1 of 7/ Yale University has produced a study that implementing Medicare 4 All would save Americans around $1trillion dollars a year, reduce prescription costs dramatically and cover everyone
Republicans hate this plan for a couple of reasons
2 of 7/ First reason: The insurance company CEO's will be out of a job and no longer getting $20 million dollars of pay a year. This means those CEO's will no longer be able to give money to their favorite Republican congressperson to make sure we never have Medicare 4 All
3 of 7/ Second reason: The pharmaceutical companies would have to negotiate with Medicare to determine a reasonable cost for prescriptions (eliminating the ridiculous costs of some drugs that only cost pennies to produce)
4 of 7/ Americans could then get prescriptions for the same price every other country already pays
The part Republicans hate is that the pharmaceutical companies could no longer buy Republican congresspersons to make sure no-one can negotiate the price of drugs
5 of 7/ There would be some very sad millionaires who used to be CEO's who can no longer make $20 million dollars a year. But they would still have yachts and houses and expensive cars, they just might have to go on a budget though in order to keep them
6 of 7/ So, America could get really good healthcare for $1trillion dollars less every year, cheaper prescriptions and everyone is covered
Or... we can keep the millionaires & billionaires & Republicans happy and very, very rich while they deny your claims for cancer treatment
7 of 7/ The one big problem with Medicare 4 All is that a lot of people don't want to pay for a system that might benefit someone else
Which is kinda stupid because they are ALREADY paying for a system that benefits someone else...the millionaires & billionaires
We need M4A (or some equivalent) because medical care is a life-and-death matter, and people will pay anything when confronted with such a choice, so the "free market" principles don't apply in this case.
We need F4A ("food for all") because food is a life-and-death matter, and people will pay anything when confronted with such a choice, so the "free market" principles don't apply in this case.
The first paragraph is meant seriously; the second is a parody. But in both the logic is the same, and impeccable.
I post this because if M4A is ever taken seriously (and it is beginning to look like it is) the die-hard right-wing anti-commies ("if your mommy is a commie then you've got to turn her in"). will come out with bogus arguments like this. We have to be prepared to counter them.
Years ago, I was having what I thought were allergy problems. No allergists in the area, but there was a chiropractor who had some voodoo treatments for allergies and my insurance company paid for it. After a few visits I realized the snake oiliness of it all and stopped going. I wonder how much money he bilked out of patients and their insurance companies with that witchcraft bullshit?
You wrote: "I hate to boil it down to a “messaging” issue, but it is a messaging issue.
It is not something we should even have to boil at all. I mean, I wish that refrain had not burnt out so quickly. Messaging is the entire problem, imo. What we NEED is the DNC to pour tons of $$ into creating a left-wing media empire. Fox "News" fostered all this. We need to counter it. You know the saying about how long a lie takes to travel around the world? That.
I love a bunch of what you wrote... down to Earth and honest. I and would also love it if some Lefty talking heads would use your words on the interweb and TV, etc.
We need more people getting real and getting real loud, is what I'm saying. Peace out.
Wait wait wait! Socialised medicine is a diabolical evil! A rank injustice! Hasn't anybody here read ATLAS SHRUGGED? At the opening of Part Three, you know, when Dagny (iciest fictional bitch since Milady Winter in THE THREE MUSKETEERS) gate-crashes Galt's hidden capitalist paradise and meets Dr. Hendricks the brain surgeon.
By the way, she comes through her light plane crash barely scratched, even though in the real world, light plane crashes are among the most infallibly fatal accidents there are.
Hendricks, since withdrawing from the dystopian socialist world outside, has (the writer tells us) developed a way of preventing brain strokes, a technique that will (Hendricks tells us) "remove from human existence the terrible threat of sudden paralysis." He's done this (he tells us) while being, as Dagny rightly says (right for once) "hidden in a hole in the wilderness." Done it all by himself, too, by sheer self-centred brilliance, without assistance, without a medical team to help him, and without a big modern medical research centre to work in.
Didn't need any of that.
All he needed was individualism and an environment of unfettered capitalism.
You do sort of have to wonder HOW he developed his technique and who were the subjects he tested it on.
It's a work of fiction. Incredibly crappy fiction, but fiction nevertheless. In fiction you can make up all kinds of impossible crap.
Of course, generally people are not going to read unbelievable made-up crap, especially if it is embedded in crap writing. Which leaves us with a crappy puzzle: why is Ayn so popular?
