1 Payer Megathread - Sanders discusses on MTP - Likely to run as Indy in 2018

[TheLeftwardTide]

Traitor.

To whom?

To the United States. Everyone who supports single-payer or even more socialistic forms of healthcare is a socialist by association and therefore a traitor the government of the United States of America.

So Truman and LBJ were un-American socialists, then?

[Shadows]

Traitor.

To whom?

To the United States. Everyone who supports single-payer or even more socialistic forms of healthcare is a socialist by association and therefore a traitor the government of the United States of America.

So Truman and LBJ were un-American socialists, then?

As was FDR or Ted Kennedy or JFK (who campaigned on Medicare/Medicaid). And not just that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid & Minimum wage are even more socialist policies.

Minimum wage is a 1000 times more socialistic policy. It abolished the free job market. People who oppose Single Payer should demand that Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security & Minimum Wage be abolished.

[Shadows]

Al Franken hops on the Medicare for all bandwagon (Mentions the great Paul Wellstone while cosponsoring the bill)

@SenFranken  4h4 hours ago
Like Paul Wellstone, I believe health care is a right for all Americans. My stmnt on cosponsoring @SenSanders bill

And the phones are going mad for each Dem Senators office. People are pushing like mad.

Cosponsors -
Sens. Tammy Baldwin
Richard Blumenthal
Cory Booker
Kirsten Gillibrand
Kamala Harris
Mazie Hirono
Ed Markey
Jeff Merkley
Brian Schatz
Elizabeth Warren
Sheldon Whitehouse
Tom Udall
Martin Heinrich
Al Franken
Patrick Leahy

That is 15 (+ Sanders). 33% of the Dem Caucus. HR676 got to 60%+ in the House. The target there should be 50%+ (a majority). Sanders needs 9 more Co-sponsors to get a Majority of the Dems to support Single Payer.

WaPo post has an article on the Bernie bill. Apparently it is not a 1 shot bill but phased in over 4 years. We need to see the details - How is this phased in?

[Dr. Arch]

Per Twitter: "IT'S OFFICIAL: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders #MedicareForAll bill has NO CO-PAYS, and covers mental health and vision!"

o.O I really want to take a look at this.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I hope this gets a significant portion of Democratic Senator's but to be real this is not getting anywhere with Republican control in the Senate.

Obviously they wouldn't be so quick to sign on if it had a chance of passing.

[Yank2133]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

lol

[7,052,770]

Per Twitter: "IT'S OFFICIAL: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders #MedicareForAll bill has NO CO-PAYS, and covers mental health and vision!"

That's bad. I may have to pull my endorsement. Does it at least have some other form of cost-sharing to cut down on unnecessary utilization, like deductibles, coinsurance, etc.?

[Shadows]

Details about the bill -

Everything from emergency surgery to prescription drugs, from mental health to eye care, would be covered, with no co-payments. Americans younger than 18 would immediately obtain "universal Medicare cards," while Americans not currently eligible for Medicare would be phased into the program over four years. Employer-provided health care would be replaced, with the employers paying higher taxes but no longer on the hook for insurance. Private insurers would remain, with fewer customers, to pay for elective treatments such as cosmetic surgery - a system similar to that in Australia, which President Donald Trump has praised for having a "much better" insurance regimen than the United States. Providers would sign a yearly participation agreement with Medicare to remain with the system.

"When you have co-payments - when you say that health care is not a right for everybody, whether you're poor or whether you're a billionaire - the evidence suggests that it becomes a disincentive for people to get the health care they need," Sanders said."Depending on the level of the copayment, it may cost more to figure out how you collect it than to not have the copayment at all."

"Rather than give a detailed proposal about how we're going to raise $3 trillion a year, we'd rather give the American people options," Sanders said. "The truth is, embarrassingly, that on this enormously important issue, there has not been the kind of research and study that we need. You've got think tanks, in many cases funded by the drug companies and the insurance companies, telling us how terribly expensive it's going to be. We have economists looking at it who are coming up with different numbers."

Bill will give options as ways of funding it which will be finalized later which is good - Payroll Taxes, National Sales Tax, Federal Income Tax, Tax on Employers (as you take away health insurance mandate for them) can all be used to fund it - The bifurcation of that should be decided by the Democratic caucus after studying numbers.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-bernie-sanders-health-plan-20170912-story.html

This is Medicare with 0 Co-payments, similar to what Medicaid is.

[Shadows]

Bernie Sanders explains why he thinks everything short of Medicare-for-all is failure


Jeff Stein: What is the major crisis this bill addresses, and how, specifically, are you going to address?

