Medicare For All - The MUST DO NOW economic stimulus

[Kip Humphrey]

The one stimulus that would have an across-the-board positive effect (except for HMOs and insurance companies) would be to pass funding for immediate transition to a Medicare expansion into a single payer health care for all Americans. This would reduce the burden for all businesses and employees, and provide health care to all those who don't have it. Additionally, leveraging the financial crisis to transition to universal health care is politically viable at this moment in time (even the Chamber of Commerce would get behind it).

Transitioning to a Medicare For All system has the advantage of achievability and opens the door to lower cost and better service for health care delivery. Over the last 10 years, Medicare has improved their organization and optimized their processing systems while reducing fraud. In a reversal from 10 years ago, increasingly, doctors are preferring to deal with Medicare over HMOs and insurance companies.

Medicare is now not only a system worth replicating, it is also now feasible to expand it to meet the volume necessary to accommodate the entire population. Subsequent transition to secure electronic medical records standardized to a single Medicare system becomes possible under Medicare For All and would improve the health care system while providing significant health care savings. Having a single system such as Medicare For All makes the data standardization and integration required for electronic record keeping imminently feasible and achievable compared to our present hodgepodge of health care record keeping systems.

[Ewellian]

1. You do realize

that Medicare has always contracted with private companies to administer payment processing. There isn't one central system staffed by federal employees. There are regional carriers (often those "evil" big insurance companies) that provide the service for a fee.

From wikipedia:

Since the beginning of the Medicare program, CMS has contracted with private companies to assist with administration. These contractors are commonly already in the insurance or health care area. Contracted processes include claims and payment processing, call center services, clinician enrollment, and fraud investigation.

I don't think Medicare for all will kill the insurance companies.

[lonestarnot]

2. So create some federal jobs.

[Ewellian]

3. Why scrap the existing infrastructure

if it's working so efficiently?
I work in the private sector and am surrounded by civil service employees in my life.
IMO, the private sector runs more efficiently.

[lonestarnot]

5. I didn't say anything about scrapping did I?

[truedelphi]

9. The admin costs of Medicare are currently in the 5 to 8% bracket

Whereas in a typical health insurance or HMO situation you are talking 30%.

For one thing, there wouldn't be the various over paid executives (At least not if Congress handles the bill correctly)

For instance, there is a hospital in Rhode Island that has been asking for years for a 10% increase, across the board in the fee structure that they are billing to the HMO provider. ANd for years, they have been denied that increase.

Meanwhile the top executive for that HMO has an annual salary equal to or slightly above the paychecks of all 3200 employees at that hospital

[Ewellian]

14. And part of that

5 to 8% is being paid to insurance companies as a fee for providing the administrative services. My point was the the health insurance companies don't just provide "insurance". Part of their business is providing payment processing services for a fee. This applies to governement contracts and also to contracts with many large employer groups whose health benefits are self-funded.

[The Doctor.]

10. Actually, it will.

They know it, and they'll fight for their survival.

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. True!

[eridani]

16. No problem with that, actually. Claims processing is not a huge profit center

Private insurance prospers by excluding the sick and denying claims, not by just processing them.

[Vinca]

4. Except people who receive Medicare benefits must now buy

supplemental insurance or go down the tubes when illness strikes like everyone else. We need a system that is easy to access and covers 100% of medical costs. If the insurance companies weren't taking their massive cut, we'd have all kinds of money for decent healthcare.

[lonestarnot]

6. So just fix the hole. Out source the middleman.

[DustyJoe]

7. Try and find a Dr.

very few Dr's will accept medicare patients now (at least where I live) and a lot of people are having to use urgent care or ER services that cost the system much more than a private primary care doc. Would they be forced to accept medicare patients, or be able to cherry pick patients like they do now ?. A Dr's office visit for an antibiotic prescription is about 125.00 where an ER trip for the same thing is about 1500.00.

[The Doctor.]

11. It'll be bumpy.

Medicaid does suck for Doctors to deal with, which is why they pay staff to deal with it. If there's nothing to cherry pick, then it has to get worked out somehow.

[bvar22]

12. Expand MediCare to include ALL Americans,

fund it adequately, and see how many doctors refuse to accept MediCare patients.

[demodonkey]

8. HR 676 -- EXPANDED & IMPROVED Medicare for ALL. Everybody in, nobody out.

Read up on it here: http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php

Watch this video: http://www.wpasinglepayer.org/HR676Video.html

We can't afford NOT to do this.


Keep this thread kicked -- as Obama starts his historic journey let us make this a priority.

[MaraJade]

15. Not gonna happen

because it will anger and upset too many health care insurers, and bother Wall Street,
and there must be a smooth transition so the markets won't "get upset."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081201/klein