Here is the real deal from Dr. Quentin Young via FDL... if we’re to believe top lawmakers, Medicare is part of the problem, right? Aren’t we supposed to be talking about raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67, reducing benefits, increasing seniors’ co-pays and deductibles or, even more dire, abolishing the program altogether and handing seniors vouchers to buy private insurance?
Wrong. Despite its market-obsessed detractors and those who would weaken the program in the name of deficit reduction, Medicare is the solution, not the problem. More precisely, an improved Medicare for all – a single-payer health system – is the right prescription for treating not only our health care woes, but our ailing economy as well.
[snip]
The biggest albatross around the neck of our health care system is the private insurance industry, which remains firmly entrenched under the new federal health law. [my bold]Thanks to companies like UnitedHealthcare, WellPoint, Aetna, Humana and Cigna, our nation’s patients, businesses, and health providers are chronically tormented by skyrocketing premiums, denials of care, endless paperwork and bureaucracy, and the spectacle of obscene CEO salaries and insurance company profits.
And what does this so-called system get us? Fifty-one million people who have no coverage at all; 45,000 annual deaths linked to lack of coverage; a million personal bankruptcies annually (62 percent of the total) linked to illness or medical debt; and World Health Organization indicators that put us in 37th place globally, even though we spend twice as much per capita as any other nation.
Waste in our system is staggering. Research shows about 31 cents of each U.S. health care dollar is currently spent on administration, over half of which is unnecessary. That translates into $400 billion wasted annually. If we recaptured that money and applied it to clinical care – as we could under a single-payer system – we’d be able to assure everyone comprehensive, first-dollar, high-quality coverage.
Read the rest here
Good one!
ReplyDeleteAlways timely and appropriate even though no one seems to be listening.
Love ya,
S
Hi Suzan - sorry it took me so long to see you.
ReplyDeleteYou'll like this - I had a republican friend of mine over and he was ranting about the situation in Washington and I turned him to focus on money and corporations instead of individual politicians. He is catching on. Showed him the Ratigan rant and it suddenly made sense to him that it is the system that is causing our troubles and not individual politicians like the media want us to believe. An epiphany! Now he wants to bring in the SEALs to take out CEOS. Hell hath no fury like a republican who can finally see how manipulated he had been by his own media. Truly a thing of beauty.
Take care hon,
-G
For the money state and local governments spend on private health insurance including the money government contractors spend on private health insurance the U.S. could fund a medicare plus dental and vision program for 100% of it's citizens.
ReplyDeleteThat's how wasteful the current system is.
Thanks for stopping by Pangolin. Another blatant example of the US devolution of democracy in favor of plutocracy. The smart money should be on universal healthcare for all. The savings, as you point out, along with improved outcomes make it the logical choice. Even with overwhelming support from the American people - at least those who managed not to be brainwashed by the mis-information campaign from hate media, Fox News, and corrupt Republicans/Blue Dog Dems, it still couldn't pass. Without a sharp change in the amount of influence the Healtcare Industrial Complex and other multi-national corporations, with the cooperation of the corporate media, have on our decision making process in this country we will continue down the road to eventual Oligarchy where the country is managed by a few obscenely wealthy corporations with no need for elected politicians. We're almost there now.
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