Why not replace Medicare with Single Payer?

[Free Bird]

I'm sure it would cost less, right? No extra taxes needed! Or am I missing something?

[Ban my account ffs!]

Wut...


Medicare is single payer. 

You go to clinic.  You are 68.  Every 68 year old has single payer Medicare.

Single payer is one government run payment system for private hospitals and clinics staffed by private doctors.  It preserves choice but simplifies payments and covers everyone.

So the premise of this thread makes no sense since you're suggesting changing an A into an A.

[Sumner 1868]

Repealing Medicare's age limits would be much better. In any case, the first priority should be quality of care, then cost afterwards.

[Samantha]

Medicare is single payer and I support extending it to everybody.

[Free Bird]

Repealing Medicare's age limits would be much better. In any case, the first priority should be quality of care, then cost afterwards.

How much would that cost?

[AggregateDemand]

How much would that cost?

Depends on whether real liberals or their evil American counterparts are running the show. If real liberals were calling the shots, it wouldn't cost more than the current Medicare and Medicaid budget. If American liberals and their vote-buying death machine are administrating universal single payer, it will bankrupt the nation in about 30 minutes.

Trusting the Democratic Party is like trusting an economic terrorist, and that's why we don't have a basic catastrophic single-payer system.

[Donerail]

Repealing Medicare's age limits would be much better. In any case, the first priority should be quality of care, then cost afterwards.

How much would that cost?

Given that we spend $400B a year already just on bureaucracy, paperwork, and private insurance marketing...

Assuming that a new 'universal Medicare' program would replace all federal healthcare spending, the state portions of Medicaid, other state & local health programs, all health insurance for government employees, and all tax subsidies for health insurance, I believe you'd approach cost neutrality.

[Representative MJM]

Well the governments of the United Kingdom and Canada spend 7.6% of GDP on their single-payer systems. America, on the other hand, spends 8.1% on its broken health care system. That doesn't even include private expenditures.

[Zioneer]

Well the governments of the United Kingdom and Canada spend 7.6% of GDP on their single-payer systems. America, on the other hand, spends 8.1% on its broken health care system. That doesn't even include private expenditures.

Don't forget the higher burden on the poor.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Medicare is single-payer. The real question is why don't we extend Medicare to cover the entire citizen/permanent resident population.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What the hell does this even mean?

[bedstuy]

What the hell does this even mean?

I think he means what if we replaced Medicare with Medicare for all, which he refers to as "Single Payer."  He suggests that we couldn't afford it because Medicare is expensive by itself and extending it to everyone would be a extremely expensive. 

I would counter with this proposition.  Whether you pay money to your insurance company every month or pay money in taxes, it's basically the same.  Whether a company pays for an insurance plan or pays their taxes, it's basically the same.  It's money you don't have to spend.  A bigger role for government in insurance could just in effect shift money from monthly insurance bills to government taxation.

And, that would make sense, to have a single basic government insurance plan that covers everyone, providing a bare bones plan with catastrophic coverage, checkups, vaccinations and putting a downward pressure on price.  Then, we could have an Obamacare-exchange like system that provided supplemental insurance.

[Zioneer]

Plus there's the fact that Medicare is more efficient than private companies.

[AggregateDemand]

Plus there's the fact that Medicare is more efficient than private companies.

Please. Medicare only reimburses a portion of the billed cost. If a healthcare facility wants $100 for a procedure, they must charge $120, for instance. Private insurers and uninsured are often stuck paying the inflated cost. Furthermore, the biggest cost driver is flat-rate copay, which exists in both Medicare and private insurance, though Medicare recipients are doubly removed from the effects of flat-rate copay because Medicare recipients don't really pay an insurance premium.

Medicare and Medicaid are the least efficient healthcare institutions in the known universe, and their penny-dreadful attempts to obscure their own track record are borderline criminal.