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Who Will Pay for Health Care?
There's only one big remaining issue on health care reform: how to pay for it. The House wants a 5.4 percent surtax on couples earning at least $1 million in annual income. The Senate wants a 40 percent excise tax on employer-provided "Cadillac plans." The Senate will win on this unless the public discovers that a large portion of the so-called Cadillacs are really middle-class Chevys, expensive not because they deliver more benefits but because they have higher costs.
The dirty little secret under the hood is that less than 4 percent of the variation in the cost of current health-care plans has to do with how many benefits they provide. Most plans that cost more do so because (1) a particular set of employees is older and tends to get sicker than the average set of employees (that's true for a lot of old rust-belt firms), (2) the plan is offered by a small business that lacks bargaining clout with insurers (small businesses pay, on average, 16 percent more for the health insurance they provide, per capita), (3) the work that employees do subjects them to greater risk of medical problems (health-care workers, for example), or (4) most employees are women (who tend to have higher health-care costs than men because women are the ones who bear children). Plans could also cost more but deliver average benefits because (5) insurers in the area don't face much competition (one main reason for the public option).
So by taxing so-called Cadillac plans, the Senate bill would actually end up taxing the Chevy plans of a large portion of the middle class. And as time goes by, a still larger portion, since the Senate plan is geared to the overall rate of inflation rather than to the (much higher) rate of increases in health-care costs.
Defenders of the Senate plan say not to worry. Employers who bear the tax and therefore have an incentive to cut back on health care for their employees will make it up to employees in higher wages. But anyone taking even a passing glance at today's labor market knows this is wishful thinking. Employers have no incentive to raise wages when almost everyone is worried about keeping their jobs. (Besides, a dollar's worth of tax-free health benefit is worth more than a taxable dollar of wages.)
In any event, I thought a major purpose of health-care reform was to get more care to more people, not to cut it back. Even employees who get extra dollars of wages to make up for the cutbacks won't necessarily plow those wages back into health care.
Some say the Senate's excise tax is the only way to control long-term health care costs. Baloney. If a portion of the middle class loses their health care, they won't get the preventive care that's so crucial to containing long-term costs. If Congress wanted to do more cost containment it would allow Medicare and Medicaid to use their huge bargaining power to get lower costs from pharmaceutical makers and medical suppliers. And it would have a public option to compete with private insurers.
Of course, we're playing with probabilities here. No one knows exactly what will happen when the Senate excise tax hits -- how many employers will cut back coverage without raising wages to compensate, how many middle class people will be hit hard by this, how many who do get higher wages will use them to buy health care, including preventive care.
But why even take these chances when the House bill simply and cleanly goes after the top 1 percent? It's not as if couples earning over a million can't afford to pay the tax. When I last looked, the top 1 percent was taking home a record 23 percent of total income. If anything, the Great Recession is widening the gap. It's bonus time on Wall Street again. But the middle class is taking a beating.
This is the last big fight on health care reform. It's being fought right now. Make your voice heard.
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
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83 Comments so far
Show AllWhy take these chances? Is that rhetorical? Why would Democrats take a chance on offending the ones who line their campaign coffers?--do we have to look any further than that? I am beyond rage about this. I am beyond writing to my Congressman or going to town meetings. I simply have a firm resolution not to vote for these bastards, not to take part in an electoral process in which my viewpoint is totally corrupted. I am alienated by these dirty politics and am thankful that I am not forced to vote. Not voting is a right also and about the only option I have left that is consonant with my conscience.
I feel the same way, except that I think it's better to go ahead and vote--for a third party. If we don't vote at all, it is assumed that we are satisfied with the status quo, not that we are protesting it.
>> If we don't vote at all, it is assumed that we are satisfied with the status quo, not that we are protesting it.<<
Exactly.
Except the politicos also know that many who don't even register to vote are already turned off by the corruption and disregard for the people they see in Washington and their state capitals. They figure this is a null sum so discount them as a factor. Do not vote if you want not to be taken seriously. And don't then cop-out by calling it a "matter of conscience."
Gary
For me not voting is NOT an option. I want a chance to have my voice heard if only in a small, and probably useless, manner -- except it does show contempt for the duopoly. I will vote for Nader, assuming he runs, if I have to write in his name.
If enough people do vote their conscience than Washington will take notice. If only enough people bother to vote and don't let dismay and weariness compromise their civic duty.
This DEFORM bill (to borrow a phrase) is just what the Republicans say it is -- a boondoggle. Lord help when the Republicans get something right! Though they don't really point to big pharm and health insurance as the real culprits here.
