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Single-Payer Health Care Would Stimulate Economy
There is an unhealthy tendency on the part of politicians and journalists to see discussions about economic recovery and health care reform as separate debates.
In fact, one of the most important steps on the road to economic recovery - or, more precisely, toward a new, responsible and sustainable prosperity - involves the fundamental reform this country's broken health care system.
But it must be the right reform: the establishment of a national single-payer style healthcare reform system by expanding the existing Medicare system to cover all Americans. According to a new "Single Payer/Medicare for All: An Economic Stimulus Plan for the Nation" study released today by the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, such a reform would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues into the economy. This reform would, according to the study, add $100 billion in wages to the currently sputtering U.S. economy.
Indeed, notes the NNOC/CAN, the number of jobs created by a single-payer system, expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone, parallels almost exactly the total job loss in 2008. "These dramatic new findings document for the first time that a single payer system could not only solve our healthcare crisis, but also substantially contribute to putting America back to work and assisting the economic recovery," says NNOC/CAN c o-president Geri Jenkins, RN.
Specifically, notes Jenkins, expanding Medicare to include the uninsured, and those on Medicaid or employer-sponsored health plans, and expanding coverage for those with limited Medicare, would:
1. Create 2,613,495 million new permanent good-paying jobs (slightly exceeding the number of jobs lost in 2008) -- and jobs that are not easily shipped overseas
2. Boost the economy with $317 billion in increased business and public revenues
3. Add $100 billion in employee compensation
4. Infuse public budgets with $44 billion in new tax revenues
"Through direct and supplemental expenditures, healthcare is already a uniquely dominant force in the U.S. economy," says the study's lead author, Don DeMoro, who directs the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the NNOC/CNA research arm. "If we were to expand our present Medicare system to cover all Americans, the economic stimulus alone would create an immense engine that would help drive our national economy for decades to come.
The union is highlighting its "Single Payer Job Recovery" plan with a major rollout today and activists with Progressive Democrats for America and other groups that support single payer are staging a national call-in to Congress Thursday. Here's the PDA Action Alert on the new push for single payer:
Congressman John Conyers will reintroduce HR 676, his single-payer healthcare bill in the 111th Congress. Please ask your representative to cosponsor the bill and actively work with Rep. Conyers to gain additional cosponsors. In order to ensure HR 676 is part of the healthcare discussion in Congress, we need 150 cosponsors by the end of February.Former Sen. Tom Daschle, President-Elect Obama's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, called for "a government-run insurance program modeled after Medicare" in testimony before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions as part of the solution to our healthcare crisis. His plan also includes health insurance corporations. Only HR 676 would implement a sustainable, fair, and efficient solution to the healthcare crisis as well as providing economic stimulus.
While single-payer healthcare proponents have made good headway in the House, there is still no companion bill in the Senate. Urge Sen. Edward Kennedy to sponsor a companion bill to HR 676 in the Senate.
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100 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
On the plus side, our nation, addicted to the premise that lots of money = well-being would be benefitted by the passage of HR 676; and certainly there are lots of persons in need of mending. Still, one of the issues that needs to be addressed as a parallel is the CAUSE behind so much illness. As I see it a kind of "Disaster Capitalism" model has also been perpetrated through the lax standards of the EPA and FDA that so much tonnage of detritus in the form of pesticides, industrial effluents, and general toxic crap gets into our food and water, that bodies ARE breaking down. There is also the issue of what passes for food involving a lot of deleterious additives, none of which are nutritious.
So while the nation goes about like a gigantic colony of bees repairing all those broken, how about fixing what's actually ailing us in terms of policies and protocols that ENSURE people WILL get sick. There's so much emphasis on treating symptoms and so little addressing cause. And next in line, roping in the bio-engineering of items that will never again regain their authenticity, introducing a set of health challenges YET to be seen.
The AMA has had a dubious history of discouraging and "discrediting" naturopathic and herbal remedies for over 80 years...
They are beholden to the pharmaceutical, medical technology, insurance, and HMO industries...
It is a racket to ensure a growth market for those seeking to profit from this corporatist medical model...
There have been several cases of pioneering research into healing the "incurable" diseases, even cancer and AIDS...
Through vitamin B17, wave pattern therapy, (even laughter & visualization therapy), homeopathy, and herbal medicine...
