Single-Payer Healthcare for California Is, In Fact, Very Doable

[boutons_deux]

While Repugs screw up health care with their MURDEROUS tax-plan for the oligarchy, the CA Dems, yet again take the lead, and show USA how it's done, and yet again, demonstrate that CA is vastly superior to fucking, backward TX.

===========================

The California Senate (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/u.s.-senate-ORGOV0000134-topic.html) recently voted (http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-single-payer-healthcare-plan-advances-1496361965-htmlstory.html) to pass a bill that would establish a single-payer healthcare system for the entire state. The proposal, called the Healthy California Act, will now be taken up by the state Assembly.

The plan enjoys widespread support — a recent poll commissioned by the California Nurses Assn. found that

70% (http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/entry/new-poll-70-percent-of-californians-support-ca-medicare-for-all-bill/) of all Californians are in favor of a single-payer plan

— and with good reason. Under Healthy California, all residents would be entitled to

decent healthcare without having to pay premiums, deductibles or copays.
But as critics of the bill have pointed out (http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/31/universal-health-plan-would-save-californians-37-billion-and-cover-more-people-study-finds/), a crucial question remains: Is Healthy California economically viable? According to research I conducted (https://www.peri.umass.edu/publication/item/996-economic-analysis-of-the-healthy-california-single-payer-health-care-proposal-sb-562) with three colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the answer is yes.

Enacting Healthy California would entail an overhaul of the state’s existing healthcare system, which now constitutes about 14% of California’s GDP.

In particular, it would mean replacing the state’s private health insurance industry with government-managed insurance.

Our study — which was also commissioned by the California Nurses Assn. — concludes not only that the proposal is financially sound, but that it will produce greater equity in the healthcare sector for families and businesses of all sizes.

California will spend about $370 billion on healthcare in 2017.

Assuming the state’s existing system stayed intact, the cost of extending coverage to all California residents, including the nearly 15 million people who are currently uninsured or underinsured, would increase healthcare spending by about 10%, to roughly $400 billion.

That’s not the full story, though.

Enacting a single-payer system would yield considerable savings overall by lowering administrative costs, controlling the prices of pharmaceuticals and fees for physicians and hospitals, reducing unnecessary treatments and expanding preventive care.

We found that Healthy California could ultimately result in savings of about 18%, bringing healthcare spending to about $331 billion, or 8% less than the current $370 billion.

How would California cover this $331-billion bill?

For the most part, much the same way it covers healthcare spending right now.

Roughly 70% of the state’s current spending is paid for through public programs, including Medicare and MediCal.

This funding — totaling about $225 billion — would continue, as is required by law. It would simply flow through Healthy California rather than existing programs.

The state would still need to raise about $106 billion a year to cover the cost of replacing private insurance.

This could be done with two new taxes.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/06/22/single-payer-healthcare-california-fact-very-doable

[Thread]

I'll just bet it is.

[rmt]

While Repugs screw up health care with their MURDEROUS tax-plan for the oligarchy, the CA Dems, yet again take the lead, and show USA how it's done, and yet again, demonstrate that CA is vastly superior to fucking, backward TX.

===========================

The California Senate (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/u.s.-senate-ORGOV0000134-topic.html) recently voted (http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-single-payer-healthcare-plan-advances-1496361965-htmlstory.html) to pass a bill that would establish a single-payer healthcare system for the entire state. The proposal, called the Healthy California Act, will now be taken up by the state Assembly.

The plan enjoys widespread support — a recent poll commissioned by the California Nurses Assn. found that

70% (http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/entry/new-poll-70-percent-of-californians-support-ca-medicare-for-all-bill/) of all Californians are in favor of a single-payer plan

— and with good reason. Under Healthy California, all residents would be entitled to

decent healthcare without having to pay premiums, deductibles or copays.
But as critics of the bill have pointed out (http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/31/universal-health-plan-would-save-californians-37-billion-and-cover-more-people-study-finds/), a crucial question remains: Is Healthy California economically viable? According to research I conducted (https://www.peri.umass.edu/publication/item/996-economic-analysis-of-the-healthy-california-single-payer-health-care-proposal-sb-562) with three colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the answer is yes.

Enacting Healthy California would entail an overhaul of the state’s existing healthcare system, which now constitutes about 14% of California’s GDP.

In particular, it would mean replacing the state’s private health insurance industry with government-managed insurance.

