Conservatives should be behind single payer universal health insurance

[Cleita]

because it embraces conservative ideals of free market and careful management of the money collected to pay for it. Single payer keeps the delivery of health care in the private sector with health care providers and hospitals competing with each other. It keeps expenses low with bartering for fees and pharmaceuticals. It cuts out money waste by eliminating the middle men insurers and Wall Street making profits with streamlined administration where costs would be cut in half if that happened.

So all this bullshit about exchanges, public options and other lies is just that. It keeps health care dollars in the hands of Wall Street instead of the health care providers where it belongs and it will be an increased burden on the tax payer. No wonder private health insurance stocks went up the day after the plan was unveiled. So be sure to put knee pads on your Christmas list for your Congress Reps and Senators who have endorsed this. They are nothing better than corporate prostitutes. Be sure to include a card stating that this is the only campaign contribution that they will get from you for their next run for office.

[CTyankee]

1. OK, I asked my conservative friend that and here's what he said:

Private corporations cannot effectively compete with the government because when the government needs more money it simply prints more and businesses can't do that. Therefore, the government program will always win in the competition, hence there is no real competition. Eventually, he says, the government will assume the entire role of health care provision. I then asked him "What's wrong with that?" He said that it hinders innovation in medical science. We did not get a chance to go further intothis conversation but I intend to take him on again because I want to explore this whole question of medical innovation...but I suspect that is where other conservatives will go in discussing the issue you present.

[Cleita]

3. Straw men. Changing the subject in other words.

The businesses competing with each other are the doctors and hospitals. They can't print money either. The government collects insurance premiums for the government insurance plan and pays the claims from the private sector providers who are part of our main street business structure. Insurance should be outlawed from providing something as crucial as health insurance any way. There should only be one insurer and that would be the government offering basic health care like Medicare. Much of our medical innovation as well as development of pharmaceuticals has been done overseas in countries that have national health insurance programs. A lot of medical advances have been done in universities with government grants, not from the private sector. Conservatives have already tried to throw these red herrings at me because they won't admit that they really don't believe in the ideals they have been peddling to their followers. I know what sincere conservatives believe in because my family were bootstrap Republicans and really did their best to raise me that way. Fortunately, I was taught critical thinking in school and could see the fallacies in their ideology and the fact that their aristocratic elected leaders were lying to them.

[CTyankee]

11. "Fallacies" are right. You have only to look at results: what actually happened.

Western Europe has become the America of the 50s. Look at their lifestyle, their wonderful foods and wines, their workplace benefits. Not to mention their Euro (aaargh).

So many people in this country have NO KNOWLEDGE of what is going on in Europe. They think these people just don't know what's good for them in not having our health care system.

Mercifully, I think and I hope, this is changing. People are disgusted and fed up and they don't want any more of the same old, same old. It is our time to strike while the iron is hot...

[jeffbr]

2. Hypocrites hate the truth

[TheKentuckian]

4. Because they are always finding ways to get over they cannot admit

insurance companies provide no value.

They are deeply and ideologically tied to the predator and vulture classes. They are not economic conservatives other than thinking business should have no rules of conduct.

[Nederland]

5. I think you have a strange definition of "free market"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market

[Cleita]

6. No, I have the correct definition, not the one that has been

corrupted by your party over the years, which is the one offered on your link. Free market in theory is people setting up shop and competing with each other within the boundaries of their legal system. For instance years ago we used to have gas wars. Every corner had two, three and sometimes four competing gas stations. Each company, Shell, Mobil, Standard, etc. would compete with each other to offer the best service and lowest prices to the consumer. That is what a true free market is. What we have today is monopoly coupled with laissez faire system of economics and corrupted by Wall Street. It's a very different.

[unblock]

7. well that's a good definition of a geniune free market, but i don't think it applies to single payer

at least, not to the health *insurance* market.

single payer is, but definition, a government monopsony and is therefore nothing like a free market as far as health *insurance* goes.

it would leave a free market in health *care*, and one could argue further than the present system of health insurance grossly distorts the market in health care. if that is your point, i would agree.

[Cleita]

9. It applies to the dynamic of delivering health care from the private sector.

Every conservative on this planet throws up their talking points about not being able to see any doctor you want when you want it, having to wait forever for appointments, blah, blah etc., when in fact this is the situation with private insurance, HMOs and PPds. I now have Medicare, a single payer govt. insurance, and I do get to see any doctor I want, can call an ambulance, can get specialists if I need it, tests where I want to go, something I could never do with my former health care providers like Kaiser Permanente and Pacific Care. With the former, there were months waits for appts. and I had to use their doctors, pharmacies, ER and hospital often farther away than a closer facility. With the latter I had trouble getting doctors to see me that were supposed to be part of their network, but apparently wanted nothing to do with my insurance. It's the insurance market that's not competitive. Many states have only one provider and others as few as four. There is no competition there except for the healthiest patients who will be denied or dropped if they actually use the insurance.

There was a study recently that my last HMO, Pacific Care, denied 40% of its claims in California. No wonder I couldn't get any health care provider to accept assignment on it.

[Nederland]

8. Corrupted Over the Years?

Try reading the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. The term "free market" has never meant a system where government stands in between buyer and seller. Never. The term free market has always meant a system where buyer and seller determine the price of a good or service without interference from a third party. Your example of gas stations competing with each other is a good one. I would point out that in your example, sellers of gasoline are not paid by a "single payer" called government, they are paid directly by the buyers of the gasoline.

Single payer health care is, by definition, a third party (government) negotiating prices and making payments on behalf of the buyer. I would also point out that our current idiotic system is also not free market. In it, a third party (insurance companies) negotiates prices and makes payments on behalf of the buyer. Both systems are idiotic because neither allows buyers to decided for themselves how much a particular service is worth to them. A third party makes that determination for them, and they have little to no say in the matter.

[Cleita]

10. I had to take economics classes in night school when I worked at a bank and

that is the definition they gave me. Also, Adam Smith is out of favor with economists because his theories are BS. Economists who really understand the dynamic of how it works prefer Keynes. Smith was Milton Friedman's mentor, the guy who has brought us the economic collapse we are seeing today and that have brought problems to other countries who have adopted Friedman's ideas. I know you Libertarians love him, but hopefully someday you will pull your collective Ayn Rand heads out of the sand and look at the reality surrounding you.