The AMA and FDA pressured the FBI to conduct raids in the researcher's labs and homes, confiscated their work, destroyed equipment, and publicly discredited them as quacks, and in some cases had them imprisoned...
All the while, big pharma was doing their own research on isolating the active ingredients in herbs...
Now that big pharma owns patent rights to many of these herbal medicines, they sell the same medicine as their herbal equivalent which they had demonized...
Sioux Rose
GOLDEN MEAN: I agree with the points you've raised and did my best to share some of those with another poster (I can't recall the name) who argued like a religious fanatic for the miracles of modern medicine. True, his own son's life was saved, but he really gazes at the MDeity through his own rose-colored glasses.
Sioux Rose
Mercury retrograde "do over." Technical glitch, not intended...
"There is an unhealthy tendency on the part of politicians and journalists to see discussions about economic recovery and health care reform as separate debates."
I agree.
Our healthcare crisis is just one more symptom of the kind of constrained thinking produced by a society controlled by the market-place instead of the other way around.
To give Obama credit where due, he did recently state:
"It's a matter of fundamentally moving the economy in a new direction. And government, not private enterprise, has to take the lead."
We already know that a single-payer health care plan would benefit most Amerikkkans, but it will not happen because the ruling elite and their lackeys in the White House and Congress will not allow it.
We the People need to take back our government by whatever means necessary. Our government stopped meeting the needs of the People and now cater only to the corporations.
Terms limits and publicy-financed elections NOW.
Cavedweller
"We already know that a single-payer health care plan would benefit most Amerikkkans, but it will not happen because the ruling elite and their lackeys in the White House and Congress will not allow it."
A single payer syatem would benefit all Americans, but I must disagree, it can happen with enough pressure. It may happen. Does Obama want more than one term? Lets see.
Thomas:
I hope you're right, but I don't have that much confidence in Barack Obama. After all, even W. Bush was "elected" twice.
I believe that our system of government is so corrupt that unless the entire system is revamped, the corporations will continue to dictate policy.
Cavedweller
My fingers are crossed when it comes to Obama! I believe we have to have single payer, but the insurance companies will be hard to defeat, but I know we can.
I believe the start of cleaning the corruption out of our government has already begun. I don't think they know it yet. We'll see.
My fingers are crossed when it comes to Obama!
I hope you're not holding your breath?
Rickster
Rickster
Not for anyone inside the beltway.
In my many ongoing debates over this issue, those arguing for the for profit system as they have in the United States like to claim that the differences in Infant Mortality, life expectancy and the like can all be attributed to the ethnic makeup of the United States.
Here they simply repeat the talking points advanced by the advocates of the for profit system.
Canada was MUCH less ethnically diverse then was America back in 1972 when we finally implemented our full single payer system.
The numbers when comparing infant mortality, life expectancy and the like were all but identical. Since that time Canada has become much more ethnicaly diverse and our numbers continue to improve relative to Americas.
GwNorth
"Infant Mortality, life expectancy and the like can all be attributed to the ethnic makeup of the United States."
Thats Horsefeathers unless you want to consider that some of our ethnic groups have less access to early healthcare and pre-natal care. Our infant mortaklity rate can be traced directly to the lack of early care, which is directly linked to the For Profit system we have.
We have the best medical care in the world and the best medecines, arguably the best doctors....if you can afford it.
The US is still in the dark ages compared to rthe rest of the industrialized world when it conmes to health care for its citizens...all its citizens.
.Take a moment to reflect on the culture of Washington DC, with special interest on K Street. The health care industry in this nation is a multi-billion dollar cash cow at the same time that it is a major fiasco in actually providing such care.
How has it managed to escape scrutiny at the highest levels up until today? The statistics are there for all to see, especially those elected officials with staff that exists just to find such useful data. Data such as:
1. we spend many times more on health care than the number two nation.
2. we rank 37th in the providing of said care ( Cuba is 39th)
3. we rank 13th in infant mortality ( for cripes sake!)
4. 50% of all bankruptcies are health care related ( folks who thought they were covered until they actually needed care)
5. Even though the govt ( us) subsidizes research into prescription medication, and very heavily in fact, we pay more for medicines than anywhere else in this solar system.
