Sooner or Later

Sooner or later, the fubar known as US Healthcare (AKA Obama Care) will eventually become Single Payer as the public will eventually demand that this ongoing travesty be transformed into an efficient, cost effective and open environment with the profit motive removed, able to function as a 21st connected system able to meet the needs of the people at reasonable cost, something not possible with the current system in place given just how complexified healthcare has become due to 

1: The profit motive permeating every aspect of medical (IT, doctors, hospitals, labs, imaging, big pharma & insurance) with the end result of the public paying way too much for services rendered in a system dominated by big pharma and the insurance companies and...

2 : Government Regulatory, where inefficiency rules due to collusion with the insurance companies and significant others rather then acceding to the wishes of the people who want a system like that of H.R. 676 that works for all and not just the privileged few.

To whit.

• Let’s take Senator Ted Cruz up on his challenge.
• Repeal Obamacare.
• But instead of throwing ourselves at the mercy of the insurance companies, let’s replace Obamacare and the insurance companies with a single payer.
• It’s going to happen sooner or later.
• Let’s strike while the iron is hot.
• Let’s do it now while Cruz is on the Senate floor.
• The Repeal Obamacare Republicans say that the Obamacare is 2,000 pages and its regulations are 20,000 pages long.
• They have an alternative plan that is 200 pages.
• Well, the single payer bill in the House (HR 676) is only 30 pages.
• Single payer wins.
• It’s shorter.
• It’s the only system that controls costs.
• It’s the only system that covers everyone.
• Where are the single payer Democrats who are willing to stand, and say — repeal Obamacare, replace it with single payer?

To add fuel to the fire, Matt Miller, a conservative writer who does op-ed pieces for the Washington Post, has some interesting words to say about the Canadian system. something naysayers in the US don't want to hear about because it's socialistic.

Take David Beatty, a 70-year-old Toronto native who ran food processing giant Weston Foods and a holding company called the Gardiner Group during a career that has included service on more than 30 corporate boards and a recent appointment to the Order of Canada, one of the nation’s highest honors. By temperament and demeanor, Beatty is the kind of tough-minded, suffer-no-fools wealth creator who conservatives typically cheer.

Yet over breakfast in Toronto not long ago, Beatty told me how baffled he and Canadian business colleagues are when they listen to the U.S. health-care debate. He cherishes Canada’s single-payer system for its quality and cost-effectiveness (Canada boasts much lower costs per person than the United States). And don’t get him started on the system’s administrative simplicity — you just show your card at the point of service, and that’s it. Though he’s a well-to-do man who can pay for whatever care he wants, Beatty told me he’s relied on the system just as ordinary Canadians do, including for a recent knee replacement operation. The one time he went outside the system was to pay extra for a physical therapist closer to his home than the one to which he’d been assigned.

Factoid: Yours truly has good friends in Quebec and Toronto and all agree that their HC system works. In fact, whenever both parties come to the states, they take out temporary insurance to cover any unexpected medical costs that are, in fact, covered under the CA system.

Isn't it about time Single Payer becomes the way to do business regarding all things medical. Makes sense to me.

Addendum: Interesting piece in the NYTimes titled Single Payer, Period where numbers don't lie.

Canadians or the French or Germans have little or no choice of who pays their medical bills. But they can choose any hospital and any doctor. And they’re not socked with the enormous uncovered bills that will still afflict insured Americans. Elsewhere, insurance pretty much covers what you need.

In contrast, plans offered through the exchanges will saddle those who gets sick with hefty deductibles and co-payments – $2000 deductibles and 20 percent co-payments thereafter are typical in Massachusetts, the prototype for Obamacare.

If you’re too old to twerk the news is even worse. Health and Human Services' news release featured premium costs for a 27 year old. At that age you can get a Silver plan in New Jersey for $3,030 annually. But for someone 63 the premium is $8,535.

Any questions?