The biggest hurdle for M4A is still the fact that there are millions of Americans who would rather die from a tooth infection that allow their tax dollars to pay for healthcare for anyone they deem “undeserving” of it. And by that they mean, well, you know.
"[P]eople are starting to really warm up to the idea of single payer Medicare for All, and even seem to be becoming less stupid about it."
I don't think it's just that. Older generations of people who bought into the anti-socialist scare messaging from the Republicans are dying off, and a newer generation is not buying into that bullshit.
My (former) dentist eliminated that position and went cash only. I tried it for a year, but I couldn't afford the out of network costs. I went to the Indian Health Clinic where I already had my primary care and never looked back.
Other countries' socialized medical systems save costs by cutting out private insurance and negotiating lower drug prices, but also by paying *everyone* in the system way less than the US does. The average MD in the US makes 350k, with some surgeons and specialists bringing in seven figures or more. Our nurses, bless 'em every one, are very well-compensated, as are physician assistants, radiologists, lab technicians, and others. People don't talk about this, but implementing MFA/single-payer is going to require all these professionals, not just the corporate bean-counters, to take HUGE pay cuts.
Except for doctors, radiologists and pharmacologists, our system is finding ways to do that already. There are very few RN's anywhere these days. You mostly find one RN overseeing a team of LPN's, who aren't paid very much at all. Anyone who works at a level below a MD, PhD or equivalent is dealing with the same things affecting the rest of our workforce - stagnant wages, reduced benefits and increased workload. Don't even get me started on what other healthcare support jobs pay. It's dismal.
And really? Doctors pay so much now in student loans and for liability and malpractice that finding ways to reduce those burdens would allow a different pay structure to work.
All valid points. But the wages of orderlies and home health workers aren't going to suddenly get better if we have M4A. Look at those jobs in the UK, France, Australia or any other country with universal health care. They also pay super-shitty (and are often being done by young people doing compulsory civilian service -- something else a lot of these countries have that we don't).
You're also subtly injecting two other issues that are also hugely complicated: debt-free medical school and reforming liability law. Are there some doctors out there who would say, sure, I'll work for 150k instead of 350k if you pay off all my student loan debt and reform liability laws so I don't have these insane insurance premiums any more? Well, maybe. I have yet to meet one. But then you'd also have to 1. find the money to pay for everyone's med school and 2. convince the American electorate (and the legal lobby) to forego suing doctors for stuff they screw up. Not saying those aren't doable somehow, but, like telling doctors they need to take a 50% pay cut, is, shall we say, a "big lift" in this whole process.
I agree with everything you said. But remember, you initially reduced the issue to a talking point about doctor/specialist pay. I was responding to that. And either way, in past versions of healthcare reform, none of which became policy, the issues of insurance and educational costs were addressed to varying degrees.
A lot of people feel that a National Health system in the US is impossible, with the brainwashing the Republicans have done for decades about any government program along with the lobbyists, PACs, and paper-pushing, middle-management companies that all profit off our too-expensive healthcare system
But, I look on the bright side. It will only take another Great Depression to make all those assholes irrelevant. So we have that to look forward to.
Fake research that doesn't measure up to the Gold Standard Science employed by all agencies in the Fulvous Fuckwad's regime. Besides, Yale is a LEFTIST Ivy League school which has been, rightfully, targeted for discriminatory acceptance of new students:
> "Amid Yale’s attempts to settle with the Trump [sic] administration over an investigation into its admissions processes
[...]
In May, the Department of Justice launched a probe into the Yale School of Medicine, alleging that it violated civil rights law by discriminating against white and Asian applicants in its admissions process. A month later, the New York Times reported that the investigation had expanded to include Yale College and Yale Law School." https://yaledailynews.com/articles/as-yale-seeks-settlement-with-trump-new-haven-remains-on-the-offense
Obviously Yale has a bug up its ass for the current regime so anything they say that runs against official gubmint policy is nothing more than sour grapes, yes?
-----
"The larger the number of people living or dying, the less anyone cares that they are living or dying. People do, however, care if 1 of those 114,174 are themselves or a person they know and love."
"The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic" Uncle Joe Stalin (attributed but no proof he actually said it)
-----
"Besides — what could possibly be worse than what we have now?"
How about if/when the FIO (Federal Insurance Office) allows for-profit insurance companies to consider eugenics/euthanasia as medical treatment? Or possibly if the FIO allows caps on what the insurance companies must pay out (as of 2022 caps are not allowed, like they were previously, with limited exceptions):
> "Lifetime Limits Insurance companies can no longer set a dollar limit on what they spend on essential health benefits for your care during the entire time you’re enrolled in that plan. Previously, health plans set a lifetime limit....