So, ask yourself why it is that this continues to exist, ok so you already know. The payment of rather large sums of money to our legislators, junkets, golf trips, cruises, all fact finding of course, the writing of large and continuous campaign checks all go to ensure the continuation of both inferior care and deluxe pricing.
I do not have to criticize Barack Obama, or say he has no real plan to make our health care system more inclusive and less costly, I only have to note that our system reeks and guarantees that your fingers will remain crossed for a very long time...So long in fact that you will have to go to your HMO to get them uncrossed, find out you are not covered for that and sell your home for the treatments necessary.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
ardee
What you said doubled.
Except I'm not trusting Obama to do this, I'm trusting the American people to get it done. Not easy, not fast, painful, but I believe we will get it done. Because this is truly a different time from before.
Fortunately we have a Doctor in the family, so free finger uncrossing. As long as I haven't offended her that week.
.I have always believed that ultimate power resides with th epeople. But I see an increasing apathy and willingness to be swindled as well as a growing fear that any changes might cost in lifestyles and taxes. We are increasingly susceptible to the lies of those who refuse to allow their huge profits to be tampered with, and our new president gives me no great sense of hope.
I would be very, very happy to eat my words these next few months, very happy indeed.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I know you would (without salt even). Though it may take longer than a few months.
If you are not wrong, we are finished as a nation. We will end up as one bunch of "consumers" without borders just as the Corporations and their flunkies have been planning.
.In truth, Thomas, I believe that we may certainly be in the decline and fall of the American Empire....I see little to hope for in the under educated, uninvolved and selfish folks that are the majority of our population.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I am taking this article and perhaps the report and sending it off to every Congressional staff person I know.
It may help if all of you did the same.
And yes I agree completely Sioux Rose.
I have stated that eliminating/reducing toxics in our environment/oceans is the best preventative medicine for a decade or so even to the face of our good Senator Wyden.
I believe those who loose their jobs through the health care system transformation need to be factored into the analysis. Those providing insurance and administrative services make up a very large part of current services.
I've been trying to find out how many people are employed in the health insurance industries. I can't seem to find any on it. I would think the number is not all that large.
Rickster
.Not even close:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs035.htm
Significant Points
* As the largest industry in 2006, health care provided 14 million jobs—13.6 million jobs for wage and salary workers and about 438,000 jobs for the self-employed.
* 7 of the 20 fastest growing occupations are health care related.
* Health care will generate 3 million new wage and salary jobs between 2006 and 2016, more than any other industry.
* Most workers have jobs that require less than 4 years of college education, but health diagnosing and treating practitioners are among the most educated workers.
......................
Lots more interesting facts there.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Where is the number employed by the for profit health insurance industry. Thats the number that will be affected by going to a government controlled single payer system.
Rickster
Well half that many would probably still be needed in a single payer system. Somebody has got make sure the claims are valid, even doctors can be corrupt. The number of MD's, RN's, LPN's and other medical technicians would have to be increased. My understand is that was the main problem all the countries had when they went to every body covered health system.
Rickster
Medicare costs much less to run than private health-insurance. I've seen figures indicating that European-style single-payer systems cost 1/3 to 1/2 what US private healthcare costs. The difference is all those bloated insurance companies employing millions to shuffle papers, deny people payment and so on--while payingvast sums per year to the CEOs, of course. And, of course all those people handling the billing for the doctors.
Rainborowe
They could probably find jobs in all those small businesses that have to let their workers go because they can't afford to give them health insurance. That is a very big problem these days for small business owners. They really are the engine that drives big business and provides them with skilled workers. Unfortunately they can't keep the workers themselves even when they and the workers would like to stay.
Rainborowe
Is it just me, or is it not the government's job to redistribute wealth? A universal health care system is unfair to those who opt to not have insurance, who actually believe insurance is the part of the fraud. So having the government as one giant insurance company is backwards.
"Change in the government starts with the individual."
You don't make any sense to me, maybe I'm missing something.
"is unfair to those who opt to not have insurance"
No body is proposing they have to use it. If they get sick and don't want to see a doctor that's their problem.
Rickster
In all modern democracies, it IS the governments job to redustribute wealth through various means, from minimum wage laws to social benefit programs, to progressive graduated income taxes.
