What is Medicare for All?

PVW said:

I think you're being too dismissive of the question of choice here.

One can argue that the push for universal health care is, at root, about expanding choice. Instead of spending time on the phone with Cigna or Blue Cross arguing about re-reimbursements or making employment choices based on health coverage, people can instead put their time, energy, and passion into things they actually care about. 

I think that's a strong argument. I don't think that's quite the argument for single-payer, though. That argument is not just that universal health care will grant more choice, but that government-funded single payer will actually deliver on this. That second argument is a harder sell.

What offering a government-provided option alongside private ones does is make it a softer sell. It lets people say "yes, I'm open to giving this a chance" without a feeling of lock-in. And yes, that costs a lot more, but what you buy with that is giving people the feeling that they are in fact making a choice, rather than being forced to accept, and I think we downplay the importance of that at our peril.

 Maybe it sounds dismissive, but I don't mean it to be.  It's just that it's been put forth as at least equal in importance to cost and comprehensiveness of coverage.  And it's only important to people because of the anti-single payer propaganda IMHO.  Does anyone ***** and moan that we don't have a choice of which police department to call if we get robbed or what fire department we can pick to put our our house if it's on fire?  It's a misdirection that has been used to con people into paying private companies more for less.

ml1 said:

PVW said:

I think you're being too dismissive of the question of choice here.

One can argue that the push for universal health care is, at root, about expanding choice. Instead of spending time on the phone with Cigna or Blue Cross arguing about re-reimbursements or making employment choices based on health coverage, people can instead put their time, energy, and passion into things they actually care about. 

I think that's a strong argument. I don't think that's quite the argument for single-payer, though. That argument is not just that universal health care will grant more choice, but that government-funded single payer will actually deliver on this. That second argument is a harder sell.

What offering a government-provided option alongside private ones does is make it a softer sell. It lets people say "yes, I'm open to giving this a chance" without a feeling of lock-in. And yes, that costs a lot more, but what you buy with that is giving people the feeling that they are in fact making a choice, rather than being forced to accept, and I think we downplay the importance of that at our peril.

 Maybe it sounds dismissive, but I don't mean it to be.  It's just that it's been put forth as at least equal in importance to cost and comprehensiveness of coverage.  And it's only important to people because of the anti-single payer propaganda IMHO.  Does anyone ***** and moan that we don't have a choice of which police department to call if we get robbed or what fire department we can pick to put our our house if it's on fire?  It's a misdirection that has been used to con people into paying private companies more for less.

 People believe the police will come. They believe the fire department will come. They do not have an equally firm belief that a government program will cover their medical needs. That trust has to be earned, and a push for single payer is asking people to just accept as fact something they're not yet convinced of.

BTW, I think "cost" is generally a red-herring when it comes to politics. It's important to policy makers -- we do not have infinite resources, so spending on one priority means less for another -- but for the general public, cost is not an actual concern, but a way of talking about other things.

PVW said:

 People believe the police will come. They believe the fire department will come. They do not have an equally firm belief that a government program will cover their medical needs. That trust has to be earned, and a push for single payer is asking people to just accept as fact something they're not yet convinced of.

 they don't believe that a government program will cover them because of the anti-single payer propaganda.  and the cost is not a red herring with regard to health care because most of us are already paying a lot of those costs ourselves out of our own pockets.

I'm not suggesting that people don't have those beliefs, it's just my frustration that major Democrats haven't pushed back on the underlying arguments.  The arguments have been made in bad faith, and they are often weak, if not downright dishonest.  But Democrats have generally let those bad arguments go unchallenged.

This is probably a dumb question, but while we are pursuing a "national" solution, what stops us from fixing this at the state level also? Why does this have to be a federal program? Because the problem with any federal program is that the all branches of the federal government are not fully democratic, and disproportionally skew republican, so it is really hard to get anything done.

ml1 said:

 they don't believe that a government program will cover them because of the anti-single payer propaganda.  and the cost is not a red herring with regard to health care because most of us are already paying a lot of those costs ourselves out of our own pockets.

