Politics Indiana: Trump in a romp, Sanders ahead of Clinton, CNN reports Cruz dropping out, Kasich too

I'd rather the control be in the hands of the individual. Insurance should cover catstrophic illness, not office visits.

Single payer costs us all money. It just costs more and more and more.

Bernie talks a good game. When his policies are analyzed by economists, they say he's going to balloon the debt.

HuffPost of all sources.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/nadeem-esmail/canada-free-health-care_b_3733080.html

Many Canadians and commentators in other countries lauding Canada's government-dominated approach to health care refer to Canadian health care as "free." If health care actually were free, the relatively poor performance of the health care system might not seem all that bad. But the reality is that the Canadian health care system is not free -- in fact, Canadian families pay heavily for healthcare through the tax system. That high price paints the long wait times and lack of medical technologies in Canada in a very different light.

In 2013, a typical Canadian family of four can expect to pay $11,320 for public health care insurance. For the average family of two parents with one child that bill will be $10,989, and for the average family of two adults (without children) the bill comes to $11,381. As a result of lower average incomes and differences in taxation, the bills are smaller for the average unattached individual ($3,780), for the average one-parent-one-child family ($3,905), and the average one-parent two-child family ($3,387). But no matter the family type, the bill is not small, much less free.

And the bill is getting bigger over time. Before inflation, the cost of public health care insurance went up by 53.3 per cent over the last decade. That's more than 1.5 times faster than the cost of shelter (34.2 per cent) and clothing (32.4 per cent), and more than twice as fast as the cost of food (23.4 per cent). It's also nearly 1.5 times faster than the growth in average income over the decade (36.3 per cent).

And what did these substantial funds buy?

Despite talk of wait times reduction initiatives (backed with substantial funding), Canadians face longer wait times than their counterparts in other developed nations for emergency care, primary care, specialist consultations, and elective surgery. Access to physicians and medical technologies in Canada lags behind many other developed nations. And things have improved little since 2003. For example, the total wait time in 2012 (17.7 weeks from GP to treatment) is every bit as long it was back then.

Don't be fooled by claims that health spending isn't high enough or that transfers for health care to the provinces have been insufficient. Canada's health care system is the developed world's most expensive universal-access health care program after adjusting for the age of the population (older people require more care).

Canadians aren't suffering from health care underfunding; they're suffering from health care underperformance.

 

Bernie's dangerous policies and his lies about the costs are what's "bull."

TL;DR? If you don't read up on the details of the implementation, then how can you possibly believe you know shit about it?

I gave you a very left wing source, too. Here's the money quote, not TL;DR:

"And the bill is getting bigger over time. Before inflation, the cost of public health care insurance went up by 53.3 per cent over the last decade. "

 

You know for a fact?

PROVE IT.

Geez.

 

That right wing news source, NY Times

I bolded the money quote for you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/u...stion-cost-of-bernie-sanderss-plans.html?_r=0

Left-Leaning Economists Question Cost of Bernie Sanders’s Plans

The reviews of some of these economists, especially on Mr. Sanders’s health care plans, suggest that Mrs. Clinton could have been too conservative in their debate last week when she said his agenda in total would increase the size of the federal government by 40 percent. That level would surpass any government expansion since the buildup in World War II.

The increase could exceed 50 percent, some experts suggest, based on an analysis by a respected health economist that Mr. Sanders’s single-payer health plan could cost twice what the senator, who represents Vermont, asserts, and on critics’ belief that his economic assumptions are overly optimistic.

 

How about the "puppies and rainbows" quote to describe Bernie's plan?

By the reckoning of the left-of-center economists, none of whom are working for Mrs. Clinton, the proposals would add $2 trillion to $3 trillion a year on average to federal spending; by comparison, total federal spending is projected to be above $4 trillion in the next president’s first year. “The numbers don’t remotely add up,” said Austan Goolsbee, formerly chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, now at the University of Chicago.

Alluding to one progressive analyst’s criticism of the Sanders agenda as “puppies and rainbows,” Mr. Goolsbee said that after his and others’ further study, “they’ve evolved into magic flying puppies with winning Lotto tickets tied to their collars.”

 

Full disclosure: I disagree with this position. But may I ask a clarifying question? In your view, how much or what aspects of "health care" should be "a common", and what, if any, should be privatized? Brand-name pharmaceuticals? Cancer treatments? Organ transplants? Long-term assisted-living? Elective procedures?

 

Health care is non profit.

I read that the vast majority of the hospitals are non profit.

Insurance companies are for profit. They're losing money by the $billions due to ACA.

Also, the profits of the top 6 insurers in the country would fund our health care costs for a couple of days.

According to this page: http://www.anh-usa.org/nonprofit-medicine-is-government-about-to-throw-it-under-the-bus/

How much nonprofit medicine is there now? A lot. Fully 62% of hospitals are nonprofit (20% are government-run and the rest are for-profits), as are 30% of nursing homes, 17% of home healthcare agencies, and so on.

 

I don't see what 1332 has to do with single payer coming to my state soon.

Regarding "from the Hillary camp," one of those who analyzed Bernie's plan:

Mr. Thorpe in recent years helped Gov. Peter Shumlin in Mr. Sanders’s home state of Vermont design a single-payer plan there. It was unsuccessful.

“The problem was that the price tag and the amount of disruption and redistribution was just so enormous,” Mr. Thorpe said of Mr. Shumlin’s efforts, “that he just had to drop it.”

 

Single payer is not the answer.

I've suggested numerous times that it is idiotic to confuse health care with health insurance. You can provide health care without insurance, as has been done for centuries.

Competition is also really important in driving the prices of things down. When you distort the markets, you cannot count on any of this. When corporations buy government and government destroys competition, we all lose.

So my proposal would be to have government buy land, build hospitals and clinics, hire doctors, buy equipment and medicine, and provide health care directly to those who show up. Most services can be provided for the cost of a $30 or $50 copay with traditional insurance. Except the money goes to pay the doctors, not to some company that pays the doctors.

If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance. Or you can go to the govt. health care service.

I'm game for government spending on the infrastructure, but it should charge enough to cover its operating costs - like the Post Office does, it is possible. Improve welfare to help those truly in need to pay for the services.

Government competing with the private sector should help drive down the prices everywhere.

Win, win, win.

It's only a lose if you're objective is to make government great again (which is impossible).

 

CNN reporting Kasich to drop out today.

We're going to get stuck with Trump.

Thanks Obama.