A Real Cure for "Obamacare": Medicare for All

[Better Believe It]

A Real Cure for "Obamacare": Medicare for All
As court fight looms, healthcare crisis is far from over
by Rose Ann DeMoro
Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of the 160,000-member National Nurses United, the nation’s largest union and professional association of nurses, and a national vice president of the AFL-CIO.

February 27, 2012

While the ACA (Affordable Care Act) had some undeniable positive elements, including permitting young adults up to age 26 remain on their parents health plan, and several limitations on insurance industry abuses, such as barring them from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions, our health care nightmare is far from over.

As to the law itself, despite its name the ACA has done little to actually make healthcare affordable. Out of pocket health costs for families continue to soar largely unabated. Nurses now routinely see patients who have postponed needed care, sometimes even life-saving or life-prolonging care, because of the high co-pays and deductibles.

Most of the rest of the world has discovered a more humane, cost effective alternative, a national or single payer system, such as expanding and adequately funding Medicare to cover everyone. Even in countries where politicians have proposed privatization or sweeping health cuts they are being met with an aroused public unwilling to trade their health systems for the broken model we have here.

Whether the 2010 law is fully or partially thrown out by the courts, repealed in Congress, or fully implemented, the need for real reform, single payer/Medicare for all, will continue to grow. For now, the fight for single payer is being taken up state by state, a movement that America’s nurses will continue to promote.


Rose Ann DeMoro

Please read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/29-14

[russspeakeasy]

1. It's the only reasonable thing to do...

[bullwinkle428]

2. Well, this can never be K&R'ed enough times.

[Beartracks]

17. And here's another. K&R! n/t

[gulliver]

3. When it happens, it will owe its existence to "Obamacare"

Medicare for all is actually achievable in the near future if we eliminate enough Republicans from Congress. That would have been unthinkable without Obamacare.

Obamacare was the cure. Saying it is something that needs to be cured is, with all due respect, ignorant and ungrateful.

[Better Believe It]

4. I agree. How "ignorant and ungrateful" those damn nurses are! What do they know about healthcare?

That post was sarcasm .... right?

[gulliver]

8. Republicanism has gone nuts.

No one in their right mind can doubt that. They've basically closed their minds. That is why their ideology is dying. They are in a tailspin of anger and fear.

[FarCenter]

5. Doesn't work -- Medicare is not sufficient

A day or two ago there was a long discussion about companies eliminating health care for retirees over 65.

This was seen to be very unsatisfactory, since the Medicare coverage is inadequate.

[Better Believe It]

6. The nurses will be the first to agree that we need an expanded and improved Medicare for All.

[FarCenter]

7. How much more will the Medicare premiums be?

You have to pay a significant premium now for Medicare Part B medical coverage, and a Medicare Part D premium for drug coverage, although that can vary considerably depending on what level of coverage you want.

In addition, if you want more routine services and coverages for some of the gaps, you can get a Medicare Part C plan for an additional premium from an insurance company (but note that you still have to pay Medicare Part B premium.)

PS - Medicare appears to have been developed as a mental challenge to provide cognitive therapy for old people.

[Better Believe It]

9. They can be less once the insurance industry is taken out of the loop. We can learn from the

experiences of Canada and most of Europe that are providing better health care at a lower cost to everyone!

[Selatius]

11. I could be wrong, but I believe Medicare Part C is being phased out anyway under ACA.

They did studies on it in years past.

It's cheaper to do those Medicare services in-house, rather than Medicare out-sourcing those services to an outside contractor, who invariably tack on a profit mark-up and have a fiduciary responsibility to generate wealth for the shareholders. This was meant as a cost-cutting measure.

[FarCenter]

27. I don't think Medicare Part C (aka Medicare Advantage) is going away

The subsidies are being reduced, and this should have the benefit of forcing a lot of the small insurance companies out of the market. Most likely you'll wind up with choice of a Blue, UHC/AARP, and one or two other companies in any given geographic territory, your premiums will go up, and your choice of doctors/hospitals will go down.

Or you can drop Medicare Advantage, and go back to basic Medicare A/B plus a separate Part D plan.

What else do seniors have to do besides run spreadsheets to figure this crap out?

[white_wolf]

12. The premiums for Medicare for all would likely be a lot less than private insurance.

Since everyone will be in the same pool the cost will be spread out a lot more and will be a lot cheaper.