Annual Limits Insurance companies can no longer set yearly dollar limits on what they spend for your coverage. Previously, health plans set an annual limit..." [NB: Insurance companies can continue to put a cap on payouts for nonessential treatments.] https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/benefit-limits/index.html
Something else we need to look at are the ways large healthcare sysytem are run. Here in NYc the CEOs of HYU Langone and New York Presbyterian (both of which are non-profit) made over 20 million ollars last year while nurses at NYP had to go on strike this year to retain their current llevel of health benefits_ and have long time staffing shortaged addressed. Also Many prcedures that used to be done in a doctor's office or clinic (injections to manage pain, chemo and colonoscopy to name a few) are now done in hospitals at 2 or 3 times the cost. In addition to the added cost my experience is that anything done at hospital is also going to take 2 to 3 times the amount of patient time since hospittals always rune way behind schedule.
Back in 2013, I had a student assistant that was in the Yale School of Public Health. He was from Malawi, and had never seen snow before. 2013 was one of our Snowpocalypes winters, so we had snow banks that were 25 feet tall. I went out with him and took pictures of him on top of snow banks and next to snow men and stuff, for him to send to his family. I thought he would be miserable, but he loved it. He found it fascinating that snow very quickly just becomes part of the environment. He probably took over an hour of video just of snow trucks plowing. Delightful young man.
When Did Healthcare Become a Privilege?
1 of 7/ Yale University has produced a study that implementing Medicare 4 All would save Americans around $1trillion dollars a year, reduce prescription costs dramatically and cover everyone
Republicans hate this plan for a couple of reasons
2 of 7/ First reason: The insurance company CEO's will be out of a job and no longer getting $20 million dollars of pay a year. This means those CEO's will no longer be able to give money to their favorite Republican congressperson to make sure we never have Medicare 4 All
3 of 7/ Second reason: The pharmaceutical companies would have to negotiate with Medicare to determine a reasonable cost for prescriptions (eliminating the ridiculous costs of some drugs that only cost pennies to produce)
4 of 7/ Americans could then get prescriptions for the same price every other country already pays
The part Republicans hate is that the pharmaceutical companies could no longer buy Republican congresspersons to make sure no-one can negotiate the price of drugs
5 of 7/ There would be some very sad millionaires who used to be CEO's who can no longer make $20 million dollars a year. But they would still have yachts and houses and expensive cars, they just might have to go on a budget though in order to keep them
6 of 7/ So, America could get really good healthcare for $1trillion dollars less every year, cheaper prescriptions and everyone is covered
Or... we can keep the millionaires & billionaires & Republicans happy and very, very rich while they deny your claims for cancer treatment
7 of 7/ The one big problem with Medicare 4 All is that a lot of people don't want to pay for a system that might benefit someone else
Which is kinda stupid because they are ALREADY paying for a system that benefits someone else...the millionaires & billionaires
We need M4A (or some equivalent) because medical care is a life-and-death matter, and people will pay anything when confronted with such a choice, so the "free market" principles don't apply in this case.
We need F4A ("food for all") because food is a life-and-death matter, and people will pay anything when confronted with such a choice, so the "free market" principles don't apply in this case.
The first paragraph is meant seriously; the second is a parody. But in both the logic is the same, and impeccable.
I post this because if M4A is ever taken seriously (and it is beginning to look like it is) the die-hard right-wing anti-commies ("if your mommy is a commie then you've got to turn her in"). will come out with bogus arguments like this. We have to be prepared to counter them.
It is kinda funny that Medicare covers 6 visits to my podiatrist per year, but I'm responsible for my own dental and vision care.
I took a friend with chronic health problems who doesn't drive to an initial appointment with a Chiropractor, because Medicaid would pay.
Instead of framed diplomas on his office wall, the doctor had framed testimonials from patients.
He believed he could provide some relief in exactly the number of sessions Medicaid authorized.
Years ago, I was having what I thought were allergy problems. No allergists in the area, but there was a chiropractor who had some voodoo treatments for allergies and my insurance company paid for it. After a few visits I realized the snake oiliness of it all and stopped going. I wonder how much money he bilked out of patients and their insurance companies with that witchcraft bullshit?
You wrote: "I hate to boil it down to a “messaging” issue, but it is a messaging issue.
