Single Payer Legislation vs. Reconciliation Bill
Physicians for a National Health Program recently released a comparison of single-payer healthcare and the bill that the House just passed.
You can download the one-page handout here.
Physicians for a National Health Program recently released a comparison of single-payer healthcare and the bill that the House just passed.
You can download the one-page handout here.
I am a nurse for many years, know the current system well. What makes President Obama and the legislators believe that the 32 million or so uninsured now will be able, even if mandated, to purchase insurance in their plan just because the rates are better. I don’t get it. We absolutely need a single payor system, we don’t have to reinvent the whole wheel. We have medicare in place, just expand it for all, and then spend the time to reinvent the spokes of the wheel…. improve healthcare such as better training, retraining, etc. We can even think out of the box… using our highly trained and educated nurses to take on the simpler issues of colds and flu’s and health education and prevention so that just maybe the doctors would have time to do the things they are trained to do in their offices instead of sitting there typing on the computer, writing scripts and sending people off to specialists. I miss the old-time docs that actually practiced medicine. And lastly, and I think most important, we need to integrate homeopathy and chiropractic and acupuncture and herbology and massage along with Western Medicine. These are methods that most likely 75% of Americans use because it actually helps and they know it, that’s why they spend their money there. We need to keep these options in the single-payor system and we will have true health and preventative care! Thank you!
I believe strongly in what Jerri Bedell, above, has written. The United States will need a health care system that will look like no other in the world, and include unique solutions to fit our independent-minded citizens with their diverse views and healthcare needs. We’ve been lied to so loudly by factions who’ve been bought and paid-for by the prosperous insurance companies that we have a lot of re-educating to do. First of all, we need to stress that we ALREADY pay far more for our health care than other developed nations do, and get less for our dollars. If we do this right, we can pay less than we do now, and cover all the various kinds of health services and supplies people need. Businesses will be relieved of the expensive burden of covering a significant part of their employees’ healthcare, so hiring will open up. Individuals will no longer lose their lives and/or homes to inadequate healthcare coverage, so the anxiety–the malaise–that currrently blankets this country regarding this issue will be lifted. Quickly, we’ll see that sharing the burden of paying for this will cost less than we’re paying now. Negotiations with pharmaceutical companies and other providers will lower costs for all. Medical students will be rewarded for going into Primary Care, and yes, nurses and practitioners will cover simple care in local clinics like the ones already being built in many of our communities. This can be done, if we can get the insurance companies’ and big pharm’s hands out of our cookie jar. They have paid for our politicians’ allegiance “fair and square”, so getting this done is not going to be easy. We can have so much more than we have now AND pay less for it, but people will have to wake up and demand Single-Payer!