To see what things look like if government doesn't redistribure wealth, just go down to modern-day El-Salvador or Nicaragua, or dust off your copies of Charles Dickens, Upton Sinclair, or John Steinbeck.
---USAn---
Or just look at the USA today.
Rickster
The current employer-based health insurance system run by corporate insurance companies impairs the ability of small business to compete with big corporations and the government itself.
At the same time the right wing is saying that small business is the growth engine and job creator, the right wing is creating tax policy and health insurance rules and incentives that prevent small business from being able to compete with big corporations, and creating impediments for US corporations to compete with corporations from the rest of the industrialized world that doesn't have employer-based insurance.
Sioux Rose
RAY D: Excellent analysis.
The right wing is full of hot air. Haven't you figured that out yet?
The left wing was surgically removed years ago. All we have in this country is a right winged goose of a government. Maybe that should be right winged vulture.
Rickster
Give me single-payer or I'm gonna die!
Dr Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers
At the very least, we the people should have the right to freely choose between single-payer and for-profit health insurance.
Oh I agree for those who can afford and want to pay into the for profit health care insurance system. No one is advocating the removal of the private for profit health care system.
I would like to see public funded hospitals and basic care centers expanded though.
Rickster
.If you thought long and hard you might come to the conclusion that our inefficient health care system is actually costing you money, you personally, and in many ways in fact.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
ardee
Too late, the Iish Texas mafia figured that out long ago. And if they pass the house version of SCHIPS its going to cost me a lot more.
You don't. You still pay the taxes to support it because it's in your interest not to have people running around you carrying bubonic plague, Ebola virus and so on. And because, while you can choose not to use the public system, you will almost certainly need it at some time whether for emergency care in case of an accident or specialized care not provided by your fancy over-priced private resort clinics (because the investment is far greater than its usage would justify to its shareholders, who wouldn't want their stock going down).
Sometimes I'm ashamed to be an American.
Rainborowe
That's fine, but if the system is set up well and is adequately funded, it would provide better benefits at far lower cost. (Per-capita US health expenditures are hundreds of percent higher than Canada, France or the UK).
so, why would anyone want private insurance?
One thing we difinitely want to avoid is a system like curent day US Medicare has turned into, where coverage is poor unless one buys supplemental insurance and the hated part D forced private prescription plan system.
Health care coverage and quality should also not vary with how rich someone is.
These proposals to mix private coverage in with public coverage are almost always part of schemes by neoliberal economists to deliberately defund and slowly privatize medical insurance. To the extent that this is going on in Canada is largely the source of complaints about the system. I understand there was a similar "sabotage-and-privatize" scheme under the Howard government in Australia.
If anything, even "single payer" is too meek. Better that we go to a fully socialized national health system like the UK or France. France is generally regarded as having the best healthcare and measures of health in the world - at a per capita cost far lower than the US.
But for this to work in the US, it would require big changes in the cost of medical care - free medical school education (so doctors don't face such staggering personal debts) a reigning in of malpractice costs and lowered salaries for doctors.
Come to think of it, the above things may be requred for single-payer to work as well.
---USAn---
"But for this to work in the US, it would require big changes in the cost of medical care - free medical school education (so doctors don't face such staggering personal debts)"
I can go for that. Lets also add free vo-tech training for anyone who wants it. I won't mind if there are some strings attached such as if you quit the class before it's over you pay for it.
"a reigning in of malpractice costs"
No I wouldn't support fixed payouts but would support heavy regulations of the malpractice insurance companies with price limits on how much legal fees can be charged by both sides.
"lowered salaries for doctors."
There is probably going to have to be some kind of limits. This is a touchy subject. I'm not sure how to control total cost. Some will say let the market decide but as we have seen in the market today that doesn't work when the people controlling the market get greedy and set minimum prices.
The free market system would work as long as you didn't allow major corporations to form in the medical care system. That's the biggest problems we have to day is major corporations have tight control over the market and set the prices for everybody else. There is no real competition in the market today.
Rickster
rickster469
"a reigning in of malpractice costs"
Texas passed a tort reform for malpractice awards because malpractice insurasnce costs were getting too high. Damages limited....insurance premiums went up....profit to the insurance companies went up.
Only loser...Texans.
"Damages limited....insurance premiums went up....profit to the insurance companies went up."
