Bernie Sanders says he'll introduce 'Medicare for all' bill

[Crazy Ivan]

I feel like the quickest thing to do is to quote myself.

Although the following quote starts out by responding directly to pre-existing condition coverage, it has [I]everything[/I] to do with pricing, what's wrong with how American medicine is priced, and why we must regulate, somehow. If that regulation is expansion of Medicare, then I am all for it.

[QUOTE=Crazy Ivan;51616927]I'm going to explain this once, and brook no argument, because this is the most simple thing. At least if I'm reading this right as some mildly passive rejection of the forced coverage of pre-existing conditions.

Many people, just like you, say how is it fair to force the company to take a guaranteed loss? Isn't insurance like gambling? Isn't it unfair to force the Casino to lose?

In an ideal world? Yes. In the classic American society? Yes.

We no longer live in the classic American society, and we do not live in the ideal world.

[B]Healthcare prices, at every level, are keyed to the cost of insurance. Let me repeat that. [B]Healthcare costs aim to match the payouts of insurance companies.[/B] They [I]do not[/I] aim to match the purchasing power of "the market," or "the common man," because the common man is actually, typically, grossly over-insured.[/B]

[B]This leads to one very simple, very easily understood issue. Runaway price inflation, without any monetary inflation to suit it, and no one's the wiser.

Overinsured (or even regularly-insured) citizens go to the doctor. The doctor bills them, they hit their co-pay, and the insurance company picks up the rest. This means the doctor can go wild. Fourty dollar cotton balls, hundred dollar stethoscope observations, six hundred dollar ass-revealing paper gowns, the list goes on.[/B]

"Well why doesn't the free market sort it out? Why doesn't a cheap doctor just open up?"

Because doctoring isn't a cheap business. Country doctors with their black leather bags and pince-nezes, doing house calls down the road [I]don't exist[/I] anymore. Medical school is more expensive than it ever has been, and the over-injection of capital in to the Healthcare industry by insurance has driven the cost of basic supplies to match. Sure, small-practice doctors exist, but you know what they do when you need [I]or maybe need[/I] something they don't have in house? They refer you to big practices, and you're right back in the big-money-insurance-motivated-price-bracket. Oh, and those small practice doctors? They're not dumb. Medicine is a [B]business.[/B] They don't leave money on the table. So they charge the same, forty dollar cotton balls, etc. etc.

"Okay. Well what if I just go it without insurance, and hope I don't get sick?"

Okay. Enjoy your fantasy land. All it takes is one 'catastrophic incident.' Which themselves are by definition entirely unavoidable and unpredictable. Heart attack, car crash, falling tree, electrocution. Quickly you'll rack up tens of thousands of dollars in bills. For the cost of one uninsured catastrophic incident, you could've gone to a reasonably nice college for four years. You'll be in medical debt that, with insurance, could've only been a few hundred, maybe a few thousand dollars on-treatment, plus a small rate hike.

"Okay okay," I hear you saying. "What's this got to do with the pre-existing conditions?"

Well, Mister Strawman, imagine that because you say, have cancer. Let's even say it's [I]really early[/I] cancer. Let's say it's somewhere really easy to get rid of, even. Completely treatable. Untreated, it'll rack your body and crush your soul, but it's treatable. Easiest cancer in the world. Well congrats, no one will insure you now, because you already have cancer. Won't even let you in the door. If you're really unlucky, your insurance company that you already had will determine it was a pre-existing condition, from before you signed on to the plan, and refuse to cover any services for treatment.

That's right. If you allow pre-existing condition denial, the insurance companies will screw you as hard as they can whenever they have a whiff of something they can dismiss as pre-existing. They will retroactively deny you coverage, they will, through means and ways magical and fantastical, determine you were already at-risk, at-fault and outta-luck.

So now you get to buy treatment for your life [I]ending,[/I] not just threatening, condition on the insurance-priced market. Enjoy your regular one-hundred and fifty thousand dollar bills for routine checkups at specialist oncologists who have their prices pegged to the industry standard. To the [B]insured[/B] standard.