It is not something we should even have to boil at all. I mean, I wish that refrain had not burnt out so quickly. Messaging is the entire problem, imo. What we NEED is the DNC to pour tons of $$ into creating a left-wing media empire. Fox "News" fostered all this. We need to counter it. You know the saying about how long a lie takes to travel around the world? That.
I love a bunch of what you wrote... down to Earth and honest. I and would also love it if some Lefty talking heads would use your words on the interweb and TV, etc.
We need more people getting real and getting real loud, is what I'm saying. Peace out.
Wait wait wait! Socialised medicine is a diabolical evil! A rank injustice! Hasn't anybody here read ATLAS SHRUGGED? At the opening of Part Three, you know, when Dagny (iciest fictional bitch since Milady Winter in THE THREE MUSKETEERS) gate-crashes Galt's hidden capitalist paradise and meets Dr. Hendricks the brain surgeon.
By the way, she comes through her light plane crash barely scratched, even though in the real world, light plane crashes are among the most infallibly fatal accidents there are.
Hendricks, since withdrawing from the dystopian socialist world outside, has (the writer tells us) developed a way of preventing brain strokes, a technique that will (Hendricks tells us) "remove from human existence the terrible threat of sudden paralysis." He's done this (he tells us) while being, as Dagny rightly says (right for once) "hidden in a hole in the wilderness." Done it all by himself, too, by sheer self-centred brilliance, without assistance, without a medical team to help him, and without a big modern medical research centre to work in.
Didn't need any of that.
All he needed was individualism and an environment of unfettered capitalism.
You do sort of have to wonder HOW he developed his technique and who were the subjects he tested it on.
Not at all sure I would trust him that far.
It's a work of fiction. Incredibly crappy fiction, but fiction nevertheless. In fiction you can make up all kinds of impossible crap.
Of course, generally people are not going to read unbelievable made-up crap, especially if it is embedded in crap writing. Which leaves us with a crappy puzzle: why is Ayn so popular?
The biggest hurdle for M4A is still the fact that there are millions of Americans who would rather die from a tooth infection that allow their tax dollars to pay for healthcare for anyone they deem “undeserving” of it. And by that they mean, well, you know.
They don't mean well. Ya know?
Yeah. Groan. I know.
"[P]eople are starting to really warm up to the idea of single payer Medicare for All, and even seem to be becoming less stupid about it."
I don't think it's just that. Older generations of people who bought into the anti-socialist scare messaging from the Republicans are dying off, and a newer generation is not buying into that bullshit.
Oooh, Oooh, now tell us how much we'd save if healthcare providers, like hospitals, were not for profit?
Most of them are not for profit. They're owned by religions, so they're tax exempt.
I think they underestimated. More like 40% savings. Even my dentist employs a full time person at $100K just to submit claims and try to get paid.
My (former) dentist eliminated that position and went cash only. I tried it for a year, but I couldn't afford the out of network costs. I went to the Indian Health Clinic where I already had my primary care and never looked back.
Other countries' socialized medical systems save costs by cutting out private insurance and negotiating lower drug prices, but also by paying *everyone* in the system way less than the US does. The average MD in the US makes 350k, with some surgeons and specialists bringing in seven figures or more. Our nurses, bless 'em every one, are very well-compensated, as are physician assistants, radiologists, lab technicians, and others. People don't talk about this, but implementing MFA/single-payer is going to require all these professionals, not just the corporate bean-counters, to take HUGE pay cuts.
Except for doctors, radiologists and pharmacologists, our system is finding ways to do that already. There are very few RN's anywhere these days. You mostly find one RN overseeing a team of LPN's, who aren't paid very much at all. Anyone who works at a level below a MD, PhD or equivalent is dealing with the same things affecting the rest of our workforce - stagnant wages, reduced benefits and increased workload. Don't even get me started on what other healthcare support jobs pay. It's dismal.
And really? Doctors pay so much now in student loans and for liability and malpractice that finding ways to reduce those burdens would allow a different pay structure to work.
All valid points. But the wages of orderlies and home health workers aren't going to suddenly get better if we have M4A. Look at those jobs in the UK, France, Australia or any other country with universal health care. They also pay super-shitty (and are often being done by young people doing compulsory civilian service -- something else a lot of these countries have that we don't).
