I have read a lot of blogs and seen many programs denigrating single payer national health care systems. They seem to come from people that have no personal experience with such systems or a vested interest in the current system. Numerous studies have established that single payer national health care systems cost about half of our system while providing better health care as measured by outcome such as infant mortality, longevity, hospital mistakes etc. My family has personal experience with health care systems in England, Germany, Norway and USA from living in those countries. I would not hesitate one moment to choose any of their systems over ours (USA). It is difficult to understand why systems demonstrated to be better than ours, no matter which criteria you use to compare them, are not seriously considered here in the USA. Are we that misinformed, brainwashed, uneducated, dogmatically tied to capitalist philosophy (that in this case is failing), not as smart as citizens in other countries, or is it that it was not invented by the self-proclaimed greatest nation on earth. Most likely it is that our politicians are bought off by the corporate beneficiaries of the current system.

The bottom line, born out by facts and not emotions or dogma, is that single payer national health care systems work better for more people at lower cost than our for profit system.

Either you have morality or prosperity. You can't have both.
-the beast

To "PsychFugue":

Posting your BS three times doesn't make it smell any better. You're just piling it higher and deeper.

Where in the Constitution does it say we have the "right" to work and earn a living? I DO seem to recall, however, that one of the founding fathers' aims was to "promote the general welfare".

But whether or not it's a "right" misses the point. For-profit healthcare is ETHICALLY, MORALLY and FISCALLY INDEFENSIBLE.

"Best healthcare system in the world"? When TENS OF MILLIONS OF AMERICANS CAN'T AFFORD IT?
But of course they're all lazy and/or "liberal do-gooders" in your eyes.
Nobody I know expects "free" healthcare, any more than we expect "free" fire and police protection. We're certainly willing to pay more in taxes if it would mean healthcare for all. I don't resent paying taxes to provide YOU with police and fire protection; or to build the roads that YOU drive on.
But then, I'm a liberal do-gooder, y'see. And when you call me that, I take it as a compliment, not an insult.
James Galbraith had your number when he wrote:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness"

Your comments could be condensed into a single, pathetic whine: "I've got mine, so screw the rest of you"

How can you look yourself in the mirror?

American hardcore wanna be anglophile will say just about anything to curry favor with the Brits. He wants us to believe that in a police / surveillance state there is good quality health care for all. Brits patients are the most likely to avail themselves of medical tourism to third world countries.

The New York Times

July 6, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
HELP Is on the Way
By PAUL KRUGMAN

The Congressional Budget Office has looked at the future of American health insurance, and it works.

A few weeks ago there was a furor when the budget office “scored” two incomplete Senate health reform proposals — that is, estimated their costs and likely impacts over the next 10 years. One proposal came in more expensive than expected; the other didn’t cover enough people. Health reform, it seemed, was in trouble.

But last week the budget office scored the full proposed legislation from the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). And the news — which got far less play in the media than the downbeat earlier analysis — was very, very good. Yes, we can reform health care.

Let me start by pointing out something serious health economists have known all along: on general principles, universal health insurance should be eminently affordable.

After all, every other advanced country offers universal coverage, while spending much less on health care than we do. For example, the French health care system covers everyone, offers excellent care and costs barely more than half as much per person as our system.

And even if we didn’t have this international evidence to reassure us, a look at the U.S. numbers makes it clear that insuring the uninsured shouldn’t cost all that much, for two reasons.

First, the uninsured are disproportionately young adults, whose medical costs tend to be relatively low. The big spending is mainly on the elderly, who are already covered by Medicare.

Second, even now the uninsured receive a considerable (though inadequate) amount of “uncompensated” care, whose costs are passed on to the rest of the population. So the net cost of giving the uninsured explicit coverage is substantially less than it might seem.

Putting these observations together, what sounds at first like a daunting prospect — extending coverage to most or all of the 45 million people in America without health insurance — should, in the end, add only a few percent to our overall national health bill. And that’s exactly what the budget office found when scoring the HELP proposal.

Now, about those specifics: The HELP plan achieves near-universal coverage through a combination of regulation and subsidies. Insurance companies would be required to offer the same coverage to everyone, regardless of medical history; on the other side, everyone except the poor and near-poor would be obliged to buy insurance, with the aid of subsidies that would limit premiums as a share of income.