It's not even as catastrophic as cancer. It can be chronic life-long conditions that are entirely manageable, but fatal without treatment. Like congenital diabetes, or early-onset arthritis. Hope you enjoy choosing between buying your medicine and your dinner every week for the rest of your life, because you got yourself some pretty big pre-existing conditions right there with pretty steep price-tags to boot, buck-o.

[B]The fact of the matter is, the near-ponzi scheme-money-laundering of our medical industry has created a buy-in-never-out system. You can't operate as an economic actor in the healthcare market [I]without[/I] insurance, unless you're extremely well off, in which case you just buy [I]really good insurance[/I] and you end up spending less overall than someone with really bad insurance.[/B]

The healthcare industry in America has to be regulated, for the same reason that monopolies have to be regulated. Failing to do so creates a destructive cycle of commerce that enriches the top players, serves the unwitting middle grade, and so horribly abuses the lowest level that it violates American standards and ideals to their core. Anything else, any insistence that this is somehow a matter for the free market to handle, is bourgeois patter, the sort that says, "so long as I'm fine, I'm not concerned." It smacks of lacking empathy for your fellow human beings, your fellow countrymen, and even the man you might have been there but for the grace of God and good breeding.[/QUOTE]

I bolded the parts directly relevant to this Pricing discussion (though most of it is.)

Sorry if that seems like a gratuitous use of a "stock response," but this frankly shouldn't be a discussion. It's something that [I]has[/I] to happen if we want a working society. The systems we have were designed and implemented in a nation that was less than [B]one third[/B] of the size it is now. In a society where we did [I]not[/I] believe all people were created equal or entitled to the same rights and protections. In a United States that was fundamentally designed and built for a homogeneous middle class that [I]no longer exists. [/I]In short, the American medical industry is an outdated relic of a time so foreign and alien to us that it would (rightly) be considered hostile if it dropped in to the present day.

You can argue whatever nonsense you want about how much it will cost, how it goes against our Free-Market values (hah) or cite the same, single instance of it failing in a Western country one, over and over again.

The fact is though, we cannot afford to keep ignoring this issue.

[GordonZombie]

Even though it's unlikely to pass through, it'd be worth it just to see Sanders working for the people yet again and to see him put to shame these asshat Conservatives and the other spineless politicians. I'd like to think that instead of rioting over hijacked causes such as BLM people started demandong healthcare en-masse in the streets. Politicians need to be forced to understand that their constituents' needs come first.

[Sableye]

possible names: the actually affordable care act, SOCIALISM act, the down with insurance act, the save our sick and dying from medical bankrupcy act, the act act, sander's law, the make america healthy again act, Trumpcare, the Republicans Against Preventive Entitlements act

[Kube]

[QUOTE=Sableye;52016207]possible names: the actually affordable care act, SOCIALISM act, the down with insurance act, the save our sick and dying from medical bankrupcy act, the act act, sander's law, the make america healthy again act, Trumpcare, the Republicans Against Preventive Entitlements act[/QUOTE]

I'd love to see a democrat introduce some of these like "Make Healthcare Great Again"

[srobins]

[QUOTE=Chonch;52012996]I'm sure it will demonstrate the highest respect for fiscal responsibility that the Sanders name has become so well known for.[/QUOTE]

Of all the ridiculous things we spend our tax dollars on, I think healthcare is probably worth prioritizing. What was Trump doing with the defense budget? Something like $300bn additional funding in his newest budget proposals? I'm sure I'm wrong about the number but either way, the point is we have plenty of money to spend, we just choose awful places to put it. Maybe instead of building walls and tanks, let's make it so I don't have to choose between paying my tuition and getting my broken ankle fixed.

[caseytube]

[QUOTE=LtKyle2;52017666]I'd love to see a democrat introduce some of these like "Make Healthcare Great Again"[/QUOTE]

make healthcare great for once