I follow the Healthcare-NOW discussion group online. We support a single payer plan for universal health care.
The naysayers are afraid of that because they think it is "socialized" medicine. It isn't -- not by a long shot. Patients still choose their own doctors and doctors still prescribe appropriate treatment and where. The only difference is where the payment comes from and how many different plans there are.
We need ONLY ONE! The discussion below has been cross posted to Healthcare-NOW discussion group.
Spoon wrote:
I agree the health insurers do their (extremely effective) best to demonize single payer supporters and our concept of uniting Americans into one not-for-profit coverage group under one set of non-discriminatory rules as "socialized" (gasp) medicine.
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My contribution to the discussion:
As I have thought of this issue, I have considered what each "stake holder" brings to the Health Care table. We know what doctors, nurses, and other health providers do -- they are directly involved with the patient, whether that patient is in a full care facility or an out patient. We know that each clinic or hospital or doctor must have someone to keep track of records and billing and crews to keep things going, hence the clerical/bookkeeping jobs and maintenance related to these medical facilities.
So.......what is insurance's role in providing health care? NOTHING! They are in the middle. They do not give or receive health care. Their being a part of health care appears to be a form of usury, the act of lending money at an exorbitant rate of interest.
They don't SAY they are lending money, but by charging premiums they are supposedly building a coffer of money to pay bills of subscribers. Of course, they pay their own profits and expenses first and decide who gets treatment paid for and who gets paid. Their profits and overhead are paid out of OUR money that WE contributed via premiums to cover OUR own health care.
Now, that just sounds like a layer of money changing that doesn't need to be there. The "service" that insurers are providing should be a NON-PROFIT service provided by our government. Yes, the workers who keep track need to be paid, but our money should not be used to pay profits to share holders, CEOs, salesmen/women, and millions of advertising dollars on television.
We need a system where we, the patients, can pay into a central pool, choose our own doctors and facilities and they, in turn, can send the bills to that central pool to collect their money. I repeat, that "pool" should be a non-profit entity that exists as a service only with reasonable salaries and plenty of oversight.
Keeping insurance corporations in the mix just adds one more layer where most of the expense seems to be.