Employers would also have to chip in, with all firms employing more than 25 people required to offer their workers insurance or pay a penalty. By the way, the absence of such an “employer mandate” was the big problem with the earlier, incomplete version of the plan.

And those who prefer not to buy insurance from the private sector would be able to choose a public plan instead. This would, among other things, bring some real competition to the health insurance market, which is currently a collection of local monopolies and cartels.

The budget office says that all this would cost $597 billion over the next decade. But that doesn’t include the cost of insuring the poor and near-poor, whom HELP suggests covering via an expansion of Medicaid (which is outside the committee’s jurisdiction). Add in the cost of this expansion, and we’re probably looking at between $1 trillion and $1.3 trillion.

There are a number of ways to look at this number, but maybe the best is to point out that it’s less than 4 percent of the $33 trillion the U.S. government predicts we’ll spend on health care over the next decade. And that in turn means that much of the expense can be offset with straightforward cost-saving measures, like ending Medicare overpayments to private health insurers and reining in spending on medical procedures with no demonstrated health benefits.

So fundamental health reform — reform that would eliminate the insecurity about health coverage that looms so large for many Americans — is now within reach. The “centrist” senators, most of them Democrats, who have been holding up reform can no longer claim either that universal coverage is unaffordable or that it won’t work.

The only question now is whether a combination of persuasion from President Obama, pressure from health reform activists and, one hopes, senators’ own consciences will get the centrists on board — or at least get them to vote for cloture, so that diehard opponents of reform can’t block it with a filibuster.

This is a historic opportunity — arguably the best opportunity since 1947, when the A.M.A. killed Harry Truman’s health-care dreams. We’re right on the cusp. All it takes is a few more senators, and HELP will be on the way.

This article shows that the members of The House Of Commons are much more patriotic than our members of Congress . The fact is our members of Congress hate our Country so much they continually send our way of MAKING-A-LIVING (wages of life)(jobs) to other countries while depriving what is left of our lives access to affordable health care .

Please note that the GAO did a study in 1991 of the single payer system in Canada and they found:

"If the universal coverage and single-payer features of the Canadian
system were applied in the United States, the savings in administrative
costs alone would be more than enough to finance insurance coverage
for the millions of Americans who are currently uninsured. There would
be enough left over to permit a reduction, or possibly even the elimina-
tion, of copayments and deductibles, if that were deemed appropriate."

AND

"Canadians have few problems with access to primary care services.
There are more physicians per person in Canada than in the United
States, and Canadians use more physician services per person than do
US. citizens. Yet the cost of physician services per person in Canada
was one-third less than in the United States."

You can find this study by putting this number in Google: HRD-91-90

I recall speaking with some very conservative foks in London. They hated unions and socialism. But they loved their national health. Health and the right of all for health and life should rank along with the right to food, eduction and clean air.

Welch and Scottish politics aren't in sync with the rest of British politics, and are clearly to the left of politics in England which dominates British politics even with the devolutionary powers of the Welch Assembly and Scottish Parliament which Blairite Labor put through mainly for narrow political partisan advantage, not having any idea later that would come back to boomerang on what John Pilger would call their hidden agendas. But the picture in the UK overall is bad, as "new" or really fake Labor has let the for profit health insurance companies in England, where the party could get away with it simply by getting it through the British House of Commons by a whipped party vote, resulting in such US health insurance companies as Minnesota based United, indicted for swindling taxpayers and patients into at least the English health care mix. But surely the Blairite would done the same in Scotland and Wales, had they not already years ago right after getting in as the party of government putting through devolution for both right then. Thank goodness they made that mistake. But things in England are lousy with the US, and I do mean US privatization with what are actually US health insurance companies such as United. The Tories or Conservative with Chris Paten, John Major's right hand man are better bet to do progressive things for the British people. They've already abandoned Thatcherism and come out for defending civil liberties even against the onslaught against it by the "new" Labor. Hey, after a good defeat in the next general election, Labor will probally get rid of the Blairites as the dead wood they truly are. Parties love power, and if that means moving to the left, that's fine with them.

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The one thing that I find good about the present health care debate is how many people are knowledgeable and aware of the mess our system is compared to 1993.
Also the word socialist doesn't scare everyone. Many are saying if that is socialist so be it. So are schools, police, fire departments, state and federal roads, social security.
We are making some progress.