Gary
Failing to vote gives the Dems leverage to tell us that they need to move further to the right to win, the assumption being that whoever didn't vote for them voted for a Republican. If more voters voted for Nader, Green Party, and other left of Dem candidates, the Dems would have fewer excuses for selling us down the river.
We could easily pay for single-payer health care for all by reducing the BLOATED military budget only 20%.
Or we could tax hedge funds at 35%, instead of 15%.
Or we could raise the top marginal tax rate on income over $3 million to 70%.
Discussion of these populist ideas was choked off by the corporate media who use the public's airwaves as a weapon against the public.
Really. Reich is talking about how we pay for the pathetic crumbs left on the table. In reality there are a multitude of ways to pay for a much-improved health care system like single-payer Medicare for All.
The trillion dollars the Dems plan to spend on Obamacare could fund single-payer without any cuts to military, etc.
Keep in mind that most of the trillion dollar cost of Obamacare is taxpayers' money being sent to private insurance companies with the HOPE that they pay off claims of the insureds.
The top one % of income earners got their big capital gains tax break under Reagan. Time for them to give back a small tax surcharge on their millions so that ordinary people don't die prematurely for lack of health insurance.
We're already paying enough for universal health care. About twice as much in fact.
As one famous Republican said, reminiscent of Scrooge: "Are there no emergency rooms? Are there no home remedies?"
There isn't anything in the bills under consideration that is worth saving or fighting for. Both House and Senate bills are utterly worthless and do NOTHING to address the horrors of this health care system. What's next? An amendment allowing pharmaceuticals to charge double or triple for drugs if they whimsically decide the patient could survive without any treatment? Or that doctors can withhold care unless patients agree to do his/her laundry for a year? Then we'll be enlisted to fight against these measures, as if we're getting a "good" bill.
Let this lemon die on the vine. Who cares if Republicans want to defeat it, and therefore progressives must fight to keep a corpse alive? The whole goddamn thing is a massive insult to Americans and everyone knows this. Give Obama the failure he deserves, since he has clearly failed the people who elected him, and deliberately so.
There's a horse race going on in Massachusetts right now between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley.
Coakley was endorsed by Kennedy's widow then went into the last debate and got trounced by Brown.
Some polls say the race is "too close to call".
But here's the disgusting part in this. Even if Brown wins in next Tuesdays Special Election for the senate seat, the Democrats will NOT ALLOW THE RESULTS TO BE CERTIFIED UNTIL AFTER THE HEALTHCARE VOTE, thereby insuring a win for Obamacare.
Here are a few links to chew on:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/01/12/its_the_peoples_seat_and_its_up_for_grabs/
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9D6A7E80&show_article=1
I won't lie. I am a Single Payer advocate and I think the legislation being considered is despotic. I would be the first to cheer if ANYBODY had the spine to kill it.
Here's a good link that sums up how this legislation will really hurt Medicare and how Medicare is ALREADY being hit hard:
http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/faustian-bargain-congress-and-health.html
IF, and I know it's a big IF, Brown wins next Tuesday and the Democrats refuse to certify the election so the voters' voices can't be heard regarding the healthcare bill, I predict there will be an outcry so huge in Massachusetts that it will make all our heads spin.
The will of the voters VS. the will of Rahm and Obama.
This will be an interesting one to keep an eye on.
It's really sad to think that the progressives' only hope to stop this legislation is NOT our own Democratic Progressive Caucus, but possibly the voters of Massachusetts through electing a REPUBLICAN to the Senate.
Then only to see THE DEMOCRATS play dirty politics and thwart the will of the People.
If this happens I think it may be the straw that breaks the camel's back and forces mainstream Democrats to finally awake from their slumber and form a third party.
Interesting stuff. Except your last point: "mainstream Democrats" forming a third party? I don't think so. Mainstream Democrats are the problem! Their "slumber" is actually their attentiveness to the details of how to seem exactly like Republicans by imitating the Republican-lite president. If the meager handful of progressive Democrats, like Kucinich, Feingold, Woolsey, Grayson and maybe four or five others would break away and help form a third party, maybe then we'd have something. But they're not gonna do it. The more they're ignored by the Obama/Emanuel cabal, the more doggedly they cling to the Party.
This accounts for a lot of the paralysis going on in Washington. Nothing truly new or remotely progressive is allowed to emerge because there are too many progressives who refuse to face the reality that their politics are not welcome in either wing of the duopoly. So there is stasis, the opposite of change. And that was Obama's purpose all along.
