Single Payer, Public Option, Blah, Blah... Do People Even Understand Our Current Healthcare System?

[TomCADem]

I have read posts and listened to reporters complain about how all the healthcare proposals are complicated. However, here is my take: The reason why people have difficulty understanding the need for reform is that they do not really understand their current system AND the media has spent very little time on the current system. For example:

1. Rationing - The current system already has insurance company driven rationing.
2. Will it come out of my paycheck? Employer provided care already comes out of our paychecks.
3. No government run healthcare! Medicare is a government run healthcare plan and it is very popular.
4. It is too expensive! Our current system is #1 in percentage of GDP and per capita costs.
5. It will increase the deficit! The current system is already threatening to explode the deficit.

These complaints about reform do not so much suggest that people don't understand the proposals for reform. Rather, they reflect a lack of understanding about our current healthcare system. Maybe more emphasis should be on explaining the current system, because you really can't understand where you are going unless you know where you have been.

[Karenina]

1. Not unless they and theirs have been RUN OVER by it.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Most people realize we are being ripped off. They think there has to be a complicated reason for

that, though.

It's really simple. We are being ripped off.

[orwell]

3. Add to the list...

...Socialized Medicine = The VA Hospital System

[TomCADem]

4. Thanks - The Reoccuring Theme Is Not So Much That People Do Not Understand The Proposals

It is that people have no idea how the current system operates. For example, you make a great point. There is a certain tragic irony when veterans show up at these townhalls, and start denouncing all government run healthcare as they benefit from veterans healthcare. There is a severe disconnect between the talking points they have been fed and their day to day experience.

[goclark]

5. It all needs to be put in ABC ~ 123 ~ 7/11 language

I said it before and I'll say it again.

Massive numbers of people do not understand the Current Options and the Options for the future.

They/We need help.

If Democrats don't have a clue, for sure those "protesters" don't have a clue because they are some of the very ones that need this bill to pass.

They are getting paid to protest something that could help them!

Please someone, put the Options in ABC language!

One thing the protest planners know ~ the planners have solid health care packages and they could care less,
All the want to do is follow the Disruption Plan by Rove and Rush.

PS/ I am fairly well educated and the other day they called from my Dr's office to ask me why didn't I drop my BC/BC Preferred Advantage secondary and just keep my Medicare.

I told them I would look into it but I really don't have a clue as of this moment. I thought that BC/BS would cover what was not picked up by Medicare. :shrug:

[Qutzupalotl]

8. Expand Medicare to Medicare for all.

That has a lot more meaning than "single payer" to the average person.

It also wouldn't require a 100+ page bill...

[goclark]

9. Thank you thank you ~ finally a 7/11 way to do it

:bounce:

SINGLE PAYER = From Medicare to MediCARE for ALL!

I'm sure someone can think of a more catchy arts and crafts way of saying it but you are on the right track.

:bounce:

[TomCADem]

10. What???? Are You Suggesting That We Socialize Medicare!?!?!??

I am being facetious of course, but I don't think that we should assume that any tactic or approach would be easy. Indeed, expanding Medicare would likely be met with uniform opposition by the AMA, insurance companies and drug companies. Suddenly, you would have these astroturf groups comparing President Obama to Satan, and opposing any effort to socialize Medicare.

A few millions directed at a disinformation campaign, and I am sure the combination of astroturf and a complicit media can convince dog owners to protest in favor eating puppies.

[andym]

6. Add 1 point

Add#6 that costs are going up at a rate of 5%/year (for premiums)! Think about 5% compounded yearly. Who is going to pay?

The total cost in 2007 was 2.4 trillion (the reform bill is only talking about 100 billion/year for 10 years). Total cost expected by 2012 is 3.1 trillion, by 2017 it will be 4.3 trillion (almost doubling over 19 years. (source http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml)

[invictus]

7. K&R

[GivePeaceAchance]

11. Bob Kincaid said we should go with contracts to town halls saying to be consistent with their ...

political beliefs, they should sign a contract. The contract would say that given their objection to government run health care say they are willing to relinquish 'medicare', 'medicaid' for them and all their family. And then see how vocal their opposition is then. This would probably best be done before they enter the hall. Now it doesn't have to be legally binding in some places police introduced non-legally binding contracts of good behavior with repeating offenders and they tended on quite a few occasions to honor the contract. Let's hold a mirror to their insanity, it soon all makes sense to them and the light shines in.

[Zavulon]

12. People don't trust the government to handle it and know that

once you go government, you never go back. I don't blame people for being skeptical about this. The government can't handle health care for its military, and it's supposed to provide "high quality" care for 300 million people? I've got problems believing this myself.