I have single payer------medicare!

"Simple, sensible, civilized." Why does this adopted Brit imagine that these could possibly be the criteria by means of which "health care reform" will be accomplished in the U.S.of A.? Hasn't he been back among us long enough to know that that any "system" designed to serve the people is going to be complex in its structure, idiotic in its distribution formula and barbaric in its heartlessness toward the people who need the service the most? With virtually all those now sitting at the "table" of health care reform and a health "czar" being people connected with the profits of the insurance and medical care industries, the complexity, idiocy and barbarism of the "Massachusetts model" of compulsory insurance purchase will be what health "reform" will look like in fact. So don't ask us to "get used to" single payer and government-run health care because, unfortunately, we'll never have a chance to get used to it.

John Pilger is a great one, but he has always been against the Tony Blair and his wrecking British Labor and turning into a party to the right of the even the Thatcherite Tories whether on privatizing health care or other domestic social services or on making war, and he has made clear from the time Blair took over the British Labor Party, that Pilger had no use for Blair's far right ideology. I"d bet he would even say today that the NHS was better by far when John Major and Maggie Thatcher and the Conservatives or Tories were running the government.

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Despite the partial privitization and New Public Management models being forced on the NHS, John Pilger recently called the NHS a "national treasure" for the UK. Having lived in the UK I must agree with him, I also say that, while not perfect, the BBC is also a national treasure.

Those in England contribute to this misunderstanding by using England as interchangeable with the UK and English and interchangeable with British, but such is not the case. The UK is now actually England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

Gerry Adams also holds a seat in the British House of Commons which he has never taken, but it is his seat.

Oh, and Aneuran Bevan ws not just any Welshman, he was Welch miner who made it big in British politics to the point of being in the cabinet and getting very close to being the prime minister, and had he beat Harold Wilson out to be party leader for Labor, his party when he was after that post, he would almost surely have gone on to be the British prime minister.

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smipypr

Maggie Thatcher did a great deal of damage to the public sector in England, including the NHS. NHS still works, and as the OP said, the waiting rooms are the great equalizers. Sadly, as long as the profit motive exists in hospitals, medical equipment and drug companies, and millions of dollars are thrown at Congress, nothing will change. I can't understand why small and medium sized businesses aren't screaming for a single payer plan. The burden of their workers' insurance needs would be relieved, and profits would increase. Oops - they've been conned into voting against their own interests.

If you live in LA now that's clearly the reason you don't realize how thoroughly privatized British health care is becoming with US for profit health insurance companies such as United already indicted for swindling taxpayers and patients getting a big foot in the door of British health care. This has come about over time. It started out all so "innocently" at first with private health insurance companies only taking over for elective surgery. Now it is a case of US for profit health insurance companies becoming dominant in British health care with a big drop in the quality of health care and in doctor/patient relationships. It is efficient for private for profit health insurance companies, but not for patients and their health care.

Do read my blog on this, as the information comes from a British magazine I subscribe to which keeps me up with what's happening in British health care and otherwise. The blog can be accessed at ahgoldberg.radioleft.com.

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If you live in LA now that's clearly the reason you don't realize how thoroughly privatized British health care is becoming with US for profit health insurance companies such as Minnesota's United already indicted for swindling taxpayers and patients getting a big foot in the door of British health care. This has come about over time. It started out all so "innocently" at first with private health insurance companies only taking over for elective surgery. Now it is a case of US for profit health insurance companies becoming dominant in British health care with a big drop in the quality of health care and in doctor/patient relationships. It is efficient for private for profit health insurance companies, but not for patients and their health care.

Do read my blog on this, as the information comes from a British magazine I subscribe to which keeps me up with what's happening in British health care and otherwise. The blog can be accessed at ahgoldberg.radioleft.com.

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a footnote: Aneurin Bevan was Welsh.

A people who truly know the meaning of community.

Access to health care is yet another social control device for the US boss class.

GREED is what is blocking this and always have. Part of the population sees nothing wrong with preying on the rest of us. This really comes down to a MORAL issue , is health Care a right or is it a privilege? The hard right hates any Gov't beyond the part with guns and everyone else is just struggling to pay the bills. Obama seems conflicted.