The presumption that Congress is seeking to contain or cut health care costs is laughable to begin with. This is the same Congress that passes the defense budget without asking any questions and then writes supplemental checks to the president for wars whenever he asks for it. Why, when it comes to actually providing something for the people (as opposed to profiting the corporations) does Congress suddenly wakes up to look at costs involved?
Reich sez: "In any event, I thought a major purpose of health-care reform was to get more care to more people, not to cut it back."
***
The few people who believed in that "purpose" were turned aside at the door by Obomber/Pelosi or arrested by Baucus.
And somewhere along the line, the Ministry of Truth changed the wording of this effort from "health-care reform" to "health-insurance reform™".
Health care has long since been removed from the equation.
duplicate
Leave it to the Dems in the Senate to make this shit taco of so called reform even worse then it already is!
We're all going to pay for healthcare in more ways than one, and not in the way that many people think we'll pay for it. People without healthcare insurance will end up depleting their savings if they end up in the hospital due to a serious illness or injury. People who do have healthcare insurance will continue to pay exhorbitant premiums, deductibles and co-payments. In either case, people will end up paying through the nose for healthcare that's poor or mediocre in quality and possibly dangerous to their overall health, welfare, well-being, and possibly their lives.
whatever happened to Obama's promise that the wealthy would pay more and those making under 250,000 a year would see no tax increases?
instead Obama attacks the unions - one of the last traditional bases of demoncratic power left..... this guy's true intentions seem to be to destroy the democratic party....and the left at the same time..... good riddence to the demos but hopefully the left becomes a big thorn in the side of obama......
obama the gift that keeps giving - to the rightwingnuts it's christmas every day.....
if there's ever been a time that a 3rd party has a chance of gaining influence it's now - VOTE GREEN PARTY
better yet contact your local GREEN PARTY and get involved....
voting is not enough
Who? Red Inkumbents! Cut DEM all off at the BILL$!
Robert Reich correctly and completely explains why Obama's tax is bad to say the least.
Lord Obama is a dream for those who want the US to be routed in the international competition (fostered by the huge corporate players in the global economy) for scarce resources and for economic status and prestige. Obama is apparently moving up the day when the dollar loses its status as international reserve currency, although the greenback may nevertheless hang on for a few more decades even with the damage wrought by Obama and his cronies at the Fed and in the banking industry. But be warned that exactly how many decades remains completely unknown: it could be as few as two more decades or as many as six more decades.
But thanks in part to Obama's insistence on the most right wing economic policy possible at every juncture, the prospects of countries like China, Germany, Japan, and even Brazil are looking fairly strong. Are there any major countries that have worse prospects than the US anymore?
It really seems that everything Obama pushes for is economically inferior to the alternative. Think of Obama as the 6 o'clock express to the depths of economic hell.
For those who at this point want the health insurance deform to be considered a total failure as soon as possible, and to absolutely, positively guarantee that it eventually will be considered a total failure, we do have allies in Lord Obama and his sidekick, Lord Emanuel.
Priors and the no jobs counter: http://www.unity-progress.blogspot.com
Healthcare is just one of the many issues on which the elected representatives are not representing those who voted for them. The framers of our Constitution, usually portrayed as brilliant men, either wanted a nation that wasn't very democratic, or they weren't very brilliant men. By giving disproportionate power to Senators who represent a very small population, lifetime Supreme Court appointments, limiting the vote, etc., the framers ensured there wouldn't be "too much" democracy. The past and present members of the Supreme Court obviously didn't and don't want a strong democracy, or they wouldn't have equated money with free speech. If money is not equally available to all, then some will have more "free" speech than others (oddly enough, the ACLU supports Buckley vs Valerio, go figure). In other words, in this country, money will always talk and BS will always walk. That is, unless people start to stick up for themselves (stealing the money or property back). That being said, this is not easy to do. There are many ways to do this, not all of which are legal, but with guys like we have creating the laws, what is the use of calling something illegal? Some things people can do are not only legal but downright easy and should be obligatory, like transferring bank accounts from big banks like Citibank to small banks and credit unions. I, my proud self, am about $10,000 up on Citibank (my 1st bankruptcy), and have stiffed quite a number of these Nazi companies. Make "mistakes" on your taxes every year. Take up collections to feed homeless people and bus them to these CEO's homes to camp out on their lawns. These people, both in govt and in corporations are ruthless; bitching, writing letters to reps, and holding vigils will never get the job done.
