Posted by Tina
I was collecting quotes and information about single payer healthcare today but the exercise led me
in a direction I hadn’t expected. The bankrupt notion that government can and will do a better job at delivering a vital, very personal service and for a cheaper price was at the heart of my research. It gnaws on my sensibilities….even made me feel a little queezy! Just the realization that a huge government bureaucracy of highly paid strangers must be paid in addition to the price of the healthcare and insurance should make everyone shudder! Add to that the level of power and control that is handed over…or I should say, the level of power and control that is given up… surrendered!…to nameless, faceless, people having no connection to the individual, no sense of established trust…and with plenty of room to make errors…shudder!
So…what follows is a collection of quotes and information that I hope will give some of our readers a reason to rethink the big government solutions the radical progressives prefer for healthcare. There are very simple alternate solutions to fix the very real concerns Americans have had…like coverage for pre-existing conditions, portability, being able to keep your doctor, affordable insurance coverage and bringing the costs of healthcare down! We are Americans!
We are not helpless to do something about the train wreck now headed our way.
Single payer healthcare has been the ultimate goal of the radical progressive wing of the Democrat Party for decades:
The push for increased government involvement in the administration of health care in the United States dates back to 1912, when presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning on the Progressive Party ticket, called for the establishment of a national health insurance system modeled on what already had been established in Germany. … In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt’s working groups on Social Security and unemployment insurance devoted some time to discussing the feasibility of a national health insurance program that would cover every American. But because of the financial crisis that continued to grip the nation and because the American Medical Association (AMA) was strongly opposed to proposals for government-run health care, efforts to promote legislation toward that end failed to generate any traction.
The march toward single payer has continued in every single Democrat administration since. The current President was determined to see it happen but when they couldn’t get the votes they needed for single payer they did the next best thing…create a law so complex and ugly it would fail…the idea being that the people would hate it and scream for a European style, single payer system:
Barack Obama: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14% of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody.”
Harry Reid: “What we’ve done with ObamaCare is a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever. … We had a real good run at the public option … don’t think we didn’t have a tremendous number of people who wanted a single-payer system.” Asked if he meant to say “single payer,” Reid decalred, “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes!”
Max Bauchus: “There may come a time when we can push for single-payer. At this time, it’s not going to get to first base in Congress.”
Kathleen Sebelius: “I’m all for a single-payer system eventually.”
“Workers, our families and our unions are waging a difficult struggle to win or to keep good health care coverage. There is a better way. Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) has introduced HR 676, national single payer legislation.” – Unions for Single Payer
Now that we’ve established the socialist opinions and desires of the radical political left in America, and recalling that 34 moderate Democrats in the House voted no on the ACA, let’s take a look at healthcare systems in countries around the world that are turning away from their single payer government healthcare because the model is failing patients and because if they don’t their countries will collapse economically.
Prime Minister David Cameron has introduced a bill to partially privatize the National Health Service (NHS) to “avoid a Greek-style financial meltdown”. He also said there is too much bureaucracy in the system that interferes with patient care: “If we were as good at treating cancer as the average European country, we would save 5,000 lives a year.”
That is the voice of a man that has faced up to reality and made a leadership decision to move his country toward privatization of its healthcare system. His voice echoes conservatives in America that have been sounding warnings about single payer for years.
“Europe’s message to the world is no longer that the socialist dream of the cradle-to-grave welfare state is an easy achievement. “Rather, it is the shouted warning that it is a fool’s paradise. The bills are coming due and the only real alternatives – serious financial reform of government or national bankruptcy – are not pleasant.” – Joseph A. Morris, a former Reagan White House lawyer who now serves on the board of the American Conservative Union
A bailout deal for Greece, arranged by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Union includes privatization conditions. Privatizing government run healthcare is just one item in a substantial list of government reforms. The demands follow on the advice of economists that say privatization in the health care industry “would help bring down prices in these areas, which are among the highest in Europe.” But that isn’t all of the bad news tat is driving this appeal to sanity. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development data reports, despite all the government healthcare spending, Greece could never cover 100% of its citizens, reaching only about 83% for primary care. Additionally, healthcare costs are significant contributors to the debt and in Greece, the debt to GDP ratio is 120% with deficit spending at 13% of GDP.
Spain, needing a bailout, is also being forced toward privatization due to the unsustainable socialist government model of “free” taxpayer provided single payer healthcare.
Privatization of healthcare is going on in Georgia as well. Ryan Hahn, writing in World Bank blog, quotes the Minister of Labor, Health, and Social Affairs on the current state of things:
It is absolutely impossible for [a] state like Georgia to retain…254 publicy owned hospitals…Therefore, private medical insurance and [a] private hospital network [are] something that we think is the only way out of the situation.