The republicans are fighting this tooth and nail because they remember what happened after they lost the social security battle. They lost the power in Washington for 40 years. It took them that long to bad mouth things enough and make enough people believe it to regain power. Now, after the last 29 years of screwing things up, they stand to lose power for ANOTHER 40 years.

The democrats who are standing in the way of this passing (or really, even getting a chance) are bought and paid for by the insurance and big pharma companies. They are screwing us for their own benefit and it's time for them to go home and stay there.

We the people have to realize that is is indeed a war. There are tens of billions at stake, and it's OUR tens of billions. We can either keep shelling it out only to be screwed when the insurance boys decide to either stall or just not to pay at all, or we can have a system like those in the rest of the industrialized world at 2/3 the price.

The republicans say they are pro business, but at the same time they champion a system that screws business by making it pay for health care. GM has been screaming for a public health care system for at least 5 years, and the R's stand in the way every time. How much LESS pro business can you be? If we are EVER to have a chance in business again, we need to get this millstone off of the necks of our businesses, especially the small ones that create the majority of jobs here.

It's up to US, no congress critter is going to do it for us. WE have to be the voice screaming the loudest. There are over 70% of us who want it, so it's time to make sure that any congress jerk that stands in our way gets run over and sent back home. If they aren't going to represent US, then they have NO business calling themselves our representatives, do they? Time to kick ass and take names.

What this piece by Clancy Sigal points out, almost as an aside, is that unless Americans experienced how Single Payer actually works for themselves, then most of them swallowed the propaganda shoveled to them by the paid shills of the drug and insurance industries with nary a critical thought. That was the situation when Clinton's bungled attempt in 1994 went down in flames. Between now and then, the rapacity of the health insurance industry has become so notorious as to significantly overwhelm their still somewhat skillful propaganda (though the producers of the media message have yet to come up with a different line of attack, as their current one is quite stale).

Thus it necessary that I do my small part in this by adding my personal experiences regarding European style Single Payer for my fellow Americans to read. I have a half-sister in Brussels, Belgium whom is family practice doctor and does quite nicely, thank you very much, and who's stress levels are much less as she does not have to spend resources dealing with inane insurance company paperwork as Belgium is Single Payer.
Additionally, I used to work in Switzerland, which has a mixed public / private system where there is a basic level of care that covers everyone, a Health Fund, while additional private insurance, Semi-Private & Private (which referred to the sort of hospital room you were entitled to should the need arise) was available (my work place offered Winterthur Private as an employment perk to attract talent). I put that coverage to work when I broke my leg in two places during a soccer game and had to have surgery (several screws and a metal plate). My ten day hospital stay, plus after-care was completely covered. When the supposed time came around for the plate to be removed, I was back in the USA due to a lay off and could not afford the surgery to have it removed...and it is still in my leg to this day, sixteen years after it was put in.

"Perhaps I was lucky to arrive so soon after World War II, when a traumatized, bomb-weary public was in no mood to revisit a prewar history of medical deprivation and the humiliation of means testing."

The British Labour government was also lucky in their timing - a good national infrastructure had been put in place at the outbreak of WW2, when Britain was certain to be bombed and possibly invaded too. Aneurin Bevan simply had to keep that structure and persuade the medical profession to accept it by, as he famously expressed it, "stuffing their mouths with gold" (i.e. paying them good salaries and allowing them to continue doing a certain amount of private work for fee-paying patients).

I suspect you in the States will have a much harder time setting up such a system, unless WW3 breaks out, or swine flu becomes the new Black Death.

This is how I remember NHS in Britain too! Since those days it has changed, but how much and where I don't know. Yes, we surely could have exactly that here, with a few tweaks to make it our own. Of course that would not work. What would the insurance companies do? Think of all the "people" that would be effected by that kind of a move. All those paper pushers out of work. All those investigators gone. All those claims gone. So called white collar workers would have to resort to getting their hands dirty planting gardens and raising chickens so they could eat! Perhaps, but not likely to happen with the power structure we have when corporations are in charge.

America's health system: Complex, corrupt, and barbaric. Oh, yes, and it's the "best in the world".

But don't you worry about all those insurance company executives who would be put out of their million dollar easy chairs? And what about those millionaire drug company execs who will have to work for a living? and God forbid, those people who took the Hypocratic oath only to do tummy tucks and liposuction? Oh, the humanity falling from their golden towers!

Everyone else makes it work. So can we.