Forum Post: Public Option and Single Payer
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 21, 2011, 12:10 a.m. EST by larryathome
(161)
from Red Bank, NJ
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
What failed us as the people is the fact that we can still get stomped on by insurance companies and big pharma. As with everything else that goes through our congress these days, what the vast majority of people want, the vast majority of people do not get. With a watered down health care bill, the insurance companies are still not held accountable for controlling costs. We needed a single payer system and a strong public option so that the companies that did not play fairly would be the ones to straighten up or ship out.
The world’s most powerful economy should be able to provide a health care system that really is the best. But the disturbing truth is that this country lags at #37, well behind other advanced nations in delivering timely, effective, and afforadable care. We have the highest spending cost on healthcare, then anyone, and not everyone has health insurance!
All other major industrialized nations provide universal health coverage, and most of them have comprehensive benefit packages with no cost-sharing by the patients. The United States, to its shame, has it’s own citizens without health insurance and many more millions who have poor coverage.
http://overthecoals.blogspot.com/
No chance for progress in America
The media pundits keep telling Americans on TV that we must have globalization, we must only elect Republicans and Democrats, we shouldn't have a class war, we should keep letting the politicians take bribes on the record and kickback favors for those bribes, and the list is a bottomless pit of stupidity,
Only people in a deep trance would be irrational. Americans are so arrogant and hypocritical that they'd prefer being destroyed by the pundits who use propaganda to keep them in a trance around the clock.
You mean a single payer system OR a strong public option.
Both, I feel that deductables are a strong reason why people do not seek out care and the public option to hold the insurance companies accountable for controlling costs.
No such thing as both...a public option would be one plan within our system now. Single payer implies that there is only one payer and one comprehensive plan for everyone. Choice would come in choosing your doctor or hospital - instead of your insurance. single payer is the better option - unfortunately, the public option, if it existed with the plethora of other public and private insurance companies - would be undermined, much like medicaid, because it would not be able to compete. Single payer is the only way to have a robust public plan - because then it would be the only plan. The healthy would pay for the sick... everyone is both at some point in time.
I believe that the insurance companies should only exist for the really well to do, because they all stick it to those that cannot afford it. I am for a simple solution. Take the private sector out of healthcare and drive down the costs, because even with a healthcare law on the books, 20% of the money spent on healthcare goes to the pockets of insurers. We should not have to leave our country and go to Canada to get treatment.