on some reduced form .....

.... their employees will easily be shifted to the not for profit providers and the payer bureaucracy.