Sanders - 28 million, as you've indicated, have zero health insurance. Even more are underinsured, with high deductibles and high copayments. Every other major country on Earth has decided that health care is a right, and we've got to do the same. That's No. 1. No. 2: Why is it in Canada they spend less than $5,000 per person and guarantee health care to all of their people? We spend almost $10,000, and we have so many people uninsured or underinsured. Thirdly, why are we paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, so that one out of five Americans under 64 cannot afford the medicine that they need?


Jeff Stein : One hundred and fifty million people currently rely on their employer-sponsored health care plans. Some Senate Democrats say we can achieve universal health care without eliminating [private markets].

Sanders - Health care is expensive. How do we do it in the most cost-effective way? And the most cost-effective way is not allowing insurance companies and drug companies to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in profits from human illness.

It is also not creating an incredibly complicated system. We have hundreds of different insurance programs in this country that have to be administered at great cost. Right? So you have a $5,000 deductible; I have a $3,000 deductible; he has a $50 copayment. You can’t go to that doctor, but she can go to that doctor. It's an incredibly complicated system, and we are wasting hundreds of billions of dollars administering this incredibly complicated system. ... You’re having doctors who have been increasingly demoralized, nurses demoralized. Go and talk to employers — especially small businesses — and find out how much time and energy they are wasting trying to provide health insurance to their employees.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/13/16297228/bernie-sanders-medicare-single-payer

[henster]

There is no funding mechanism in the bill it is the definition of vapor ware. At least the GOP bill as bad as it is had numbers behind it. 'How do we pay for this' is undoubtedly going to be he #1 question voters ask and they won't get an answer. I don't blame swing Ds from staying away from this.

[Shadows]

Bernie Sanders's new Medicare-for-all plan, explained

The plan is significantly more generous than the single-payer plans run by America’s peer countries. The Canadian health care system, for example, does not cover vision or dental care, prescription drugs, rehabilitative services, or home health services. Instead, two-thirds of Canadians take out private insurance policies to cover these benefits. The Netherlands has a similar set of benefits (it also excludes dental and vision care), as does Australia.

This too is out of line with international single-payer systems, which often require some payment for seeking most services. Taiwan’s single-payer system charges patients when they visit the doctor or the hospital (although it includes an exemption for low-income patients). In Australia, people pay 15 percent of the cost of their visit with any specialty doctor. The Sanders plan is more generous than the plans Americans currently receive at work too. Most employer-sponsored plans last year had a deductible of more than $1,000. It is more generous than the current Medicare program, which covers Americans over 65 and has seniors pay 20 percent of their doctor visit costs even after they meet their deductibles.

One of Sanders’s main arguments in favor of his health care bill is that American health spending is out of control and single-payer would rein it in. There are certainly policies in the Sanders plan that would reduce American health care spending. For one, moving all Americans on to one health plan would reduce the administrative waste in our health care system in the long run. One 2003 article in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that the United States spends twice as much on administrative costs as Canada. A 2011 study in the journal Health Affairs estimates American doctors spend four times as much dealing with insurance companies compared with Canada. Medicare typically has lower prices than those charged by private insurance plans that cover Americans under 65. This suggests that switching to the Medicare fee schedule would be another policy change that would tug health spending downward.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/13/16296656/bernie-sanders-single-payer

[Shadows]

There is no funding mechanism in the bill it is the definition of vapor ware. At least the GOP bill as bad as it is had numbers behind it. 'How do we pay for this' is undoubtedly going to be he #1 question voters ask and they won't get an answer. I don't blame swing Ds from staying away from this.

The bill is not even out. Sanders said he will release multiple options for funding.

Besides Sanders' bill proposed during his Presidential run had details of funding. There are already multiple economists working on the amount of funding required for the new system. Besides it will change since it will be phased in. Thus, the taxes hikes will also be phased in.

It is a strong statement & a good bargaining chip. I think a Dem Senate will take off eye, dental & some other coverage & put a small copayment on top of it.

[Shadows]

Inside Bernie Sanders' new 'Medicare for all' bill

While the new legislation has not yet been scored, the program Sanders pitched on the campaign trail came with an estimated annual price tag of nearly $1.4 trillion, to be paid for in part by a proposed new 2.2% income tax on all Americans, a 6.2% levy on employers and a further round of tax hikes on the wealthy. Sanders' plan does address one of the stickier questions facing such proposals: how to phase out the current system, which depends primarily on employer-sponsored private plans, without creating a disruption in care.

The answer, according to this new version of the bill, is to roll it out over a four-year transition period, a process that New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and her office took a big hand in crafting. The law would beef up Medicare -- adding dental, vision and hearing aid coverage -- in its first year, while reducing the eligibility age to 55. Children, up to age 18, would also be offered immediate access to the government-run plan. Over the next two years, the Medicare age would drop to 45, then 35 years old. By the fourth year, everyone would be eligible.