Mr. Hahn concludes:
…the Georgian authorities hope that these measures will help reduce corruption in the health care system. According to the Transitions Online article, under-the-table payments to doctors are common, but the privatization of hospitals has boosted their salaries by a factor of 20 to 25. I wait to see how successful Georgia is, as many of the transition countries also face the need to reform their health care systems.
Sweden has moved toward privatized of it’s system and reports a better result:
Despite predictions of doom, Sweden’s economy continues to grow and its pro-business coalition has remained in power since 2006. The last election was the first time since the war that a centre-right government had been re-elected after serving a full term. …
… During an hour-long presentation to the Guardian, St Göran’s chief executive, Britta Wallgren, says the 310-bed hospital, serving 430,000 people, outperforms state-owned rivals inside and outside the country.
She says emergency patients see a doctor within half an hour, compared with A&E waits of up to four hours in the NHS. “We took an A&E department that dealt with 35,000 patients a year and now treats 75,000,” Wallgren says. “As admissions grow and we have an increasingly elderly population so must our performance improve.”
Capio stresses that St Göran has low levels of hospital-acquired infections, and patient surveys record high levels of public satisfaction….
And finally, la piece de resistance…
A private surgical center in Vancouver, Canada provides a window into what might happen in America if we don’t replace Obamacare with other workable healthcare solutions:
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 23 — The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada’s most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise.
Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years before receiving treatment.
But no one is about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there. Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees.
The country’s publicly financed health insurance system — frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity — is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.
Dr. Day, for instance, is planning to open more private hospitals, first in Toronto and Ottawa, then in Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. Ontario provincial officials are already threatening stiff fines. Dr. Day says he is eager to see them in court.
“We’ve taken the position that the law is illegal,” Dr. Day, 59, says. “This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years.”
People! The writing is on the wall. Obamacare will go, one way or the other. I vote for the more painless repeal and replace, but that’s just me.
A tip of the hat to Senator Ted Cruz and a cadre of patriots who are showing themselves to be honorable men of strong conviction, a rare commodity in DC reminiscent of our Founding Fathers:
“If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people … must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.” -Federalist No. 33 (1787)
Which brings me full circle to the article from whence began this meandering journey began.
To see what our health care future will be we need only to look out our window of our own yard.
Our veterans are waiting 2-3 years to get the medical care they need after completing over 70 pages of filing forms. Once admitted the medical care reported is very good, but the facilities have been exposed as substandard, filthy and understaffed.
The Veterans Administration is the forerunner to our national health care run system. If our government can’t handle the load of just our vets how in the world does anyone think they can do it for a whole nation?
I agree ObamaCare was designed to eventually bring us to a single payer system, it was designed to fail but once the door is opened on Oct. 1st there will be no closing it.
Here is an article I just read where the writer believes things are going to get very bad, but they do get better in the end.
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Why is Obamacare so unaffordable? Because it was conceived as a political weapon of mass economic destruction:
Obamacare is only the first wave of economic destruction headed our way
The bottom line in all this comes down to the following:
1) Obamacare is unleashing an economic nightmare across America. Workers are being punished across the board, losing their jobs, their work hours and their insurance policies. This is happening precisely because Obamacare makes it unaffordable for many employers to cover all the required health care costs. Welcome to the “part-time society!”
2) For most people — but not everyone — Obamacare insurance rates will be much higher than what they’ve been paying. Why is this the case? Because the Obamacare system preserves and protects the Big Pharma monopoly, shoveling billions of dollars into drug companies each year under the guise of “medical treatment.” Instead of reducing health care costs, the Obamacare system is actually focused on helping Big Pharma profit from a sick-care system of ongoing chronic disease.
3) Ultimately, the financial end of America grows ever closer with each passing day. This system of unlimited debt, unlimited entitlements and unlimited spending will, of course, come to a catastrophic end. How do I know this? Because it is a simple fact of reality that all things which are unsustainable must, at some point, end. And when it comes to debt, the longer the denial, the more devastating the wake-up call.
Today, the federal government’s out-of-control debt spending is, by all accounts, unsustainable. The only real question is how long they can keep the faith-based Ponzi scheme running before the world’s central banks decide to start dumping U.S. treasury debt on the open market, at which point the house of cards implodes almost overnight.
4) Because of point #3, above, the final fact on all this is that Obamacare won’t really matter in the long run anyway because the entire federal government is headed for a debt implosion which will very likely end in some sort of wholesale downsizing of government. The insanity you are witnessing right now is indicative of the final chapter of a failed government on the verge of collapsing into ruin. When that day arrives, expect short-term social chaos followed by long-term abundance as principles of economic liberty are finally restored.
