First there's the question of "must use" single payer and "everyone can use" single payer. I'm a supporter of the later. I wish we could have a rational discussion about the best way to get out of the current mess but such is life.
Anyway, I found this conservative view interesting and would like to have more information on cross-subsidies. . https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2018/07/single-payer-sympathy.html
But a single provider or payer than anyone in trouble can use, supported by taxes, not cross-subsidized by restrictions on your and my health care -- not underpaying in a private system and forcing that system to overcharge others -- while allowing a vibrant completely competitive free market in private health care on top of that, is not such a terrible idea, and follows from my Op-Ed. A single bureaucracy that hands out vouchers, pays full market costs, or pays partially but allows doctors to charge whatever they want on top of that would work. A VA like system of public hospitals and clinics would work too. Like public schools, or public restrooms, you can use them, but you don't have to; you're free to spend your money on better options if you like, and people are free to start businesses to serve you. And no cross-subisides.
Then there's the study that Fox chose to emphasize the cost not the cost savings in their reporting. Whether the assumptions are valid is one thing but giving it weight is that it's a study by a conservative organization with Koch funding: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/07/medicare-for-all-savings-mercatus-center-report
In the report, Charles Blahous attempts to roughly score Bernie Sanders’s most recent Medicare-for-All bill and reaches the somewhat surprising (for Mercatus) conclusion that, if the bill were enacted, the new costs it creates would be more than offset by the new savings it generates through administrative efficiencies and reductions in unit prices.
The report’s methods are pretty straightforward. Blahous starts with current projections about how much the country will spend on health care between 2022 and 2031. From there, he adds the costs associated with higher utilization of medical services and then subtracts the savings from lower administrative costs, lower reimbursements for medical services, and lower drug prices. After this bit of arithmetic, Blahous finds that health expenditures would be lower for every year during the first decade of implementation. The net change across the whole ten-year period is a savings of $303 billion.
Anyway, I found this conservative view interesting and would like to have more information on cross-subsidies. . https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2018/07/single-payer-sympathy.html
But a single provider or payer than anyone in trouble can use, supported by taxes, not cross-subsidized by restrictions on your and my health care -- not underpaying in a private system and forcing that system to overcharge others -- while allowing a vibrant completely competitive free market in private health care on top of that, is not such a terrible idea, and follows from my Op-Ed. A single bureaucracy that hands out vouchers, pays full market costs, or pays partially but allows doctors to charge whatever they want on top of that would work. A VA like system of public hospitals and clinics would work too. Like public schools, or public restrooms, you can use them, but you don't have to; you're free to spend your money on better options if you like, and people are free to start businesses to serve you. And no cross-subisides.
Then there's the study that Fox chose to emphasize the cost not the cost savings in their reporting. Whether the assumptions are valid is one thing but giving it weight is that it's a study by a conservative organization with Koch funding: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/07/medicare-for-all-savings-mercatus-center-report
In the report, Charles Blahous attempts to roughly score Bernie Sanders’s most recent Medicare-for-All bill and reaches the somewhat surprising (for Mercatus) conclusion that, if the bill were enacted, the new costs it creates would be more than offset by the new savings it generates through administrative efficiencies and reductions in unit prices.
The report’s methods are pretty straightforward. Blahous starts with current projections about how much the country will spend on health care between 2022 and 2031. From there, he adds the costs associated with higher utilization of medical services and then subtracts the savings from lower administrative costs, lower reimbursements for medical services, and lower drug prices. After this bit of arithmetic, Blahous finds that health expenditures would be lower for every year during the first decade of implementation. The net change across the whole ten-year period is a savings of $303 billion.
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