Our study — which was also commissioned by the California Nurses Assn. — concludes not only that the proposal is financially sound, but that it will produce greater equity in the healthcare sector for families and businesses of all sizes.

California will spend about $370 billion on healthcare in 2017.

Assuming the state’s existing system stayed intact, the cost of extending coverage to all California residents, including the nearly 15 million people who are currently uninsured or underinsured, would increase healthcare spending by about 10%, to roughly $400 billion.

That’s not the full story, though.

Enacting a single-payer system would yield considerable savings overall by lowering administrative costs, controlling the prices of pharmaceuticals and fees for physicians and hospitals, reducing unnecessary treatments and expanding preventive care.

We found that Healthy California could ultimately result in savings of about 18%, bringing healthcare spending to about $331 billion, or 8% less than the current $370 billion.

How would California cover this $331-billion bill?

For the most part, much the same way it covers healthcare spending right now.

Roughly 70% of the state’s current spending is paid for through public programs, including Medicare and MediCal.

This funding — totaling about $225 billion — would continue, as is required by law. It would simply flow through Healthy California rather than existing programs.

The state would still need to raise about $106 billion a year to cover the cost of replacing private insurance.

This could be done with two new taxes.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/06/22/single-payer-healthcare-california-fact-very-doable




I wonder if California Nurses Assn. is willing to have their salaries controlled too to make this doable. Be careful what you wish for. I see people with major health problems flooding into CA and a mass exodus of physicians, therapists, pharmacists, PAs, etc. if this bill passes.

[Chris]

Move to California and post your bullshit in a Laker forum then faggot. I hope that state sinks to the bottom of the ocean with everyone in Hollywood climbing on top of each other to save themselves. It could be a modern day tower of Babel made out of Liberal flesh. Take that to your safe space and smoke it faggot.

[SnakeBoy]

Do it Cali!

[Capt Bringdown]

Single payer at the state level makes little sense. States have to tax in order to spend, while the federal government does not.

[baseline bum]

I don't see how this will work. Anyone who gets sick can just go establish residence in CA?

[clambake]

I wonder if California Nurses Assn. is willing to have their salaries controlled too to make this doable. Be careful what you wish for. I see people with major health problems flooding into CA and a mass exodus of physicians, therapists, pharmacists, PAs, etc. if this bill passes.

how do the nurses react when you go to the hospital and lol "negotiate"?

[clambake]

Move to California and post your bullshit in a Laker forum then faggot. I hope that state sinks to the bottom of the ocean with everyone in Hollywood climbing on top of each other to save themselves. It could be a modern day tower of Babel made out of Liberal flesh. Take that to your safe space and smoke it faggot.

hmmm...so you won't be visiting anytime soon?

[spurraider21]

Move to California and post your bullshit in a Laker forum then faggot.

Take that to your safe space and smoke it faggot.
:cry dont post stuff i dont agree with here
:cry YOU need the safe space though

[TSA]

Yay more sales tax in California

[Chris]

:cry dont post stuff i dont agree with here
:cry YOU need the safe space though

He's the biggest shitposter on Spurstalk and he/she interjects said shitposting into every thread in the political forum with a bevy of new threads daily. No debate - just Trash this and Repug that. He can go fuck his mother some more for all I care.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

He's the biggest shitposter on Spurstalk and he/she interjects said shitposting into every thread in the political forum with a bevy of new threads daily. No debate - just Trash this and Repug that. He can go fuck his mother some more for all I care.

Other people's shitposting does not justify yours.

[Chris]

Other people's shitposting does not justify yours.

Fuzzy admitting he has no idea what shitposting is :lol

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Fuzzy admitting he has no idea what shitposting is :lol

The whole find another country, state, or whatever because someone has different views from you in a democracy is shitposting.

The whole take on a safe space after being triggered into desiring your own was just gold.

[Chris]

find another country

Never said such.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Never said such.

Someone does not understand what the conjunction "or" means.

[Chris]

in a democracy

We live in a representative Republic. Someone does not understand what government means. You can keep the conjunctions.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

We live in a representative Republic. Someone does not understand what government means. You can keep the conjunctions.

A democratic republic where all citizens vote democratically for their representatives in the republic.

Yours was still shitposting.

[boutons_deux]

establishing CA residency will of course be fundamental, but for decades colleges have known how to charge different tuition for in-state/out-of-state students.

and how does MA do it?