Now that is the most right on statement of the year!!!!!!!! I am in NZ now....and they way s**t is going you can keep the place. He's right if don't steal it back you won't get it back. This government and their corporate task masters would see all of us, excuse me you, homeless, hungry, and without a pot to piss in and the window is already gone!!! Why are we still writing letters and marching. Demand jail time for these greedy bastards or get ruthless with the CEO's. There should a movement of repercussions to these greedy people. They shouldn't even be allowed to leave their homes without being heavily harassed and abused. Then, maybe, they will beg to give back this money and accept proper laws that jail people for rampant greed. You cannot debate a killer in a dark alley about the virtues of life, so why are we trying? It's been 1 year since the Healthcare debate started....who is standing for or getting vengeance for the people dying while they line their F***ing pockets?????? Revolution now people!!!! They are ruthless and they have no reason to stop now, believe it or keep crossing your fingers hoping....someday.
I just saw this most appropriate bumper sticker in a catalog which aptly sums up the state of health care in this country:
AMERICA HAS THE BEST WEALTHCARE $YSTEM
Good question in the title.
Everyone wants "free universal healthcare" but noone wants to pay for it. Let's face it and look at the tax rates in countries that do have free healthcare (it's in the low 40%s).
Healthcare is not free, unless you're unemployed or not paying taxes. For everyone else it cost money. Once Americans will face that reality, that's when real discussion about "free" healthcare can start.
There was a good piece on CD yesterday by David Swanson adressing those talking points. At least in those countries they actually get some return on their taxes rather than paying tributes to to the MI government ruling elite.
Vern, Exactly right! Also if you consider what the average American pays in health insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles, etc, those tax rates in countries with national health care programs don't look so bad anymore.
I'm tired of hearing the same old lies about how high the tax rates are in countries that have universal healthcare.
Their tax rates include not only universal healthcare, but also such items as free or heavily subsidized university education, excellent public transportation, excellent day care, family support, and decent pensions for senior citizens.
We actually pay MORE than the citizens in these countries do, because we have to pay for or do without the public services and amenties they take for granted. The difference is that we don't share the burden through a progressive tax system. Instead, we have to pay out of pocket, with dollars that have already been taxed to pay for war and giveaways to the financial elite. In our system, the middle class and poor pay, and the rich make out like bandits.
Our quality of life is lower, we are sicker and die sooner, and we live in fear of losing what little we have due to illness or job loss. If we could have "high taxes" that gave us the quality of life enjoyed in Scandinavia or the European Union, we would think we had died and gone to heaven.
Our miserable quality of life is not free; we pay through the nose for it.
"We actually pay MORE than the citizens in these countries do, because ". I call BS on that.
Not sure what's going on in Europe, and probably you don't either. I used to live in Canada where I was making a paltry salary there thatw as barely enough for a young family of two and paying approx 30% tax. I'm not including sales tax which is about 13% there.
In the US i make three times more than that yet i only pay about 26% taxes. So I am definitely not paying for anything the govt provides here.
Not sure about your quality of life, but americans tend to complain a lot, just because they don't know the difference. Trust me, I've been places and you have it good here, despite what some media outlets would want you to believe.
"Trust me, I've been places and you have it good here, despite what some media outlets would want you to believe."
Well, that depends on who "you" is, doesn't it? If you think everyone's got it good here, stop smoking that crack for a couple of days and let your head clear enough so that you can take a look around.
Actually, I do know what's "going on in Europe," and I know in spades that we don't "have it good here," despite the constant propaganda trying to convince us that we are so well off.
Since you frequent commondreams.org, maybe you could read David Swanson's essay about recently Steven Hill's new book, "Europe's Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/12
From Swanson's essay:
"The European Union (EU) is the world's largest and most competitive economy, and most of those living in it are wealthier, healthier, and happier than most Americans. Europeans work shorter hours, have a greater say in how their employers behave, receive lengthy paid vacations and paid parental leave, can rely on guaranteed paid pensions, have free or extremely inexpensive comprehensive and preventative healthcare, enjoy free or extremely inexpensive educations from preschool through college, impose half the per-capita environmental damage of Americans, endure a fraction of the violence found in the United States, imprison a fraction of the prisoners locked up here, and benefit from democratic representation, engagement, and civil liberties unimagined in the land where we're teased that the world hates our rather mediocre "freedoms." Europe even offers a model foreign policy, bringing neighboring nations toward democracy by holding out the prospect of EU membership, while we drive other nations away from good governance at great expense of blood and treasure.
