Regressive and Unaffordable .... Only a single-payer system would stop the private insurance industr

[RedEarth]

There would be no need for an individual mandate in a single-payer system, since everyone would be covered automatically and it would be paid for through their income and payroll taxes. So asking me, a supporter of a single-payer health system, about mandates is a little like asking someone whether he’s stopped beating his wife.

Only a single-payer system would stop the private insurance industry from holding us hostage.

But even within our current system, I’m troubled by the notion of an individual mandate. I live in Massachusetts, where we have one. It requires people to buy private insurance at whatever price the companies choose to charge. As might be expected, this is a windfall for the insurance industry. Premiums are rising much faster than income, benefit packages are getting skimpier, and deductibles and co-payments are going up.

Many people can’t afford the premiums for the best plans, and so have to choose bare-bones, low-premium plans with high deductibles and co-payments. They are then left with insurance that they might not be able to afford to use, but have to purchase anyway.

A mandate is also extremely regressive. In Massachusetts, mandated insurance and co-payments can amount to nearly a third of income. Income taxes apportion the costs of public services more fairly, and I see no reason not to adopt that approach in paying for health care. To be sure, President Obama has said he would exempt people from the mandate who couldn’t afford to purchase their own health insurance. But aren’t these precisely the people most in need of it? Massachusetts has exempted 62,000 people from the mandate for that reason.

I would hope the President and Congress would come up with something less regressive and truly universal, and stop holding the rest of us hostage to the private insurance industry.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Marcia Angell is a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/june/regressive_and_unaff.php

[phantom power]

1. Required to buy private insurance -- that's fucking organized crime.

[FiveGoodMen]

6. You got that right.

Hillary float this idea during the primaries.

Obama hasn't shut it down so far (I don't think).

A few governors have mentioned it.

We are really, really fucked when a politician can say such things in public and not expect to get lynched.

They are not of, by, or for the people at all these days. We've lost our country.

[Mythsaje]

2. The very notion of a mandate makes me want to scream. n/t

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5790991&mesg_id=5790991

[Cleita]

3. If there is a mandate, it's time to conduct sit-ins in the lobbies of

the headquarters of all these insurance companies. Demand they get out of the business so we can pave the way for single payer.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. A mandate is a rip off, it is forced purchase of crony owned products

And you know, it really makes me want to puke remembering the Primary when every last hair was split about mandates, and Obama was so very adamantly against them, and people here screamed that Clinton was horrible simply for backing mandates. And yet, here is Obama, talking mandates as if he never said otherwise. That makes me very angry, and more cynical than I can tell you. Like his views on marriage equality, he just flips his position as if no one will notice. Mandates are an affront morphs into mandates are great, without so much as a wink or a nod.

[maryf]

5. HR 676, the only way to go...

to have "options" does away with the 400 billion dollar admin cost savings...Hey if you can keep your doctor and have better coverage (who has total dental and vision coverage??) why the hell not?

[MasonJar]

7. Single payer or nothing should be the call! Down with BAUCUS