That was easy.
Medicare-for-all extends a fee for service model that results in poor care, poorer outcomes, massively increases expense, and simultaneously lowers physician reimbursements. Given the increasing doctor shortage, that’s an issue that will be immediately exacerbated. Further, the FFS model incentivizes throughput, not quality of care. Your care won’t get better.
https://journals.lww.com/jcma/Fulltext/2015/10000/Overview_o...
I suspect every reason you will cite is something we could both address as a nation and we will refuse to do so because freedom or some other idiocy. I truly give up. I threw money at family's medical crisis and prevailed. Most can't. More should be able to do so.
Even California is looking to places like Houston to mine ideas for improving their raging homeless problem. If you're not going to steal from the best, why bother doing anything?
I’m not clear why you’re giving up - it’s not an intractable problem. Some folks need to give up on “healthcare only for the rich/cities” and some folks need to stop having strong opinions about a very, very complicated industry they don’t understand at even a surface level (not directed at anyone specifically - it’s a common US problem with healthcare discussions/solutions).
Cost/utilization/availability challenges are fully solvable, if one is committed to a solution and not a message.
Also, it's not like the fact that the private insurance model failed in the US means that it can't work at all. For instance, not all countries in Europe have single payer. In some the health insurance system is privatized to a much higher degree than in the US, no equivalent of Medicaid/Medicare with governments directly subsidizing insurance premiums for low-income individuals.
There are clear problems with the current system, and we paid quite a bit out of pocket to evade substandard care this past year with our insurance company threatening to not cover it at all at every step. We called their bluff by enrolling in clinical trials and they folded. Most can't afford to do so, and some never will, but I wish I lived in a country where more could.
And sure, a more transparent private system could work, in fact, utter transparency should be a requirement from the get-go given what is happening with the public/private mix in Canada. But we have 50 individual states in which to experiment yet good luck with that in the current media/political environment. Not giving either party a break here.
I'm certainly not asserting that. However, first of all, 'Medicare For All' only makes sense if it's mandatory, which means additional taxes. Yes, considering the social, political, and economic reality, the likeliest outcome would be a two-tier system, with those who can afford it getting additional insurance in some way. I'm not sure what's so great about that?
> And sure, a more transparent private system could work, > experiment yet good luck with that in the current media/political environment. Not giving either party a break here
Would passing an extended ACA II with way fewer compromises and more effective regulation than the Obamacare version be really harder than instituting Medicare for All (so either a significant increase in federal income tax or a new tax altogether)?