...
"Of course, this WOULD all be good news, if not for the extreme and horrible danger of higher taxes! Working less and living longer with less illness, a cleaner environment, a better education, more cultural enjoyments, paid vacations, and governments that respond better to the public -- that all SOUNDS nice, but the reality involves the ultimate evil of higher taxes! Or does it?
"As Hill points out, Europeans do pay higher income taxes, but they generally pay lower state, local, property, and social security taxes. (They also pay those higher income taxes out of a larger paycheck.) And what Europeans keep in earned income they do not have to spend on healthcare or college or job training or numerous other expenses that are hardly optional but that we seem intent on celebrating our privilege to personally pay for.
"If we pay roughly as much as Europeans in taxes, why do we have to pay for everything we need on our own, in addition? Why don't our taxes pay for our needs? The primary reason is that so much of our taxes goes to wars and the military. Recently much of it also goes to Wall Street and corporate bailouts. And this is not entirely new. In a given year, our government gives roughly $300 billion in tax breaks to businesses for their employee health benefits. That's enough to actually pay for everyone in this country to have healthcare, but it's just a fraction of what we dump into the for profit system that, as its name suggests, exists primarily to generate profits. Most of what we waste on this madness does not go through the government, a fact of which we are inordinately proud."
All of these claims can be substantiated by searching on the internet, Chameleon. It sounds like you're one of the lucky ones. Still have a job, and haven't experienced a serious illness and been bankrupted by the medical bills your insurance company wouldn't cover. Haven't had to try to help an uninsured loved one get medical care. Don't need to send your kids to college, don't need to retire with some minimal level of dignity and security, don't care about public transportation, public health, or your neighbors. Maybe you're looking forward to being an 82-year-old "greeter" at WalMart just so you can afford to eat and cover your wife's medication bills (there actually are people like this in our great country!), and maybe you like living in a country with low social mobility, so that if you're born into a poor family in the U.S., you have a much lower chance of rising into a higher socioeconomic class than you do if you're born into a poor family in Europe. Maybe you think this is "having it good." I don't.
Petrkrop
Extremely well said. I am reading Steven Hill's book now and find his writing and arguments to be extremely persuasive. My wife has Parkinson's Disease and she has to worry not only what would happen if she were to lose her job in the near future because she has a "pre-existing condition" but she and I are also concerned that under Obama and the Democrats' less than stellar health care plan about the very real possibility that her premiums may go up by as much as 50 percent. If that happens, then she may very well have to drop the insurance that she now has with her employer. By doing so that would then mean that we may not be able to pay for the drugs that help somewhat to keep her tremors and her fatigue in check.
As Hill points out in Europe's Promise [as well as T.R. Reid in his well written and most relevant book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care], being concerned that an insurance company would have issues with someone because of, as they say in the U.S., a pre-existing condition, is simply unheard in other advanced countries. In the program on Frontline a couple of years ago which was entitled Sick Around the World and featured T. R. Reid, leaders of other democratic countries looked at Reid as if he were crazy or deranged when Reid asked them how many of their citizens died because they did not receive adequate health care. The same response was given when Reid asked them how many of their people had to declare bankruptcy because they were unable to pay their medical bills.
Perhaps the lesson in all of this is that the United States is not as advanced or as wise or that it should be considered "number 1" as so many of its leaders seem to believe. American Exceptionalism seems to be more and more of an oxymoron.
The simple answer is Single Payer. We don't know what will be in the final bill, but if its anything like whats in there now, you are right to be concerned. Your employer would either drop her or the premiums would go up more than 50%. The drugs will be going up substatially. This as it is, couldn't be worse.
This Congress should be ashamed of what they are proposing to do to the people that can least afford it.
>>Trust me, I've been places and you have it good here, despite what some media outlets would want you to believe.<<
If you think "some media outlets" are telling people we have it bad here in America compared to other countries than you are too far out of it TO be trusted. Name these outlets?
Gary
Good point though it is hard it to think of CD as a "media outlet." More like a media watchdog.
Gary
Spot on. So many people seem to think that tax rate is an indicator of freedom with low rates correlating with greater liberty and higher quality of life. Which may be true if you happen to be among the one percent with all the money. Who cares what the tax rate is if you have everything you need? Denmark repeatedly scores the highest with regard to the happiness of it's citizens, with a tax rate of around 70%. Give me some of them high taxes please. In any case, no one is talking about "free" healthcare. Of course it's going to be paid for is some way. The question is, how do you make sure that everyone is covered and gets great care. And it ain't through private insurance companies.