[Lugnut]

16. I think that's the key.

If an improved Medicare program that included dental, eyeglass and prescription coverage was available to everyone it would do two things. The risk pool would even out reducing costs and it would eliminate the parasitic health care insurance companies that add no value to the process.

[FarCenter]

28. In a single payer system, the government would need a bigger bureaucracy to limit health care

In the current system, the insurance companies perform the function of limiting health care expenses by denying coverage for certain types of treatment, use of certain drugs, etc.

In a single payer system, a similar bureaucracy would be needed to limit cost of health care.

[white_wolf]

29. So you're saying denying people coverage is a good thing if it lowers cost?

Disgusting. I would rather have a burrchary that made so people had healthcare than one that tries to deny it like we have now.

[FarCenter]

30. Healthcare has to be rationed somehow

Not all cancer patients can go to Sloan Kettering. Not all heart patients can go to M D Anderson. Not all the rest can go to Mayo.

If the government was paying for my car, I'd prefer to drive a Lexus rather than a Toyota.

The same is true for health care. People argue that they really, really need expensive brand name drug X, when the generic version of the active compound is readily available at lower cost.

In the past health care was rationed based on ability of the patient to pay for care. The health insurance schemes ration care and lower costs through a lot of arcane coverage rules and requirments, plus they bargain for reduced rates from doctors and hospitals (compare your doctor's standard fee with what they will accept from the insurance company; its like the hotel's rack rate versus the corporate or discounted rates).

So there has to be a mechanism to keep medical services consumers from demanding the most expensive available care.

Plus, much medical care is related to being born, coping with chronic illness or injury that never is cured or healed, or dying. These all have levels of treatment with highly variable costs, depending on what you and your insurance will afford.

[eridani]

15. With government cost controls, they should go down a lot

My husband got an emergency root canal in the Netherlands for $25 American in 1996 because the government told the dentists that that was what root canals were going to cost. The government alsol held down prices for their inputs and paid for their schooling from grade school through dental school.

Medicare is specifically prohibited, for instance, for using bulk purchasing power to lower the costs of drugs.

[me b zola]

21. I'm kind of speechless, but that feeling has come over me a lot in the past 10 years or so

You need a product. Someone "offers" it to make a profit. The other person offers it at cost. Gee, which might offer it cheaper?

Geebus, you can get into the weeds with all of the crap legislation that has been passed (pssst, to divert our tax dollars to corporations) but its all just a hall of mirrors.

How about we have single payer with no need for "suplimental" private blood suckers to come in for this and that. Single payer that actually gives us access to the care that we need? Now there's a thought.

[blue neen]

10. I hope that the nurses will be working to re-elect President Obama,

and to elect Democrats for the House and Senate.

We can then continue what the original bill started.

[Fumesucker]

19. Forcing people to buy private insurance?

Because that's what the PPACA does..

[blue neen]

23. That's not what I said.

I think there is much about the bill that can be improved, but at least it got the process started.

Let's hope we can improve upon and expand the bill during President Obama's second term.

[Fumesucker]

31. Health insurance reform is *done* politically.

The Democrats don't want to come near it again, the stakeholders got what they wanted, a captive market and they're not about to let that eminently juicy plum go without a truly epic battle that will make the previous fight look like nap time at the preschool.

[FarCenter]

32. Nor do politicians ever want to take on the "dog in the manger" role of controlling health care cost

They would rather you hate the insurance companies than hate the politicians.

[dionysus]

13. no shit sherlock. present a plan to pass it.

[DirkGently]

14. Pretty sure Step 1. would be publicly advocating it. Kinda how it's done.

[Fumesucker]

20. I believe those advocates were locked out of the negotiations..

Those negotiations were only open to "stakeholders" like the insurance industry..

[me b zola]

22. Or stop voting for people who aren't working for it

[pampango]

18. I'll take the ACA over the status quo, Medicare for All over ACA and an NHS over Medicare for All.

(I realize that an NHS would never happen in the US. A government-run health service is way too "socialistic" but one can dream.)

I'm glad we're not where we were in 2008, but there is a long way to go.

[libtodeath]

24. Without single payer

of some kind our country and way of life is doomed.
Only with it can we talk about the american dream again.

[meaculpa2011]

25. Single payer doesn't go...

far enough. Just because profit is removed from the coverage component doesn't mean that the profit motive will be removed from the provider component.

We need a single-provider system of healthcare.

[midnight]

26. Yes.... Yes!!!!!! No more waiting.... Children can't learn with double ear aches.....