← Back to context

Comment by kerkeslager

1 year ago

> This was discussed briefly during the Obama healthcare debates, but broadly rejected by left who wanted to eliminate private options.

As someone who voluteered in this field during that time, this is just a repetition of right wing propaganda. There was no serious movement to eliminate private options. Every country with a single-payer system that I'm aware of has private options as well, they just aren't popular because they aren't good or necessary. Right wing extremists want to present this as eliminating options, but in reality, it's just people not choosing private options when they have other options, because private options suck.

The real reason the left rejected a the "compromise" of non-profit options is that it still requires people who don't have money to pay for insurance. Simply slapping a non-profit label on an insurance company doesn't fix anything.

Note that non-profit health insurance companies exist already, and have solved exactly zero of America's health insurance problems.

12 comments

kerkeslager

Reply
s1artibartfast  1 year ago

Single payer literally meant that all citizens are subscribed to the same government operated health insurance.

If the entire "single payer" program was completely optional and offered at cost, they totally missed the messaging on that one, because I was paying attention and that wasnt my take away.

  • kerkeslager  1 year ago

    > Single payer literally meant that all citizens are subscribed to the same government operated health insurance.

    Correct, but that's a pretty big change from the propaganda you repeated in your previous comment. What you said was, "This was discussed briefly during the Obama healthcare debates, but broadly rejected by left who wanted to eliminate private options." In another now-deleted comment, you also said, "the left was too fixated On preventing people from buying better care".

    Nothing about having single payer healthcare prevents people from also purchasing private healthcare. Single payer does not require the elimination of private options--when you said that was what the left wanted, you were repeating a lie. People can and do purchase private healthcare in countries with single-payer systems--it's just not common because generally the private healthcare options aren't worth it.

    > If the entire "single payer" program was completely optional and offered at cost, they totally missed the messaging on that one, because I was paying attention and that wasnt my take away.

    Single-payer is optional in the same sense that current subsidies to insurance companies are optional, it just costs less and results in less death and human suffering.

    Your insistence that it has to be "offered at cost" is basically an insistence that people who can't afford that cost but need life saving care can just die. So no, it wasn't "offered at cost"--that's the entire point. I want Americans to be able to receive life-saving medical care when they need it, even if they are poor. That's just basic empathy for our fellow humans.

    • s1artibartfast  1 year ago

      I havent deleted any comments, you read it in a sibling thread that is still there.

      There is a big difference between supplemental insurance and alternative options, and I think you are conflating the two. the first big difference is being able to opt out of the cost of public insurance if you go with something else.

      I think that any puclic healthcare should carry the true price tag, and any subsidies for the poor should be subsidized as a separate benefit. Essentially, I am strongly opposed to funding the public healthcare with an income/payroll tax because I dont thinnk there is much incentive to actually tackle prices.

      1 reply →