Consumers may have to pay up to $250 out-of-pocket for prescription drugs, with incentives to use generic medications. Sanders, who's been vocal about lowering drug prices, would allow the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies. Long-term care, which Sanders had included in the version he unveiled during his presidential campaign last year, will not be covered. It will be addressed in separate legislation, an adviser to Sanders told CNN.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/13/politics/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-plan-details/index.html

[The Govanah Jake]

I hope this gets a significant portion of Democratic Senator's but to be real this is not getting anywhere with Republican control in the Senate.

Obviously they wouldn't be so quick to sign on if it had a chance of passing.

Or of course the whole bill could just be symbolism and perhaps just a gesture to some democratic senators that they support Single Payer. I doubt to many of them that just because they are supporting it means they think it will pass. Many of those people know it and are doing it for the above reason.

[kyc0705]

Traitor.

To whom?

To the United States. Everyone who supports single-payer or even more socialistic forms of healthcare is a socialist by association and therefore a traitor the government of the United States of America.

It's times like this when the differences between the two of us could not be more clear.

[Shadows]

@SenatorShaheen
I've signed-on to the Medicare For All Act introduced by @SenSanders

@RoseAnnDeMoro  1h1 hour ago
RoseAnn DeMoro Retweeted Sen. Jeanne Shaheen
Thank you @SenatorShaheen !  You are the 16th Co-Sponsor that will save lives!!

[SoLongAtlas]

It would be a great thing but here's the catch: even if it passes (which it won't until a Dem trifecta and then would be lobbied against like it was a bill to take away Thanksgiving or Christmas or something), the taxes would make the rich permanently leave the U.S. There has to be a way of doing this without upsetting the higher income tax base (which like them or hate them pays an overwhelming % of tax) as well as potentially including co-pays for cost-sharing.

This bill will be scored at at least $1 trillion per year.

[MasterJedi]

Traitor.

To whom?

To the United States. Everyone who supports single-payer or even more socialistic forms of healthcare is a socialist by association and therefore a traitor the government of the United States of America.

Lol, that's amusing. What's really amusing is all the uber capitalist corporations will love this because it gets them out of the healthcare game.

[Young Conservative]

Feel free to move left, Democrats. Your suburban gains will be gone in a flash. Do they genuinely believe this will play well with upper middle class voters they've been courting? Those are the individuals this would hurt the most with the increased tax burden.

[MasterJedi]

Feel free to move left, Democrats. Your suburban gains will be gone in a flash. Do they genuinely believe this will play well with upper middle class voters they've been courting? Those are the individuals this would hurt the most with the increased tax burden.

You're right, they'd lose voters they're courting that probably don't want to vote for them. But if they can fully win over/back all the blue collar/poor rural voters with this the GOP is in a major hurt.

[SoLongAtlas]

Feel free to move left, Democrats. Your suburban gains will be gone in a flash. Do they genuinely believe this will play well with upper middle class voters they've been courting? Those are the individuals this would hurt the most with the increased tax burden.

You're right, they'd lose voters they're courting that probably don't want to vote for them. But if they can fully win over/back all the blue collar/poor rural voters with this the GOP is in a major hurt.

The GOP will play it up to be "another round of big guvmint takin' our rights and freedom!" and score big wins on that alone, especially with poorly educated WWC and Southerners. Mark my words. MFA may end up being the Dems biggest Pyrrhic victory.

[SoLongAtlas]

Feel free to move left, Democrats. Your suburban gains will be gone in a flash. Do they genuinely believe this will play well with upper middle class voters they've been courting? Those are the individuals this would hurt the most with the increased tax burden.

You're right, they'd lose voters they're courting that probably don't want to vote for them. But if they can fully win over/back all the blue collar/poor rural voters with this the GOP is in a major hurt.

The GOP will play it up to be "another round of big guvmint takin' our rights and freedom!" and score big wins on that alone, especially with poorly educated WWC and Southerners. Mark my words.

I'm still amazed at how people think this is a winning issue. Like, we have tons of examples of how the party trying to change the healthcare status quo always faces a huge backlash. If Democrats actually cared about effecting real change and not empty promises that would have wide public support, why not just come up with a proposal that even a lot of Republicans would be hard pressed to say no to, like free college/healthcare for dependents of military veterans? That would at least get the ball rolling on their agenda. And if Republicans say no to that, Democrats could just say "we're trying to help veterans and their families who have given everything to their country."

Baby steps like that would propel the Bernie agenda much further along than this M4A nonsense.

That already exists. You can transfer your GI bill to dependents. As for healthcare, AD SMs can enroll their spouse and dependents in TriCare and they are eligible for it if they retire with 20 years in (it sucks though).

As for MFA, if the Dems go for this, they really need to do a mass information/town hall campaign BEFORE they vote on it. Otherwise, the backlash will make 2010 look like a minor sparring.

