What Is Your Opinion Or Experience With Single-Payer Health Care?

Question

I know Canada has it already...and in the U.S.A., it is in the news today because Bernie Sanders has proposed a bill in Congress.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/09/13/single-payer-health-care-what-is-it.html?

Answer 1

Drat... so does this mean I have to get rid of my stocks of US insurance companies? LOL

Comments

Korvo, I am laughing! 

Answer 2

If we had single-payer, I imagine it would be rather like Medicare or Medicaid for everyone.

Mediocre, and soon to go bankrupt.

And of course, the rich Nomenklatura in Canada can always go south to the US for critical medical procedures. 

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2010/02/03/danny_millions_williams_heads_south_for_heart_surgery.html

Comments

Yes, I have read that the rich Canadians just come south to buy the care they need, and avoid the long waits. 

Where I live here in rural Washington State, (I think I may have already posted this?) there are many old people with life-threatening conditions like hypertension, and have had no medical care at all for a year or two. No doctors around; they come, promise to stay, and then leave within a year..

I read that Medicare is many $million (maybe it was trillion) in debt.

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Yes, Virginia, there is a significant shortage of primary care physicians, especially in rural communities, also here in Europe: 

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/02/shortage-primary-care-physicians.html

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I think this was someone who wanted his surgery done now.. and didn't care about the cost. I admit, if you want it done today, and you can afford it, you can get your surgery done in the US.  I found I needed heart surgery in May of 1996, (triple bypass, and a ring put in my heart on one of the valves) It was not immediately life threatening, so the operation was not done till August of that year.  Some rich politicians cannot wait three months, I could.    (turned out I needed four bypasses)

Answer 3

I would rather suggest a diversified, interdisciplinary system, involving specialised public (or state) agencies, private and welfare institutions, including the medical care sector and the related professional experts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Europe

https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2011/may/11/european-healthcare-services-belgium-france-germany-sweden

Comments

Marianne, the Wikipedia link shows Switzerland as ranking very high, just behind the Netherlands. You might not agree, then, that UHC is a good system?

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@Virginia

Actually, the basic health insurance is compulsory, but it is not a unique state insurance; there is a mixture of public and private institutions to choose from, so as to keep the system competitive, and there is always a "franchise" to pay in case of treatment.

Here's some more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Switzerland

Yes, healthcare is expensive, and I don't think that a unique insurance could improve the situation.

Answer 4

I don't know how that would work. I already have Medicare and my own insurance plan which works quite well as Medicare hardly pays for anything if they can get out of it. After they found out that S.S. paid out over 38 million dollars to dead veterans? I would be very leary of any such system. I pretty much agree with Tink on this. It would just get skimmed and go broke leaving everyone without anything.

Comments

Thank you, Rooster. I also cannot see UHC working well, at least here in the USA. However, so many old people around me now cannot get medical care at all, unless they drive to Seattle. But that is a long trip on a grid-lock freeway...and so they go without any doctor...it's not good.