Democratic Super-delegate laughs off single-payer among insurance executives

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

...so in other words a guy who hasn't held office in over a decade.

And yeah misleading title. I know it was obviously to make him sound more important but I doubt anyone cares what superdelegate for life Debra DeLee has to say about healthcare.

[Santander]

Gephardt is 76 years old. To say single-payer won't happen in America in his lifetime will probably end up being accurate.

[publicunofficial]

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Bring back the f**king guillotine.

[publicunofficial]

Good. As Nancy Pelosi said, "We're capitalists, and that's just how it is." We should consider a public option, but Single Payer always has been and always will be an utterly unamerican policy.

Nothing is more American than going into bankruptcy because of an unexpected root canal.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

We need our Tea Party.

No, we really don't.  In fact, the last thing the country needs is for the Democratic Party to hand over the reigns to sociopathic scum like Alan Grayson and Tulsi Gabbard.  Next thing you know, folks will start saying we need a "liberal Trump" *cringe*

[publicunofficial]

We need our Tea Party.

No, we really don't.  In fact, the last thing the country needs is for the Democratic Party to hand over the reigns to sociopathic scum like Alan Grayson and Tulsi Gabbard.  Next thing you know, folks will start saying we need a "liberal Trump" *cringe*

Sociopathic scum like Alan Grayson > Sociopathic scum like Dick Gephardt

And if liberal Trump you mean "Guy who embarrasses his party establishment all the way into the White House riding a wave of populist sentiment and base appeal" than hell yes.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

We need our Tea Party.

No, we really don't.  In fact, the last thing the country needs is for the Democratic Party to hand over the reigns to sociopathic scum like Alan Grayson and Tulsi Gabbard.  Next thing you know, folks will start saying we need a "liberal Trump" *cringe*

Sociopathic scum like Alan Grayson > Sociopathic scum like Dick Gephardt

And if liberal Trump you mean "Guy who embarrasses his party establishment all the way into the White House riding a wave of populist sentiment and base appeal" than hell yes.

Grayson is a wife-beater, you diplodocus.  That automatically makes him worse than Gephardt.

[7,052,770]

Good. As Nancy Pelosi said, "We're capitalists, and that's just how it is." We should consider a public option, but Single Payer always has been and always will be an utterly unamerican policy.

Nothing is more American than going into bankruptcy because of an unexpected root canal.

Obviously I agree with your point, but don't expect any universal health system, single payer or otherwise, to mandate dental coverage. It's not and EHB in Obamacare, it's not covered in Canada or most other single payer countries

[Famous Mortimer]

I always assumed that major Democrats secretly supported single payer but didn't say so because they were too cowardly.

Now single payer is actually more popular than the Democrats so cowardice can't be the reason.

The two possibilities are that they 1) were never in favor of single payer or 2) they realize that single payer is impossible with open borders and they like open borders more. Possible both reasons I guess.

I wonder if we were ever get an honest account of their reasoning, maybe a memoir 20 years down the line.

[publicunofficial]

I always assumed that major Democrats secretly supported single payer but didn't say so because they were too cowardly.

Now single payer is actually more popular than the Democrats so cowardice can't be the reason.

The two possibilities are that they 1) were never in favor of single payer or 2) they realize that single payer is impossible with open borders and they like open borders more. Possible both reasons I guess.

I wonder if we were ever get an honest account of their reasoning, maybe a memoir 20 years down the line.

The real answer is Dem leadership is more affiliated with insurance companies and medical lobbying firms than the voters who like single-payer. That's part of why they are chasing the moderate, suburban Republican voter, because it will allow them to have a base of support that doesn't demand them to do anything their donors don't want them to do already.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Good. As Nancy Pelosi said, "We're capitalists, and that's just how it is." We should consider a public option, but Single Payer always has been and always will be an utterly unamerican policy.

Nothing is more American than going into bankruptcy because of an unexpected root canal.

Obviously I agree with your point, but don't expect any universal health system, single payer or otherwise, to mandate dental coverage. It's not and EHB in Obamacare, it's not covered in Canada or most other single payer countries

The things you learn.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

My back of the envelope numbers suggests we can, in fact, just tax rich people.

First, compare per capita costs of health care in the US vs. Canda. In Canda it's around $5,300. In the US it's currently almost twice that. Let's set the Canadian spending as our target.  (Maybe we won't hit it and there will still be some out of pocket expenses and premiums. But it seems reasonable, and there will be much lower overhead on billing and claims, and insurance won't be run at a profit.)

The US, federal and state governments are already spending $3,800 per capita with existing programs. That leaves a shortfall of $1,500 per person, or $474 billion.

Total US income is $13 trillion. The top 1% - by conservative estimates - account for 18% of that, or over $2.4 trillion. Increase the income tax burden on the top 1% by 20% and you get a little over $474 billion.

The current highest marginal tax rate is 39.6% (not counting capital gains). It was 91% as recently as 1963, and 69% as recently as 1981. Structurally, it seems quite doable. The only question is if we have the political will.

You can't assume that instituting single payer will suddenly cut American health expenditures down to Canadian levels, unless you're going to slash salaries here for doctors, nurses, lab techs, etc., plus rebuild infrastructure for lower cost, and so on:

A Single Payer System Won't Make Health Care Cheap

The path to single payer UK or Canada style from where we are now, is paved with pixie dust and wishful thinking.

Just like they think magically making the tax rate 90% will return us to the 1950's economy, adopting Single Payer now, will make us magically like Canada. Everything is relative to context. If everyone else is blown the hell up or Communist, you can afford to tax at a 90% rate. If Healthcare GDP is nominal (like 2% or something) and the Healthcare sector has not yet matured, you can nationalize healthcare without too much pain and 70 years later "have such awesome outcomes relative to the US". Neither situation is the case, now, and that is what matters.

And both would cause a severe recession. I have yet to see someone answer how you can reduce the 17% of GDP that is healthcare to a level manageable and affordable (ie so single payer doesn't bankrupt the hell out of us), without sparking a deep recession since you are you know CUTTING GDP.

People need to stop masturbating over the UK and Canada and start looking to Germany's system and thinking about a multi-year, decade plus, transition.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The entire Democratic leadership is a bunch of frauds pulling the wool over their own constituency. If they dont approve of single-payer, they shouldnt of been promising it to their voters for the last 80 years.

lol what?

Here, from a voice you'll trust.

Shame on you, Dick Gephardt!

Ha, okay. I'll interpret Harry Truman's dream to be universal healthcare, but that's really not the point. If a single-payer system was eventually implemented in this country, I would not protest, but Truman, Clinton, and Obama all took the beating electorally for trying some kind of major health care reform. That's why people like Pelosi and all the evil establishment Democrats aren't pushing for anything beyond incremental change. Winning elections is actually of value.

But if single-payer is the new purity test, shame on you, Bernie Sanders!

Truman probably could have enacted single payer, had the politics of the day allowed for it. Nixon might have been able to as well as late as the 1970's. But there has been too much expansion in the healthcare industry, doctors, nurses etc, since then to make this practical without severe cuts.