Right wing friend sent me this, debunk it if you can (Single payer)....

[ghostsinthemachine]

Each of the names below are renowned left-leaning/liberal/progressive economists speaking about Bernie’s single-payer proposal.

Henry J. Aaron of the Brookings institute supports a single-payer health care system, but called Sanders’ proposal a “fairy tale.” Jared Bernstein, former adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, called Sanders’ cost projections “wishful thinking”. Perhaps most telling, former Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee, famous for his progressivism, colorfully dismissed Sanders’ agenda as “magic flying puppies with winning Lotto tickets tied to their collars.”

As a postscript, it’s worth noting that Vermont, a the ultra-blue state from which Sanders hails, tried to implement a program of socialized medicine similar to what Sanders is proposing. Almost immediately, they were forced to give up on the idea as too expensive to actually work.

As Pat Moynihan used to say “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

[SoLeftIAmRight]

1. This is part of it.

The Clinton economic philosophy is rooted completely and blindly in the failed trickle down Chicago school of thought.

Nothing she says or does indicates that she has any understanding or even knowledge of any other options. Two generations of economist and business men/women are infused with these destructive ideas. They heap scorn on dissenters like the church did when it was faced with the idea that the earth revolves around the sun. Forty years of declining prospects for the American people has done nothing to shake the unfailing worship of Chicago school philosophy.

One of the more insidious pillars of this philosophy is that unemployment is necessary. Let that sink in. Unemployment is necessary.

For me, supporting a system or supporting the advocates of a system that ensures many millions of people must scramble and struggle to survive is abhorrent.

Full employment, a high minimum wage and income security changes everything.

Everything.

And that is what this fight is about. Far too many of the comfortable among us fear change and they will blindly fight against the ideas that they do not understand or care about.

[Xipe Totec]

2. If you were to ask King George III about the chances for America's Revolution,

He would've said you're nuts.

The political establishment has it's own blinders regardless of party.

Bernie is not part of that establishment.

[Trajan]

3. They are NOT Liberal Economists

They are THIRD WAY Neocons ... The same people who promoted NAFTA ... These are RIGHT WING economists who happened to work for the Clintons ...

That should be all the clue you need ...

[nxylas]

4. Every other country in the developed world has universal healthcare

If you're going to write something off as impossible, it's not helpful to have so many documented examples.

[fwiff]

5. I would keep it simple

I would say that the ONLY people who have insisted that it can't be done are those with totally different agendas.

That these 'renowned" economists are ones who are tied to the Clintons and were trotted out for this story.
(There's a link in GDP about his)

That the program is designed similarly to successful programs EVERY OTHER developed country, and that we ALREADY pay 2x per capita for health care than them, and other economists (find those names?) have shown that it would work well.


And that the biggest reason single payer was too difficult to implement in VT is that they are too small- they don't have the population and the corresponding business or income tax base. Enlarging the pool of insured makes is MUCH more affordable.

Social security was once "impossible". So was medicare.

[ghostsinthemachine]

6. can you find the link for me?

thanks you.

[Cleita]

7. Considering our neighbor to the north has Medicare for everyone and it seems to be working

fine for them for. Canada boasts of one the highest life expectancies (about 80 years) and lowest infant morality rates of industrialized countries. Many attribute to Canada's health care system. It's been operating successfully since the Canada Health Act was adopted in 1984. Here is an overview of the system:

http://www.canadian-healthcare.org/page3.html

You don't need to look at Canada. Any number of countries in Europe who use similar systems have similar success rates. It's the life expectancies and infant mortality rates that tell the success of single payer in all those industrialized countries who use some form of single payer. I don't pay much attention to what the Brookings institute says as they are pretty DLC centrist in their views.

As far as cost, Physicians for a National Health Plan(http://www.pnhp.org/) , has many excellent articles on what it would cost as well as other institutes, but what they have in common in comparing our system to single payer is that we pay twice as much per capita for our health care as our Canadian neighbors and other countries with universal health care.

Here's a recent one that shows figures for government health care that we already pay for on top of insurance type health care and it makes our health care more costly because of the parasitic insurance industry:

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2016/january/government-funds-nearly-two-thirds-of-us-health-care-costs-american-journal-of-pub

The problem with Vermont being an underpopulated, rural and somewhat poor state is that they didn't have the economic base to do single payer. That would take a large territory like Canada does by doing it regionally. For instance if the New England States banded together they would have the population and economic base to get it done.

I'm afraid your left-leaning/liberal/progressive economists are being disingenuous about their "facts". Since you didn't name them, I couldn't trace them back to their lobbyist roots and other connections to the for profit health care industry. But usually I have found in the past that those who present the above arguments and those arguments have been around since the 1970s, when I first started researching this, have long and deep ties to those corporations who are preventing this from getting done.

[ghostsinthemachine]

8. Yeah, I thought to go via the "follow the money" plan of action

but I got deadlocked right away.....thanks.

[TexasBushwhacker]

9. Straight from Bernie's website

https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/

"The United States currently spends $3 trillion on health care each year—nearly $10,000 per person."

"This plan has been estimated to cost $1.38 trillion per year."

The Sanders plan would cover ALL costs - no deductibles, no co-pays - and would cover vision, hearing and dental as well.

[in_cog_ni_to]

10. From a TRUE PROGRESSIVE Economist... Gerald Friedman. Link:

http://www.amherstbulletin.com/news/20620589-95/university-of-massachusetts-economist-gerald-friedman-calculates-savings-resulting-from-medicare-for

PEACE
LOVE
BERNIE

[ghostsinthemachine]

11. all righty then! thanks so much and keep it coming

dude usually dont send me stuff like this but last night, after the brazillionth "bernies a socialist" comment i said that he dont know shit about bernie.

gonna be a looooooooooong 9 months.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

12. They need to ask the Canadians if they have unicorns and fairies?

[ghostsinthemachine]

13. canada is like a foreign country maaaaan

that was last years healthcare broohaha. i told the same guy that more us people go to mexico for healthcare than canadians go to the us..... and then proved myself right.

[Vincardog]

14. We are already paying more than three times as much as single payer would cost Ask your conservative

Friends why this is preferable?

[Trisherella]

15. Yes Single Payer Can Be Affordable

There is a "Medicare For All" proposal supported by doctors. I don't know how it compares with Bernie's plan, but my understanding is that in order to make it work financially, you have to suppress Big Pharma so their prices are more comparable to Europe's. Also, you need to eliminate the insurance company middlemen (which Obamacare notably does NOT do).

I think it's doable, but the Insurance Companies need to be out of the picture.

[ghostsinthemachine]

16. Here's something, from another DU thread

We'd save $5253.60.
That's serious money.
Furthermore employers save too, similar amount, over $5K
(in the case of an employee+spouse+2 kids, which is our situation)

DU thread here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1276203


Here are two calculators to find your family's savings:

http://www.bernietax.com/#0;0

http://valadian.github.io/SandersHealthcareCalculator/

Single payer saves everybody money:
-Individuals
-Families
-Employers
-Government (costs would drop from 17% to ~12% of GDP) WOW!!!


Single payer is the patriotic thing to do!

Or we keep 320 Million people under the parasitic foot of the so-called 'health insurance' industry...

[eridani]

17. The VT governor just gave up on trying to convince people that a cheap tas was--

--better than an expensive premium.