Finally someone who understands. As a European born US resident it never ceases to
amaze me that more Americans just can't seem to grasp this.
Iraq had a pretty good free health care system until the US illegal--yes, illegal--invasion to grab their oil wells and create a wasteland for American business and Blackwater to "fix"with "reconstruction" and privatization. Oh that favorite pet of Americans: free enterprise! It has taken it "Manifest Destiny" across the globe which first began as a vicious killing machine against the Native Americans employing the blood of Africans. And now it is devouring it's own people.
"across the globe which first began as a vicious killing machine against the Native Americans employing the blood of Africans"
This doesn't seem to make sense. What are you referring to?
People seem to have no problem putting all of their taxes - and more - to the war machine. The problem is much deeper than 'not wanting to pay'
"Make your voice heard."
Voice = Money.
No money, no voice. The more money, the louder the voice.
The voice of Criminal Capitalism has silenced all others..
Obama listens only to the sound of his master's voice. He turns a deaf ear to all else while paying stale obligatory lip service that he seems to increasingly resent.
Have you ever witnessed a president with less presence?
"Have you ever witnessed a president with less presence?"
No sir.
Yes, I agree with Vern. I never understood why he was so popular. During the campaign he sounded like a person who had just read a book called "Looking Presidential: A Guide To B.S.-ing An Entire Nation."
Who will pay for health care? The tooth fairy of course.
Simple, the same way universal single payer is paid for in every other civilized country, through tax revenues. Just reduce military spending to the same percentage of GDP that every other developed country finds perfectly adequate and it won't be any problem at all.
Fred54
Bingo! Well said.
This whole health-"care" debacle has nothing whatsoever to do with health. It is a back-door insurance industry bailout/theft, coupled with a guaranteed income stream for the insurance companies. It also provides a nice subsidy for all the ridiculously priced technologies of dubious utility like MRIs that US hospitals charge through the teeth for. (MRIs cost $98 in Japan, flat fee. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/interviews/ikegami.html#1)
Nobody is talking about how to improve health care, because that would actually require discussion of the reasons why Americans are so unhealthy: food-like and "substantially equivalent" genetically-engineered substances replacing real food, hormones and antibiotics in the food supply, large-scale use of pesticides, polluted surface and groundwater, air pollution, etc, etc, etc.
The real beauty of a single-payer system is that it creates strong incentives for the powers-that-be to reduce the poisoning of the people, because they have to share in paying for all the damage, rather than being able to externalize all those costs as they do now.
Lastly, since virtually everyone will face one or another chronic or terminal disease during their lifetime, the entire premise of "insurance" is misguided. It is not insurance, it is pre-paid health care. Besides, from what I have seen, the knee-jerk reaction of almost every medical professional in this country is: if you're sick, it's your own fault for living an unhealthy lifestyle. They generally have little to no idea of what chemicals might be floating around in someone's system (unless it is THC or alcohol - apparently these are BAD, while the PCBs, dioxins, PBDEs, alkylphenol polyethoxylates, pesticides, etc are no problem whatsoever.)
Sioux Rose
WILD CARD: Excellent post.
When we factor in the lousy food which is really artificial faux food filler, the exposures to a plethora of dangerous, toxic pesticides, the probability of accidents thanks to the pervasiveness of "road rage," the victims ambushed by gun shot wounds (in a nation that adores its weapons), the stress factor (that many sources believe factors into compromised health) attributable to an unstable job market (based on criminally negligent priorities applied to the nation's economy), and the untested chemical cocktails produced by "two or more" of big pharma's latest taken together... it would seem that the corporations that have so readily compromised citizens' health (if only peripherally), would own a share in helping to pay for necessary remedies! Fiscal fall-out and its sources constitutes the unspoken half of the health care equation. In any case, you are absolutely right about what we're being offered: a covert plan to bail out the insurance companies. Apparently they were next in line waiting for their turn on Uncle Sam/Santa's lap right after the bankers.
The thing that I don't understand is how they are going to force people pay for this. With so many people hanging on by a thread, living paycheck-to-paycheck, it is like trying to get blood from a stone. Where is the logic in forced mandates that drive a significant fraction of the population into homelessness and bankruptcy? You can't fine people without any wealth; you can of course imprison them, at a taxpayer cost of roughly $33,000 per prisoner. Great plan if the goal is to bankrupt the country, which evidently it is.
As far as I can tell, this is the American equivalent of "Let them eat cake."