does this not defeat the anti free market argument? In other words, the systems can remain as it is right now..except the govt pays the premiums at least for americans making less than $100,000 per year. The govt could even put cost savings pressures on the medical providers to maybe even reduce that annual voucher to $1500 per year. SUPPORT HR 676!!
What Is National Health Insurance (NHI)?
To begin with, it is NOT 鈥淪ocialized Medicine鈥? far from it in fact. Also, it does not mean that our medical system will be taken over by the government and run like the post office as many of our opposition friends would mistakenly have you believe.
Basically, House Resolution (H.R.) 676, the 鈥淣ew Expanded Medicare鈥?bill now in sub-committee in the House of Representatives simply creates a new and far more functional 鈥渟ingle payer鈥?method of paying for medical services while leaving the medical system itself completely alone and intact. This will eliminate the hundreds of complicated and redundant payment plans currently imposed on the system by private 鈥渇or profit鈥?health insurance companies and save literally BILLIONS of dollars every year by eliminating such wasteful duplication. This will allow your doctors offices and hospitals to function much more efficiently and serve your needs much more effectively as well. Just imagine what a huge benefit this will be!
Taxes: We all know that nothing of any real value is ever free, but if you think of the taxes that will be required to support national health insurance as simply a lower cost alternative to the staggering private health insurance premiums that most of us already have to pay but which will be totally eliminated under the new system, then it becomes immediately clear that this could be a really good deal after all!
"Health care is a defining right in a democratic society." Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Check out some of the tremendous benefits that NHI will bring and see what you think:
Every citizen of the US will be covered from birth to death.
No more pre-existing conditions to be excluded from coverage.
No more expensive deductibles or co-pays.
All prescription medications will be covered.
All dental and eye care will be included.
Mental health and substance abuse care will be fully covered.(1)
Long term and nursing home services will be included.
You will always choose your own doctors and hospitals.
Costs of coverage will be assessed on a sliding scale basis.
Tremendously simplified system of medical administration
Total portability 鈥?your coverage not tied to any job or location.
Existing Medicare benefits for those over 65 will remain the same or be vastly improved in many cases.
(1)The United States has the unhappy distinction of having the largest inmate to total population ratio of any modern country in the world. It is estimated that a full 53% of that inmate population is being confined due to non-violent drug and addiction related issues. The combined costs to society of maintaining such a huge prison population is staggering in so many ways and accordingly, the cost savings to society of this one enormous benefit of national health insurance alone, that all drug and addiction treatment will be covered, is simply beyond calculation.
"This is an issue that has no political boundaries,
it has moral boundaries." Elizabeth Edwards Congressional testimony May 8th, 2008
The real irony is that this new system will be a lot less expensive and provide much better services than the largely dysfunctional system currently in place and still leave us with the best health care system in the entire world, only with the New Medicare鈥?it will be even better!
Don鈥檛 be put off by all of the misleading and often inaccurate rhetoric that you so often hear about changing our system. For example uninformed critics will ask 鈥淒o you really want your medical decisions made by some government bureaucrat in Washington DC ?鈥? Well, the truth is that with NHI, just about every medical decision will be made privately by you and your doctor. But ironically, under the current system, many medical decisions about what鈥檚 best for you are now being made by some corporate bureaucrat working for a private insurance company whose main concern is making larger profits by denying your claims. How exactly does that work out to be better for you??
"Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Change is indeed often a very scary thing to most people, but when the need is so great and the proposed changes are so much better than the status quo, maybe changing to a NHI system in the USA is something that we can all think about supporting, whether you are a moderate, liberal or conservative, after giving it a lot of careful study and thought. Please call your congressperson and let them know what you think. They really need to hear from you on this issue. We are already spending more money than we take in by $1.7 million per day. We can't just have the government pay for stuff -- the government has no money. Any national health plan has to be funded somehow. No
1. Because they'll blow the money on something else.
2. When they blow that money, inflation will be a direct result. Thus increasing the current economic termoil . There are 300 million of us so it would cost 600 billion dollars. What about the old and chronically ill who's insurance cost are much more. Does this replace programs that already help them? Where would the money come from? the idea of health insurance defeats the idea of free markets...
how much will you pay for good health?
they're still trying to find where it "tops out"... they are still looking... I have a better idea. Give me $ 2000,00 a year tax cut and I'll take care of it myself. 2000.00And what, we pay the other 4000.00?
Its better than the 6000.00 I pay now. |