You're also subtly injecting two other issues that are also hugely complicated: debt-free medical school and reforming liability law. Are there some doctors out there who would say, sure, I'll work for 150k instead of 350k if you pay off all my student loan debt and reform liability laws so I don't have these insane insurance premiums any more? Well, maybe. I have yet to meet one. But then you'd also have to 1. find the money to pay for everyone's med school and 2. convince the American electorate (and the legal lobby) to forego suing doctors for stuff they screw up. Not saying those aren't doable somehow, but, like telling doctors they need to take a 50% pay cut, is, shall we say, a "big lift" in this whole process.
I agree with everything you said. But remember, you initially reduced the issue to a talking point about doctor/specialist pay. I was responding to that. And either way, in past versions of healthcare reform, none of which became policy, the issues of insurance and educational costs were addressed to varying degrees.
I rarely see an MD anymore. Exception being my urologist. Even my cardiologist delegates a nurse practitioner to handle routine visits.
Goopers will absolutely lose their shit over this. Coz it involves facts and science.
https://substack.com/profile/159851285-joe-schmoe-troublemaker/note/c-318327424?r=2n661h&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
Do we get to keep our doctor?
A lot of people feel that a National Health system in the US is impossible, with the brainwashing the Republicans have done for decades about any government program along with the lobbyists, PACs, and paper-pushing, middle-management companies that all profit off our too-expensive healthcare system
But, I look on the bright side. It will only take another Great Depression to make all those assholes irrelevant. So we have that to look forward to.
"It’s also true according to Yale."
Fake research that doesn't measure up to the Gold Standard Science employed by all agencies in the Fulvous Fuckwad's regime. Besides, Yale is a LEFTIST Ivy League school which has been, rightfully, targeted for discriminatory acceptance of new students:
> "Amid Yale’s attempts to settle with the Trump [sic] administration over an investigation into its admissions processes
[...]
In May, the Department of Justice launched a probe into the Yale School of Medicine, alleging that it violated civil rights law by discriminating against white and Asian applicants in its admissions process. A month later, the New York Times reported that the investigation had expanded to include Yale College and Yale Law School." https://yaledailynews.com/articles/as-yale-seeks-settlement-with-trump-new-haven-remains-on-the-offense
Obviously Yale has a bug up its ass for the current regime so anything they say that runs against official gubmint policy is nothing more than sour grapes, yes?
-----
"The larger the number of people living or dying, the less anyone cares that they are living or dying. People do, however, care if 1 of those 114,174 are themselves or a person they know and love."
"The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic" Uncle Joe Stalin (attributed but no proof he actually said it)
-----
"Besides — what could possibly be worse than what we have now?"
How about if/when the FIO (Federal Insurance Office) allows for-profit insurance companies to consider eugenics/euthanasia as medical treatment? Or possibly if the FIO allows caps on what the insurance companies must pay out (as of 2022 caps are not allowed, like they were previously, with limited exceptions):
> "Lifetime Limits Insurance companies can no longer set a dollar limit on what they spend on essential health benefits for your care during the entire time you’re enrolled in that plan. Previously, health plans set a lifetime limit....
Annual Limits Insurance companies can no longer set yearly dollar limits on what they spend for your coverage. Previously, health plans set an annual limit..." [NB: Insurance companies can continue to put a cap on payouts for nonessential treatments.] https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/benefit-limits/index.html
fnord
Brett Kavanaugh went to Yale. William F Buckley Jr went to Yale.
Couchfuck went to Yale.
COUCHFUCK WENT TO YALE! YET MAGA HATES YALE
To be fair, everyone hates Jizzy Divan, too.
Something else we need to look at are the ways large healthcare sysytem are run. Here in NYc the CEOs of HYU Langone and New York Presbyterian (both of which are non-profit) made over 20 million ollars last year while nurses at NYP had to go on strike this year to retain their current llevel of health benefits_ and have long time staffing shortaged addressed. Also Many prcedures that used to be done in a doctor's office or clinic (injections to manage pain, chemo and colonoscopy to name a few) are now done in hospitals at 2 or 3 times the cost. In addition to the added cost my experience is that anything done at hospital is also going to take 2 to 3 times the amount of patient time since hospittals always rune way behind schedule.
Back in 2013, I had a student assistant that was in the Yale School of Public Health. He was from Malawi, and had never seen snow before. 2013 was one of our Snowpocalypes winters, so we had snow banks that were 25 feet tall. I went out with him and took pictures of him on top of snow banks and next to snow men and stuff, for him to send to his family. I thought he would be miserable, but he loved it. He found it fascinating that snow very quickly just becomes part of the environment. He probably took over an hour of video just of snow trucks plowing. Delightful young man.
Maybe we can have Snow Tourism?