Insanity. In every state that I've read about that passed tort reform for malpratice the same thing has happened. Our politicians are being paid off, that's all there is to it. Any time you take away the rights of people to be justly treated the major corporations take advantage of it. If I had my way all major corporations would be broken up into smaller units and never be allow to merge again.
Rickster
"If I had my way all major corporations would be broken up into smaller units and never be allow to merge again."
I'm not holding my breath for that one either. But we CAN put them buck on the leash of regulation and real oversight again.
And punish a Corporation that offshores job's while rewarding one that create or keeps jobs here under the tax code.
Although I strongly support Single payer Medicare for all, realistically
it will ultimately cut a lot of unproductive jobs. All those clerks, Administrators,
Call Center people in Drs. Offices, Hospitals, Insurance companies will mostly be out of work. There won't be a need for a couple "Insurance specialists" for every Drs Office to wrestle with Health Insurance companies for payments. There will still be a need for some to deal with Medicare payments but not nearly at the current level.
And there won't be the need for the enormous army of clerks and others and in particular hugely paid Corporate executives mostly paid to deny medical payments.
But there will be MORE need for productive healthcare professionals to provide the
medical care now more open to all. However even this if it leads to
better preventive care should be more productive and will probably reduce
crisis medical care demand.
Numerous studies have shown that European countries are as productive as the US
even though they have medical care, pensions, shorter work weeks, etc.
I wonder if the greatly improved productivity of their healthcare system unencumbered by the 30% corporate insurance bureaucratic waste has a lot to do with that.
Of course the other reason for increased productivity in Europe is not having
the gargantuan $1 Trillion war waste spending of the US...
Another major source of unproductive wasted labor and resources..
"Numerous studies have shown that European countries are as productive as the US
even though they have medical care, pensions, shorter work weeks, etc."
Not a one is even close. Their productivity per worker (except for Norway) is lagging.
This is the best breakdown I've seen.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/03/business/main3228735.shtml
Sponsored by a major news corporation which is owned by the fifty rich who own most of the major industries in this country. Hey I'll set on your board of directors if you will sit on my board of directiors and we can tell anybody we want what we want them to believe.
If you believe anything you hear from CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, and almost all the news media outlets inside this country you probably believe pigs fly.
Rickster
First, I believe this to be true because I know that it is true. Its one of the things that makes us different.
Second, everything in the MSM is not a lie just as everything on Air America and PBS isn't a lie.
No they pretty well tell the truth about Hollywood movie stars and Obama's trouble with picking out a dog. When it comes to things that are important though like single payer health care, benefits of a living wage, corporate control of the airways, reasons for going to war, who is the best choice for the American people for president, etc. You can't believe nothing they say.
Rickster
Productivity growth is another BOGUS measurement like GDP growth.
1>The article fails to mention that Americans work MORE hours without pay then peoples in other countries. This has been well established with WAL mart as example having to pay fines for asking workers to show up 30 minutes earlier and work 30 minutes longer yet still paying for an 8 hour day. That extra hour then becomes FREE and appears to have been produced during the 8 hour workday.
Thats an instant 15 percent productivity gain.
2>The measurements measure total "wealth" per hour. Where? On a factory floor ?Does this include as example packaging up CDOS in the back of some back and reselling them over and over watching their VALUE inflate while little of substance is produced? Remember a lot of wealth produced in America over the past decade was due to artifically created bubbles..how does this affect "Wealth created per hour" when measuring productivity?
3>Let us pretend just as example that we measure ONLY health care. How do you compare "wealth" produced from one jurisdiction to another? You pay 30 bucks for an Aspirin in a US Hospital. I pay 12 cents in a Canadian Hospital. Does this mean your Hopital is more productive?
There are all manner of problems with productivity measurements just as there are comparing unemployemnt rates, or GDP growth Jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/59/29/2352458.pdf
This PDF file explains a lot of the problems with measuring productivity and especially when doing so on a country to country basis.
One of the big questions of course is "What is WEALTH and how do we measure it"?
If my cost IN is higher because I pay a higher wage....and or have to protect the enviroment and in another country wages are lower and there no enviromental protections.....If we BOTH produce the same good and sell it for the same price, the jurisdiction with lower costs IN (Lower wages less enviromental protections) wins the productivity race.