Not to minimize the Obamacare rollout fisaco, but the 2nd big miracle of Obamacare is that it is being implemented by 10,000 Linux servers and a few thousand civil servants, as opposed to 1,000,000 fat ass civil servants paper pushers making $100k per year. If State DMVs, SSA, DoD, etc. could transition to Linux servers it would reduce our national deficit tremendously.
Virutualized Linux Servers wrote:
Not to minimize the Obamacare rollout fisaco, but the 2nd big miracle of Obamacare is that it is being implemented by 10,000 Linux servers and a few thousand civil servants, as opposed to 1,000,000 fat ass civil servants paper pushers making $100k per year. If State DMVs, SSA, DoD, etc. could transition to Linux servers it would reduce our national deficit tremendously.
Linux 4ever
Egalitarianism means that no one should be better off than anyone else.
Amy Gutmann covers this issue in an article on the right to equal access to health care, where she argues that you would have to limit the right of the rich to pay extra for health care, because that would result quickly in an unequal system with the best doctors treating only the premium payers. She does have a point but there would probably not need to be much attention to that problem in such a vast system intertwined with federal payments.
Yes! Then we can start purging the opposition from the population.
Private healthcare (not counting quasi-medical stuff like optometry, etc.) had been pretty much snuffed out in the UK and Canada, although there has been recently a visible trend in both countries to allow more private practice. Once single payer really gets going in the US the government will want to exterminate the private practice of medicine (put all doctors on salary, and all hospitals/clinics under public governance if not public ownership). The rationale will be "cost control". In the end, as in Canada and the UK, there will be an ongoing struggle as people with money demand services, or quality of service, not provided by the Government. So-called "concierge" practices are not uncommon in the US already (cash on the barrelhead, no insurance accepted). But these are doctors, not hospitals.
"Single Payer" seems to be a poor name. Because of course there is no one single payer even in Canada. If nothing else you would still have deductibles and co-pays.
In America the phrase should be "Medicare for all". That is much more understandable and easy to relate to.
I think a two tier system makes sense. Public clinics provide basic services and emergency treatment at low/no out of pocket cost for anyone who walks in the door. Private providers are free to offer any services they choose. Seems like a win-win. A baseline of care exists for everyone, but people are free to seek services elsewhere if they prefer.
This is basically how schools work already. Public school provides a basic education, but you're free to send your kid to private school if you have specific desires that aren't met by the public school.
Before you point out that public schools don't do a great job in a lot of places, there is one key difference between schools and healthcare facilities. Outside if emergency situations, patients have the ability to "vote with their feet." If a clinic in the Bronx is offering substandard care, you can hop on the 2 train and head to Manhattan. If you tie compensation to patient volume, there are economic incentives to offering high quality care.