Full Article: http://www.naturalnews.com/042211_Obamacare_economic_destruction_American_workers.html#ixzz2g0dMC3DW
70 freaking pages of forms for vets!!!! What an insult.
did not even read! Insurance companies on the exchanges are not gov ran. OMG got that far and stopped.
You sign up with an Insurance company not the gov unless you go on medicaid.
So if you want to stay with your company stay! If you want to shop Shop! That is freedom!
I will be shopping and I stand to save $300.00 a month personally. To each their own!
Lets start with the facts
Sad, but true Jack.
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Veterans Often Wait Over A Year For Benefits, Some Wait Up To 642 Days As VA Struggles To Handle Claims:
From the CIR report:
The agency tracks and widely reports the average wait time: 273 days. But the internal data indicates that veterans filing their first claim, including those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, wait nearly two months longer, between 316 and 327 days. Those filing for the first time in America’s major population centers wait up to twice as long — 642 days in New York, 619 days in Los Angeles and 542 days in Chicago.
The ranks of veterans waiting more than a year for their benefits grew from 11,000 in 2009, the first year of Obama’s presidency, to 245,000 in December — an increase of more than 2,000 percent.
And the VA is predicting that the situation will get worse, as the number of veterans waiting on the department to process their claims is expected to surge past the current 900,000 and toward a million by the end of March. A spokesman for the VA told the CIR that the department is being inundated by a nearly 50-percent increase in the number of filed claims. He said the growth was due to a combination of increasing numbers of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans returning home, broadening claims for PTSD and Gulf War illness, and new guidelines allowing Vietnam vets to request compensation for complications due to exposure to Agent Orange.
The department is also being crushed, quite literally, under claims filed on paper. The CIR reports that 97 percent of all veterans’ claims are submitted on paper, a trend that recently led the VA to warn that the weight of the files and cabinets had compromised the structural integrity of one of its office buildings in North Carolina.
(Click over to the Center for Investigative Reporting for the entire report, as well as a picture of a VA office flooded with paperwork.)
Veterans groups have called on President Barack Obama, who has frequently touted his record on veterans issues, to address the failure of the VA under his watch.
“If this report is true, it reveals a total betrayal of trust for America’s veterans. IAVA calls on the president to respond to this report immediately. Enough is enough,” Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans Association CEO and Founder Paul Rieckhoff said in a statement. “Disabled Iraq and Afghanistan veterans should not have to wait until 2015 to receive the financial and health support they depend on. We call on the president to establish a presidential commission to end the VA backlog now. This backlog is a national embarrassment — it’s time to end it once and for all.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/14/veterans-benefits_n_2875637.html
Here is another horror story from CNN. If this is how the government treats our vets just think of what it will be like for our kids?
Hundreds of thousands of war vets still waiting for health benefits:
Rioux has been trying to get his disability claim fully processed since January 2011, shortly after he returned from Afghanistan.
The litany of delays includes lost paperwork, long wait times for appointments and erroneous lab results. At one point, a doctor prescribed him medication for a bladder infection he didn’t have; he’d never given as much as a urine sample.
Because of his debilitating injuries, neither Rioux nor his wife, Maggie, is able to work full time. Rioux said without his wife’s care, “I’d be in the fetal position. I’d be curled up in a ball. I couldn’t do it.”
In August 2011, the VA told Rioux his claim was in review and, four months later, he was told to expect a decision by the end of the year. None came.
Both he and Maggie wrote numerous letters seeking help, including one to first lady Michelle Obama, with a copy sent to Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki.
Three months ago, the Riouxes finally heard from the VA about his claim. It rejected coverage for his traumatic brain injury, granting him limited disability coverage that amounts to about $660 a month.
Attempts to get full disability coverage have left the Riouxes often lost in a morass of red tape and confusing policies at dozens of offices in various veterans medical centers.
“That is trademark VA — that you get answers, and then a different answer from the same building, but a different floor or a different office,” Maggie Rioux said. “And the confusion that ensues is monumental.”
The Riouxes are not alone. Two-thirds of the 860,000 applicants have been waiting longer than the 125 days that Shinseki set as a goal for processing claims. On average, the VA said veterans wait more than eight months — 256 days — before their claim is resolved.
CNN interviewed 16 veterans for this report, all of whom recounted monthslong waits to get a simple evaluation of their disabilities. Many said they had not received prompt help for serious mental health issues. One vet said he called a VA suicide prevention hotline, was told he would be called back, and a return call never came — a situation the agency said never should have happened.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/29/health/delayed-veterans-benefits/
dewey “did not even read!”
That explains your misunderstanding of the post. The title alone should have given you a clue.
People have already lost the insurance coverage they love…including children…and
wives…and part time employees!