I'm not suggesting that people don't have those beliefs, it's just my frustration that major Democrats haven't pushed back on the underlying arguments.  The arguments have been made in bad faith, and they are often weak, if not downright dishonest.  But Democrats have generally let those bad arguments go unchallenged.

and don't forget 40 years of anti-government propaganda, started by the Repubs but bought into by the Dems to a large extent too.

Remember Clinton's "the era of big government is over".

FU Bill.

I think even many Democrats are not fully convinced single-payer will deliver on its promise. Some of that, sure, you can attribute to propaganda, but as I mentioned toward the beginning of this thread, you're also fighting against the dynamic of "I'm going to take away something you already have but replace it with something I promise will be much better." That's inherently going to kick up skepticism, politics aside.

Put another way -- on health care, people's experience with their current plans tells them insurance is often frustrating and inadequate. People also have experience with different plans as they change jobs, which has also shown them that different plans are often just worse in a different way. Now you're saying "here's yet one more plan, but we promise this one will be much better," and people understandably ask "why should we believe that?"

I had forgotten about this thread when I posted in the other one that we should have a separate thread.

PVW said:

Put another way -- on health care, people's experience with their current plans tells them insurance is often frustrating and inadequate. People also have experience with different plans as they change jobs, which has also shown them that different plans are often just worse in a different way. Now you're saying "here's yet one more plan, but we promise this one will be much better," and people understandably ask "why should we believe that?"

 what we have now really, really, really sucks and is really, really, really expensive.  I say that as someone with the so-called "Cadillac" of employer provided insurance.  One concern I have is what happens to my kids in a few years when they turn 26 and they can't be on our policy.  If they can't afford insurance on the exchange, will I need to help them out and buy MORE insurance policies?

it's hard to imagine a "Medicare for All" could possibly be worse and more costly than what we have.  It's dismaying that Democrats can't communicate (or won't communicate) that reality to people.

ml1 said:

PVW said:

Put another way -- on health care, people's experience with their current plans tells them insurance is often frustrating and inadequate. People also have experience with different plans as they change jobs, which has also shown them that different plans are often just worse in a different way. Now you're saying "here's yet one more plan, but we promise this one will be much better," and people understandably ask "why should we believe that?"

 what we have now really, really, really sucks and is really, really, really expensive.  I say that as someone with the so-called "Cadillac" of employer provided insurance.  One concern I have is what happens to my kids in a few years when they turn 26 and they can't be on our policy.  If they can't afford insurance on the exchange, will I need to help them out and buy MORE insurance policies?

it's hard to imagine a "Medicare for All" could possibly be worse and more costly than what we have.  It's dismaying that Democrats can't communicate (or won't communicate) that reality to people.

 Yeah, I'm in the same boat but a bit ahead of you. My son just aged out of my plan, and he's on Cobra now, which is costing, I think, $900/month.

It is really surprising that with now tens of millions losing insurance that this issue isn’t being discussed more.

Bumping this. 

Not for yesterday's reasons but today's and this time's.

The unemployment rate is now 20% with 26.5 million unemployed. Presumably the great majority of those as well as their dependents are without health insurance. So what's that, another 30-35 million or so scrambling for Cobra or going uninsured?

Nothing as afar as I've heard from the Democratic Party in general. Media's been pretty quiet too.

Am I missing it?

Most of us here have agreed that M4A is the end-goal. Is an opportunity being lost or is the calculus the same? Is there a way to raise the issue now without the usual socialism scare tactics?

I would guess that the vast majority of the newly unemployed had no employer provided health insurance in the first place. Can't lose what you didn't have.

Also, an untold number of unemployment claims are filed by workers who were furloughed. Furloughs often, if not usually, keep employer-provided health benefits in effect.