Is this Bernie's plan? I know there are subtle but important differences between all the different varieties of "universal healthcare" that exist in the world.
Excuse their obvious bias against it; I wonder what the difference in expected savings (money + lives) might be between all these different variations on the same theme.
The fundamental challenge of any universal health care system is that to cut our spending on health care to the level of other western industrialized countries will take $1 Trillion of annual revenue out of the existing system. There's going to be a lot of disruption and people who need new jobs when that revenue goes to other things in our economy.
There’s a huge difference between downsizing caused by economic forces of the private sector and downsizing caused by outright elimination of an industry by elected officials.
Healthcare (as some other sectors) is full of inefficiencies and removing or, at least, reducing them cannot be seriously labeled as "elimination of an industry". I don't see how job market restructuring in healthcare industry due to proposed transition to the single payer model is different in its essence from potential significant job market restructuring across various industry sectors due to automation trend.
But that line is massively blurred when said downsizing of blue collar workers is a direct (and known) result of free trade agreements made by elected officials. You're adding one step to the chain, but the chain is still there.
> There's going to be a lot of disruption and people who need new jobs when that revenue goes to other things in our economy.
From the paper: "Improvements in system efficiency, such as reductions in billing tasks, will involve a contraction of the workforce. Although the country will benefit from lower costs, 936 000 administrative positions and 746 600 positions in the health-care insurance industry are estimated to become redundant. However, detailed transition plans have suggested either funding for early retirement options, extensive severance, retraining programmes, and relocation expenses for all workers in these sectors. Implementation of such a plan is estimated to cost $61·5 billion annually over 2 years, a sum which would be recouped within the first year by the health-care savings estimated here."
i'm not american, so excuse me for the lack of knowledge, but i've heard that bernie plans to ban private insurance.
is that right? i mean, that seems like a really bad idea -- if you have money, why wouldn't you get better health care?
edit:
btw i live in a country with the largest public health care system in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_%C3%9Anico_de_Sa%C3%BA... and we never banned private health care because... well, even with the best public health care system, you will still have to wait a lot to get any procedure done. so if you can afford, you can pay for private health care and get stuff done faster.
it doesn't mean that public health doesn't work -- it works quite well, it's just that you have to wait a lot sometimes for some procedures.
but... why? i mean, if i can afford it, i would want private health care because it's usually less crowded and you can have stuff done a lot faster.
for example: a friend of mine had to wait 6mo to do a vasectomy through our public health care system.
another friend waited 2w to do his (through private health care)
if you could afford it, wouldn't it be better to pay for it?
for me (and maybe i'm completely in the wrong here) it's like public transportation vs cabs/uber. i know i can take public transportation everywhere, but sometimes i'm in a hurry so i just get an uber. it doesn't mean other people can't use public transportation, it's just that i'm in a hurry and i need to get somewhere faster.
You are confusing Private Health "Care" wth Private Health "Insurance". The issue with Private health Insurance in US is that they have too much power and strong hold on doctors/hospitals etc and for them to make profits, EVERYTHIng is priced too high, EVERYTHING. So private health "insurance" has to die for this to be effective. They can exist only for supplemental stuff. No one is talking about taking away private health "care". You can still go to whoever you want.
i can go to a public hospital and get most procedures done -- the problem is, a lot of them, specially electives, take a LONG time (sometimes, over a year). but i can do them, and i'm not going to get bankrupt if i get bitten by a snake.
but i also have private health insurance -- i pay it myself for me and my wife. why? because sometimes, i don't wanna get into insane lines and wait for hours on ER. also, i can get elective procedures done a lot faster -- which means i'm not crowding our public health care system.
what i mean is: everything i can do with my public heath insurance system i can also do with my private health care system. it's just a matter of how fast it is.
but i also pay for private health care -- because it's... well, better. and fortunately, i can afford it.
so i can go to a private hospital and also get whatever procedure i need.
if you think about it, i'm basically paying in double because my taxes go to the public health care system AND i pay for private insurance -- but i honestly don't care, because i want other people, that have no insurance, to have health care.
Pretty sure thus is the way everywhere here in Europe too, you still pay the huge compulsory insurance but no one forbids private insurance or private out of the pocket. In fact many private places also offer things covered by national insurance if they agree to prices set by the gov.
Yikes, so you have higher taxes to cover universal healthcare AND you have to pay insurance premiums, deductibles and copays on top of that? That's exactly what we libertarian types are afraid of...
i don't pay premiums, copays or deductibles. maybe our system is super different than yours?
i just pay fixed fee per month and i can go to any doctor i want, do any procedures... i mean, i had to do a lot of stuff (including heart exams, endoscopies, blood pressure stuff) and i never had to pay anything out of pocket.
Yes. The summary explicitly references the "Medicare for All Act", which is technically Pramila Jayapal's bill in the house[1]. That is the specific legislation Bernie is campaigning for when he says "our plan". It checks all four of those boxes in your linked tweet. The study also directly cites Sanders twice (to explain where they get their parameters).
The Twitter account @BadEconTakes enumerated something about this in a recent post: https://twitter.com/BadEconTakes/status/1228143455399858176/...
Excuse their obvious bias against it; I wonder what the difference in expected savings (money + lives) might be between all these different variations on the same theme.