President Obama: “If you’re one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance,” Obama said. “This law will only make it more secure and more affordable.”
Wrong on all counts! The law was written behind closed doors and forced through Congress without being read and understood by the Congressmen or the people and without a single Republican vote and 34 nay Democrat votes in the House.
Prior to being elected Obama said:
The President has arbitrarily ignored deadlines and made changes without due process…that’s not legal: “Like King James II, the president decides not to enforce laws he doesn’t like. That’s an abuse of power.”
So glad YOU will benefit…unfortunately a lot of other people all over the country will not.
But all of this is off topic…the ultimate goal of single payer and the single payer countries that are moving to privatization because it doesn’t work was the subject of this article.
Don’t you think its disgraceful that in Canada a dog can get treatment much, much faster than a human?
“Sweden has moved toward privatized of it’s system and reports a better result.”
Tina, the folk with money always get better service than people without. But in Sweden, people without money have their routine medical needs met, unlike this backward, back water we live in.
The very, very, very sad fact is that universal coverage countries have begun to allow private purveyors to people like you, selfish people with private means who can’t wait their turn … so you will just shut the “f” up.
Libby: ” But in Sweden, people without money have their routine medical needs met, unlike this backward, back water we live in.”
How you romanticize socialist solutions! And how unfortunate that feel you must also degrade your own country using the same fanciful imaginings.
“…people like you, selfish people with private means who can’t wait their turn … so you will just shut the “f” up.”
Nice Libby. Both my tax and charitable dollars contribute to the medical needs of the less fortunate in our country and I am happy to “wait my turn”…I just think a system that could serve the public better should be allowed to do so.
The socialist systems do not serve the poor better…they make matters worse for the less fortunate by making certain that everyone is miserably served.
Sorry…not a stellar promotional point for single payer!
NOTICE…the dog is treated better than a human under Canada’s single payer system! The single payer system cannot serve the citizens in timely fashion so they are resorting to sending them to America or the few private clinics now available because of the HUGE demand for services!
Our readers should know:
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
In addition there are a number of big charitable clinics that serve children in need like St. Judes (cancer) and the Shriners Hospital (orthopedic conditions). The Shriners will even provide transportation. In fact, in America there are approximately 1,200 Free and Charitable Clinics providing quality health care to the Nation’s medically underserved.
Your energies might be better spent volunteering some time with one of these …or, you could always put your own money and time where your mouth is, grab a few of your like minded friends and together establish a free clinic in your area if you really care so much! That’s how things get done in America and there is plenty of room for both free and for profit entities. Only under socialist systems does that type of freedom get squashed!
America DOES NOT fail to treat the poor!
The best ObamaCare video you’ll ever see for the ObamaCare video contest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtyf7UHXNTM&feature=player_embedded
it is sad when facts and truth are no longer part of discussion.
Frankly Reagan started the privatization of our healthcare and it has failed. The ACA was written by 2 parties and will need to be ironed out.
So the ACA is the law. There are many things presented in the post as facts. Reads like a Fox news story that can be debunked easily.
The deal is to iron the ACA out as every bill needs help anymore after all the corporate donors get their clauses put in for campaign donations.
Lions and Tigers and bears ooh no!
Privatization = wall street control. That is not Democracy.
If one believes profits before humans so be it. I do not
Privatization = freedom; it is choice
Government run healthcare is monopoly, corporatism, and central control…things you claim to abhor. It is certainly not democracy as we know it…perhaps in the mother country?
Profit is not a dirty word.
Profit is mostly capital that feeds continuing service and participation (jobs). Salary and benefits are the compensation for work.
Profit is also a snapshot on a given day so the taxman can be paid. It does reflect what CEO’s put in their pockets…or locked family vaults…or their sock drawers!
People in Marxist countries have experienced life without the wonders of profit. Profit motivates people to work and strive to do better. It allows the dreams of entrepreneurs to become reality. It provides the capital needed to grow and expand the economy creating opportunity for others to grow their own nest eggs and care for their families. Profits allow for investments of savings to grow into a comfortable retirement.
A creative and industrious people, given the blessing of freedom and the rule of law within a Constitutional republic breathe life into community through entrepreneurialism and healthy competition and that competition presses company owners and managers to find ways to provide the best products and services for the lowest possible price.
You have nothing to fear until you create a condition (Obamacare, Medicare) that places government in the middle and in control. Then companies spend money in an attempt to influence laws and acquire positions of grace from the now “rulers” (Obama/Pelosi/Reid) and “authoritarians” (HHS Secretery Sabelius-IRS).
The very corporatism you say you hate and that destroys competition, opportunity and ultimately the economy. You haven’t learned much eschewing Fox news and blogs if you don’t understand this basic of American life.
Been here long?