[SnakeBoy]

California’s single-payer blues

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —

At a legislative reception in Sacramento this week, a well-known health care advocate quipped that single-payer health care is “the system of the future … and always will be.”:lol

The line got some laughs, but it carries an uncomfortable truth. It’s difficult to see how the California Legislature can be poised to pass a universal health care plan without knowing how to pay for it.

And yet, Democrats in the Senate put up the votes earlier this month to pass SB 562, a wide-ranging reform plan that would boot private insurance companies and replace them with a government-run program that would pay health care providers. According to a staff analysis, this ambitious plan would cost roughly $400 billion a year. That is more than twice the size of the entire state budget.

The California Nurses Association, which is sponsoring the bill, believes the answer is to increase our taxes. Hike the state sales tax and business receipts tax by 2.3 percent, the labor union says. It also commissioned its own study from the University of Massachusetts, which concluded that turning health care management over to the government would save money.

The nurses union has long nurtured the idea of a single payer system, and its leaders are now pursuing a scorched-earth approach by threatening to bankroll campaigns intended to defeat elected Democratic officeholders next year if they don’t fall in line. They are as disdainful of the state’s Democratic Party leadership in Sacramento on the left as the House Freedom Caucus is of Republican leadership in Washington on the right.

What happens next? David Townsend, one of the smartest Democratic political operatives I know and a key advisor to a bloc of moderate Assembly Democrats, stepped into the fray this week in an opinion piece published by the Sacramento Bee.

Calling the Senate health care vote “outrageous” and “hypocritical,” Townsend warned that Democrats are courting political disaster next year.

“If California Democrats want to hold on to their majorities in the state legislature, and provide leadership nationally for a party that appears intent on squandering any opportunity to retake the House in 2018, they must get in sync with the state’s electorate by choosing pragmatic policymaking over ideology,” Townsend wrote.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who’s had his share of clashes with labor, is also no fan of the single-payer plan. At a meeting with reporters in Washington in March, he expressed distress with the unknown cost.

“This is called ‘the unknown by means of the more unknown,’" Brown said. “In other words, you take a problem, and say ‘I am going to solve it by something that’s a bigger problem’, which makes no sense.”

It’s clear that Brown has no intention of signing the bill if it reaches his desk. In the meantime, the Senate has punted this hot potato to the Assembly, where it awaits a vote. Despite threats from the left, it should be a straightforward decision by the Democrats: without a clear funding plan, passing this kind of far-reaching reform would be reckless for patient and politician alike.

[SnakeBoy]

Do it Cali!

[Chris]

It’s difficult to see how the California Legislature can be poised to pass a universal health care plan without knowing how to pay for it. What happens next?

http://www.tshirtlaundry.com/thumbnail.asp?file=assets/images/photos/UnderpantsGnome12_2009.jpg&maxx=447&maxy=0

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Appears that two GOPotards did not read the OP.

[RandomGuy]

I wonder if California Nurses Assn. is willing to have their salaries controlled too to make this doable. Be careful what you wish for. I see people with major health problems flooding into CA and a mass exodus of physicians, therapists, pharmacists, PAs, etc. if this bill passes.

25% of healthcare spending is spent on administrative overhead. I don't think that salaries for nurses would have to be directly affected.

22% of all for profit health insurance, on average, goes to company profits.

There is more than enough room to accomplish single payor, and a vast amount of waste (administrative overhead and insurance company profits) that would go a long way towards making health insurance cheaper.

The State of California would then also have a huge amount of leverage when it comes to confronting pharmaceutical companies that charge $600 for an epipen.

It may even be in the state's interest to fund new drug development, so you have the further potential for an R & D boom. Dunno.

[RandomGuy]

Appears that two GOPotards did not read the OP.

That this might succeed scares them to death. You can expect some serious histrionics on this for that reason.

If it succeeds, it is some pretty damning evidence that conservative policies are failing, evil ones.

[boutons_deux]

That this might succeed scares them to death. You can expect some serious histrionics on this for that reason.

If it succeeds, it is some pretty damning evidence that conservative policies are failing, evil ones.

I expect BigInsurance will spend $100Ms trying to block, hobble CA s/p, the same way BigTobacco and BigAlcohol successfully spent to block CA mj legalization.

