Quote:
Originally Posted by Aquila
Again, any system that treats anyone who walks through the ER doors is a social system. Everyone already pays for those who are uninsured and seek treatments in ERs, clinics, and doctor's offices... with added administrative costs, liability insurance costs, etc. The only way to get EVERYONE paying SOMETHING is to go Single Payer. We pay taxes to ensure that we have police, fire, roads, EMS, etc. These services are there to serve everyone, even if we don't call upon them but once a year. Unless they go "Free Market" and turn those away who can't pay, the only way to fund a system that serves everyone is to get as many as possible paying something into it so that providers of care get paid and don't pass the costs down to everyone else. You can't have it any other way. The costs will rise and rise until no one can afford it unless we have nearly everyone paying into the system.
What's the difference between paying for the uninsured via ever rising and inflated costs on the private market (the loss being passed down to us) and a socialized system (like expanded Medicare/Medicaid) that stabilizes costs and cuts out the inflated costs of excessive administration? That caps the amount awarded in lawsuits to stabilize liability insurance costs? That finally allows those who provide care to finally be paid? A system that stops the bleeding? Why should doctors do insurance paperwork for hours and hours when they could be providing care??? Doctors are getting sick of it. They got into medicine to serve the sick and research disease to help humanity. Why relegate them to this???
We shirk away and whine about "socialism". The doctors will not be government employees. They will remain private. It's simply like being on Medicare/Medicaid. It's subsidized insurance to pay private practitioners so they can stop passing the loss down to us in higher costs for care and thereby raising insurance premiums.
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Altruism always sounds great, but you have to address the issue that doctors salaries will go down. You'd have to include some education reform and medical malpractice reform to address physicians issues with a single payer system. Policy experts are not qualified as much as physicians are to discuss this issue. A deduction of salary probably is not going to cover the overhead expenses. That in turn can affect quality of care. I am waiting to hear everything that rolls out as a free market option.
You can site Canada all day long, but we do have RonB who posted in the past about how long it took for his ankle issue (metal pins) to be addressed. It was a paperwork and waiting game nightmare from what I remember.
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