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I have been in favor of getting the insurance companies out of healthcare for a long time now.I naively thought that with the election of a sympathetic President and strong mojorities in both chambers of Congress,with healthcare costs going through the roof,with insurance premiums skyrocketing,and health expenditures bankrupting not only individuals but huge corporations and eventually our national government,that we would wake up to the mistakes we made in 1994 and actually "get 'er done" this year.I guess $41million of lobbyist money spread around amongst the proper "leaders" carries more weight than the will of the people as expressed in numerous polls which show wide majorities of Americans supporting a single-payer healthcare system.
I would like to thank Senator Rockefeller for his support and for holding hearings on healthcare reform.
I would also like to make everyone who reads this aware of a group of Doctors who agree with me that any effort at reform which only diverts more taxpayer money into the overflowing coffers of the insurance companies isn't reform.These mandate-types of reform have been tried in Massachusetts,Oregon,and other places,and have failed due to the lack of cost-control mechanisms,which made them unsustainable.This group is Physicians for a National Healthcare Program,and Dr.Robert Stone is one of it's leaders.He can be reached at grostone@gmail.com if anyone would like to get in touch with him and thank him for his work on our behalf.The following is what he had to say about single-payer:
Stone said that by replacing the for-profit, private health insurance companies with a single-payer program - an improved Medicare for All - the United States would save more than $400 billion in administrative costs annually. He also said that single payer is only reform proposal that includes effective cost-containment provisions.
"In fact, the strongest argument for Medicare for All is that it is the most efficient reform proposal with the greatest ability to control costs," Stone said. "That is exactly why so many members of the 'medical-industrial complex' oppose such a plan, because, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has said, 'Remember that what the rest of us call health care costs, they call income.'
"In short, single payer is the only plan that pays for itself and covers everyone. It's fiscally conservative and socially responsible," Stone said.
President Obama said he wanted healthcare reform that:Covered everbody,provided quality care,and was affordable.I don't see how we can continue to support the for-profit insurance companies who siphon off 31% of every premium dollar for administration costs and profits--that's not affordable;who refuse to pay the healthcare claims of the already-insured; and who cherry-pick the young and healthy for their coverage,which assures more PROFITS.That model will NEVER cover everyone.
I am losing faith that any real reform will take place again this year.This sort of behaviour by our politicians is exactly what turns skeptics into cynics.Just a thought.I suppose I could be wrong.
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