[RandomGuy]

Net healthcare spending for middle-income families would fall by between 2.6% and 9.1% of income. Most businesses would also see a drop in spending. Small firms that have been providing health insurance for their workers will see costs fall by 22% as a share of payroll. For medium-sized firms, costs will fall by an average of between 6.8% and 13.4% as a share of payroll. Even most large firms will see costs fall, by an average of between 0.6% and 5% of payroll

[rmt]

California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelves single-payer healthcare bill, calling it 'woefully incomplete'

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-single-payer-shelved-20170623-story.html


In addition, supporters are relying on current federal funding of Medicaid. Even Obamacare (without any changes) scales that back so the states which expanded Medicaid would be footing a much bigger part of the bill (and imo, will have trouble funding their ACA portion).

[boutons_deux]

California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelves single-payer healthcare bill, calling it 'woefully incomplete'

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-single-payer-shelved-20170623-story.html


In addition, supporters are relying on current federal funding of Medicaid. Even Obamacare (without any changes) scales that back so the states which expanded Medicaid would be footing a much bigger part of the bill (and imo, will have trouble funding their ACA portion).

like EVERY national health system, funding comes from payroll levies.

With true CA Medicare for all, Ms will be able to stop paying employee group insurance, is why BigInsurance has and will always pay $100Ms to stop Medicare for all.

BigInsurance whores LIE that Medicare for all is free.

[Quadzilla99]

http://www.tshirtlaundry.com/thumbnail.asp?file=assets/images/photos/UnderpantsGnome12_2009.jpg&maxx=447&maxy=0

You like funny pictures don't you little fella

[rmt]

Why do people insist on holding up Medicare for all as something that's doable. Workers pay into it their whole entire working lives, it doesn't cover (as seen by the number of seniors who supplement with Medicare Advantage and MediGap) and it's unsustainable. Why hold up Medicare like it's some shining example of what health care should be?

[SnakeBoy]

Why do people insist on holding up Medicare for all as something that's doable. Workers pay into it their whole entire working lives, it doesn't cover (as seen by the number of seniors who supplement with Medicare Advantage and MediGap) and it's unsustainable. Why hold up Medicare like it's some shining example of what health care should be?

They think "Medicare for all" sounds better than single payer. I'm sure they tested it with some focus group.

[boutons_deux]

Why do people insist on holding up Medicare for all as something that's doable. Workers pay into it their whole entire working lives, it doesn't cover (as seen by the number of seniors who supplement with Medicare Advantage and MediGap) and it's unsustainable. Why hold up Medicare like it's some shining example of what health care should be?

Medicare isn't sustainable because payroll fee isn't sufficient, esp not to keep with the predatory, greed health-wealth system.

Don't blame Medicare, blame care givers, the insurers, all of whom pay $100Ms/year to buy politicians to maintain the disastrous status quo.

[rmt]

Medicare isn't sustainable because payroll fee isn't sufficient, esp not to keep with the predatory, greed health-wealth system.

Don't blame Medicare, blame care givers, the insurers, all of whom pay $100Ms/year to buy politicians to maintain the disastrous status quo.

So we need to raise the payroll fee to sustain Medicare AND increase it even further to support every man, woman and child under 65 (because y'all want to cover the illegals too). And what's all in it for these care givers - I guess they're gonna accumulate college debt, train years for Doctor of xxxx, and work from the goodness of their hearts so we can control this greed health-wealth system. And they should all support the idea of a $15 minimum wage for burger flippers or universal basic income for just existing.

[Capt Bringdown]

Medicare isn't sustainable because payroll fee isn't sufficient

So we need to raise the payroll fee to sustain Medicare AND increase it even further to support every man, woman and child under 65

One might conclude from both of your statements that the federal government needs to tax before it can spend. It does not.
The federal government is not a household, business or state government. It's spending is not dependent on revenue.

[boutons_deux]

One might conclude from both of your statements that the federal government needs to tax before it can spend. It does not.
The federal government is not a household, business or state government. It's spending is not dependent on revenue.

true, but within limits.

If a Medicare-for-all, cradle to grave, FORCED the before-tax salary withholding per employee that pays for employer group insurance to be paid instead to Medicare. we'd be home free.

If anyone wanted "premium" and/or "top up" insurance, they would go into the individual market where the wonderfully shrunken for-profit BigInsurance could fleece them.

Medicare for all must also limit drug and device payouts NOT to pay for direcet-to-consumer marketing, which should be make illegal (like in DK and other countries)

[rjv]

the democratic party just can't get out of its own way: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/california-scheming-2/