Unless the US cost for drugs and the fees paid to insurance companies decrease, we don't have a chance of getting this thing in line.
Both the German model and Sander's model would do both. I'll use Sander's in this case.
1) Insurance companies (for most intents and purposes) go away. As long as you don't outsource the single-payer, profits are $0.
2) A single payer has an immense ability to negotiate best prices for everything but monopolies (such as patented drugs).
3) The plan offers options for the government should a patented drug owner be overly onerous.
So it addresses your issue. It also addresses abuse of the uninsured (ever look at billing rates compared to negotiated rates) and removes most administrative overhead.
There's also generally an improvement in safety (a for-profit company has motivation to contract for the cheapest, say, replacement hip; while a non-profit can prioritize other things)
I have also said, for a long time, that we should have emergency care, intermediate care and clinics for people to choose when they need health care, based on severity- too many people went to the ER for too long and hospitals closed because they weren't being paid (including the one closest to my house). With a tiered system, the facility could deal with the (in)ability of the patient to pay, how it would be paid and it would prevent non-payment.
Yea.
I still don't understand how staffing a second building with a second set of staff (an urgent care clinic) is cheaper than broadening an ER to deal with urgent-care issues as well (though obviously in less monitored and less machine-dependent rooms).
How do these clinics get paid? Does this do anything to stop the inability to afford needed medical care (say heart surgery or diabetes medications)?
However, if people would stop shooting, stabbing, burning and driving over each other, a lot of emergency care wouldn't be needed. Drug overdoses are another big problem that have a very high cost.
Lack of comprehensive healthcare means lack of treatment for the depression that can lead to drug overdoses.
Lack of comprehensive healthcare means lack of treatment chemical dependencies that can lead to drug overdoses.
For-profit medicine has encouraged drug use (to increase profits).
Lack of single-payer makes tracking over-prescription more difficult, leading to more drug overdoses.
The ACA has many problems but for the lowest income people, it's a big benefit. It did, however, count on a certain segment of the population to fund it and it imposed a tax on those who didn't join, which didn't work. Billionaires and millionaires don't need it, but that doesn't stop them from telling the Middle Class what we need.
Before it was gutted; it was a big benefit for all.
The rate of increase in healthcare costs slowed after the ACA.
By getting the uninsured into the insurance pool, the per-person costs of insurance go down.
For those previously uninsured who got sick, big boon.
Literally the only people hurt were the people lucky enough to not need medical care.
Contrary to your statement, it didn't impose a tax. The ACA was a republican program (came out of the Heritage foundation) and so didn't create a tax... just a requirement.
That said: I have taxes imposed on me to subsidize ethanol. I don't have a gas-powered car and didn't want to put ethanol in the gas powered car I did have. Why are socialist republicans forcing me to pay that?!?