[SoLongAtlas]

Feel free to move left, Democrats. Your suburban gains will be gone in a flash. Do they genuinely believe this will play well with upper middle class voters they've been courting? Those are the individuals this would hurt the most with the increased tax burden.

You're right, they'd lose voters they're courting that probably don't want to vote for them. But if they can fully win over/back all the blue collar/poor rural voters with this the GOP is in a major hurt.

The GOP will play it up to be "another round of big guvmint takin' our rights and freedom!" and score big wins on that alone, especially with poorly educated WWC and Southerners. Mark my words.

I'm still amazed at how people think this is a winning issue. Like, we have tons of examples of how the party trying to change the healthcare status quo always faces a huge backlash. If Democrats actually cared about effecting real change and not empty promises that would have wide public support, why not just come up with a proposal that even a lot of Republicans would be hard pressed to say no to, like free college/healthcare for dependents of military veterans? That would at least get the ball rolling on their agenda. And if Republicans say no to that, Democrats could just say "we're trying to help veterans and their families who have given everything to their country."

Baby steps like that would propel the Bernie agenda much further along than this M4A nonsense.

That already exists. You can transfer your GI bill to dependents. As for healthcare, AD SMs can enroll their spouse and dependents in TriCare and they are eligible for it if they retire with 20 years in (it sucks though).

As for MFA, if the Dems go for this, they really need to do a mass information/town hall campaign BEFORE they vote on it. Otherwise, the backlash will make 2010 look like a minor sparring.

Yes, but right now, those benefits for TriCare are only for active duty members or people who have 20 years. They could expand that to include any veteran who left with honorable discharge after their contract expires. And for education benefits, the GI bill expires after x number of years, and can only be used for one child I believe (provided you don't use it yourself). It could be expanded to include all dependents indefinitely in ADDITION to providing the service member with free education at any institution. I don't know. Just my thoughts. And then years down the line with a D trifecta, Dems could add groups of people to this, and exclaim "look at the success we had with service members!" Groups they could add could include households living at 200% of the FPL or below or something like that.

They just passed the lifetime GI Bill.
Military is a 2/3rds GOP stronghold so it would be hard to convey that to the Dems but I get the idea you are going for.

I don't think that the MFA should be based on military healthcare history. It is overall not the best example you want to base future general public healthcare reform on.

[Shadows]

That is not a logical assertion but just extreme radical conservatism. LBJ created a Single payer - Medicare, Medicaid & Dems swept the elections. Truman made the biggest comeback in US history campaigning on Single Payer in 1948 & won an election he was supposed to lose.  Another aspect is that Healthcare spending is already 18% of GDP. It is going to destroy American business, entrepreneurs & will eat up jobs. Tax to GDP ratio is low & when Healthcare goes beyond 20% of GDP, it will cause devastation. The dam will break. This is ignoring people dying of not having insurance or medical bankruptcy.

Every Western country switched to Universal healthcare atleast 20 years back. And even conservatives there support it. FDR tried for Single Payer 75 odd years back & then Truman did the same. LBJ finally got Medicare, Medicaid after a lot of compromise but had already started work on expanding it with "Kiddycare" . It was always meant to be expanded to cover everyone & it is 55 odd years now since Medicare/Medicaid.

[SoLongAtlas]

That is not a logical assertion but just extreme radical conservatism. LBJ created a Single payer - Medicare, Medicaid & Dems swept the elections. Truman made the biggest comeback in US history campaigning on Single Payer & won an election he was supposed to lose.  Another aspect is that Healthcare spending is 18% of GDP. Soon, it all consume all businesses & most of the spending. Tax to GDP ratio is low & Healthcare goes beyond 20% of GDP, it will cause devastation. 18% is already killing the economy & businesses will find it tough to survive & individual people tough to pay the requisite amount as Copayments & Deductibles are through the roof.

Every Western country switched to Universal healthcare atleast 20 years back. And even conservatives support it. FDR tried for Single Payer 75 odd years back & then Truman. LBJ finally got Medicare, Medicaid after a lot of compromise but had already started work on expanding it with "Kiddycare" . It was always meant to be expanded to cover everyone & it is 55 odd years now since Medicare/Medicaid.

I am far from an extreme conservative. I just sh*tcanned a friend of mine that favored price gouging during hurricanes for being an extreme conservative. It is the more likely than not prediction of the backlash that will come from this. Remember, during the 1960s when both parties had conservatives, moderates, and liberals and a huge sense of duty to country and a ton of money and industrial base to do something, it could be done. In the 2010s and into the 2020s, you have basically no industrial base, extremely polarized parties, and a parties that care for themselves not duty to making America better, plus a largely apathetic and largely uneducated base re healthcare.

It's not that I am against single-payer but I can clearly see how the GOP will make this a wedge issue of all wedge issues to run and win on by tapping the fears of people that think it will be a massive govt takeover.