“Medicare for All” would save the U.S $5.1 Trillion over 10 years

[u/The-Lucky-Investor]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/30/easy-pay-something-costs-less-new-study-shows-medicare-all-would-save-us-51-trillion

[u/abrandis]

Exactly, everyone looks at the healthcare crisis from the perspective of the patients.

Lol , the US healthcare is built around the private equity groups , insurance industry, big hospital systems , big pharma ,labs and diagnostics imaging, medical devices ....every part is making fat profits,when you look at it from their perspective and it all makes sense. This system is working perfectly...for them...

Meanwhile 33+ other developed countries with way smaller economies can somehow offer universal healthcare. (Of course they're not perfect, but none would trade theirs for ours) .go figure...

[u/Big-Leadership1001 → u/abrandis]

The providers aren't even considered. They're more like cattle for the Beef industry - necessary but only because they don't have a product to sell without them. Healthcare is all about executive salaries at the very top and theyeven made it illegal for doctors to own a hospital so they wouldn't have to worry about providers becoming executives!

[u/JDHPH → u/Big-Leadership1001]

This always seemed so anti-competitive to me. A trained physician should be able to start up their private practice/clinic to compete for patients. Just like any other business model, serving its customer base through transparent competition.

[u/Bob_Wilkins → u/JDHPH]

Transparent competition. What a quaint concept. That era vanished after 1980 and won’t see the light of day again. Certainly healthcare is an expensive mess. The AMA was firmly against socialistic government medicine back when Truman proposed it in the late ‘40s. Medicare in the ‘60s turned out to be a huge money grab. Now that Managed Care has taken over the Medicare, and increasingly Medicaid, markets, healthcare is funded largely by the government, although made more expensive due to Administrative Loss Ratios going to the Managed Care Firms. Medicare is the most efficient payor of healthcare in the US, with all the benefits and few of the drawbacks of private insurance (the energy expended on private insurance appeals is ridiculous).

[u/Rooboy66 → u/Bob_Wilkins]

My healthcare Econ prof Nancy Wolff said the VA was the most efficient payor if I recall … but, crap, that was 30+ yrs ago. She advised Hillary’s healthcare panel in the 90’s

[u/Cheap-Combination-13 → u/Rooboy66]

It is still true. And one of these from the power of bargaining on drug prices that the VA receives. Pharma fought this when Medicare part D was passed as they didn't want state programs to collectively negotiate prices. The pricing power is substantial where wholesale in drug x might be $1000, the VA is getting it for $200. This is most but not all drugs

[u/SmokinJunipers → u/Cheap-Combination-13]

And the rest of the world pays $5. (I have no idea)

[u/5thtimesthecharmer → u/SmokinJunipers]

If you’re insured you’re getting our negotiated price which is almost all the network discount we negotiate on an AWP- basis. Then there is the rebate side, most high WAC drugs come with a ridiculously high rebate due to their high list cost.

[u/goodolehal → u/Cheap-Combination-13]

The VA is one of the worst administered healthcare programs in the US

[u/uncle-brucie → u/goodolehal]

It it purposefully underfunded, like many government programs, so Republicans can say “look how the car I ran into a wall 20 years isn’t as good as the 2025 bmw free market Timberlake drives stoned around the Hamptons”

[u/goodolehal → u/uncle-brucie]

No, government run businesses just arent good for shit in this country. There is no incentive for performance and every incentive to mail it in enough years to collect your pension, and spend money unnecessarily to keep your budget coming in.

The VAs yearly budget is $300 billion and they serve 9 million people. Think about that for a second and then compare to private insurance. Its a pathetic misallocation of resources. Private insurance companies are leaps and bounds more efficient, modern, and technologically advanced than the public sector.

[u/eric-price → u/Rooboy66]

They may be the most efficient payer but they are among the least efficient at interacting at responding to the paperwork related to referrals. Would that problem go away if they managed it all? Maybe. Or maybe it would be worse.

Source- wife works as referral specialist

As an IT director, talking to her about how the process works between offices and between the office and insurance company it's clear that Medicare for all COULD eliminate massive amounts of wasted time. It would, taken to its logical conclusion, also eliminate the jobs of most of the admins in the office.

[u/Bob_Wilkins → u/Rooboy66]

That’s still the case.

[u/1DirkDigglerTheMan → u/Rooboy66]

Efficient, Quality, or Speed. Choose one. Just not Speed or Quality.

[u/vitoincognitox2x → u/Rooboy66]

Kaiser Permanente is actually more efficient these days when measuring patient outcomes for the cost. They beat Britain's NHS as well.

[u/uncle-brucie → u/vitoincognitox2x]

The NHS is another system purposefully sabotaged by malicious ideologues.

[u/Outside-Kale-3224 → u/Rooboy66]

Obamacare was repackaged Hillary care and with over regulations healthcare costs have only gone up and the providers have become less but bigger. Thanks.

[u/Rooboy66 → u/Outside-Kale-3224]

No. That is factually wrong. Ya know—real facts, not alternative ones. The ACA is, in fact, the darling of the Heritage Foundatikn—who ain’t exactly a bunch of Leftwing Loonies. It needed the Public Option, but Joe Lieberman said no. One guy, a Dem.

[u/uncle-brucie → u/Outside-Kale-3224]

Besides a couple tweaks (mandating elimination of preexisting conditions, mandating keeping young adults on parents’ coverage) the expansion of Medicaid to the working poor has been the clear success. Medicare is fine, but Medicaid for all should be the prize. Besides unionized fireman, etc, the folks on Medicaid jump through the fewest bullshit hoops, at least in a state that tries, like Maryland.

[u/Lozerien → u/Bob_Wilkins]

Medical care is a unique service, sort of like casualty insurance. It's something you hope you never use, but you absolutely have to have some sort of policy in force.

Insurance companies used to be a force for good, as a side effect of reducing their claim exposure. Improvements in workplace safety, automobile safety, consumer product safety were driven by insurance companies wanting to remove predictable risks.

Most people pay attention to driving safely and reducing their accident risks, with the reward of getting better rates and service on their auto insurance.

if there were true incentives of lowering your health health risks to get better rates on health insurance, people would work for them. Yes, I realize that stuff happens, there's the unpredictable events. That's why it's called insurance.

[u/BasketbaIIa → u/Bob_Wilkins]

Ugh. We don’t need universal health care. Don’t let them overcharge for shit and not come through with the proper financial paper work. Prevent assholes from up charging 6000% on the only option with a patent in life and death.

I think we can all agree it’s cool for Gucci to charge $600 a shirt and for Apple to even go the lengths that they do.

I feel like subsidizing this shit is exactly what the executive big wigs want. We’re the richest country in the world and adequate care should be affordable. Let’s make it easier to learn how to understand and take X-rays for example.

We can outlaw the entire 700k indenture these assholes put themselves through to feel entitled for a lifetime of grifting. More scholarships & investment in medical education. Not just investing 100m so they can patent a pill for 1b. I mean investing in making it easier (cheaper) to learn how to be a doctor with caps.