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David 's List: Health Care Project

    • managed-care firms second-guess doctors, require patients to get the cheapest treatment rather than the best medicine, and try to prevent patients from visiting specialists, who charge more than family doctors. Managed-care firms have also been criticized for refusing to pay when a patient goes to the emergency room for something that turns out not to be an emergency.
    • Texas was the first state to allow consumers to sue HMOs for medical malpractice

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    • The economics of universal health care are sound, and polls show strong public support for
    • guaranteed care
      • who wouldn't support "guaranteed care"?

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    • The problem of relying on tax deductions to increase insurance coverage is that they mostly favor the better off
    • The problem with relying on the states to enact the needed reforms is that the plight of the uninsured would be left to the whims of geography

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    • voters will find stark differences in philosophy and commitment between Democrats and Republicans.
    • We far prefer the Democrats’ approach to health insurance, since at least they want to address an issue that must be resolved for reasons of economics, public health and fairness.

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    • The costs of treating the uninsured must often be absorbed by providers as free care, passed on to the insured via cost shifting and higher health insurance premiums, or paid by taxpayers through higher taxes.
    • Most uninsured Americans are working-class persons whose employers do not provide health insurance, and who earn too much money to qualify for one of the local or state insurance programs for the poor, but do not earn enough to cover the cost of enrollment in a health insurance plan designed for individuals

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    • The for-profit sector of our multi-payer system is so expensive for four reasons. First, they have high salaries, at least for their CEO's. The CEO's of the medical insurance industry have the highest average pay of any industry in the world. Second they have extensive marketing expenses and enrollment costs. Third, they have great expenses in enrolling providers, communicating to providers their ever-changing plans, and recertifying that the providers are up to date on their malpractice insurance, state licenses, federal licenses, hospital privileges, and the like. Fourth they are involved in the extremely expensive venture of micro-managing the care of every individual that seeks medical benefits from their insurance.
    • General Accounting Office and the Congressional Budget Office predict savings of over 100 billion dollars
        1. Myth Two: Universal Health Care Would Be Too Expensive
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        • Fact One: The United States spends at least 40% more per capita on health  care than any other industrialized country with universal health care
           
           
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        • Fact Two: Federal studies by the Congressional Budget Office and the  General Accounting office show that single payer universal health care would  save 100 to 200 Billion dollars per year despite covering all the uninsured  and increasing health care benefits.
           
           
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        • Fact Three: State studies by Massachusetts and Connecticut have shown that  single payer universal health care would save 1 to 2 Billion dollars per year  from the total medical expenses in those states despite covering all the  uninsured and increasing health care benefits
           
           
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        • Fact Four: The costs of health care in Canada as a % of GNP, which were  identical to the United States when Canada changed to a single payer,  universal health care system in 1971, have increased at a rate much lower than  the United States, despite the US economy being much stronger than Canada’s.
           
           
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        • Conclusion: Single payer universal health care costs would be lower than  the current US system due to lower administrative costs. The United States  spends 50 to 100% more on administration than single payer systems. By  lowering these administrative costs the United States would have the ability  to provide universal health care, without managed care, increase benefits and  still save money
    • Uninsured statistic.
      - David on 2007-11-23
    • number of uninsured increased
      - David on 2007-11-26
    • number of people with insurance increase 2006
      - David on 2007-11-26

    • - David on 2007-11-26
    • finds that premiums for employer-provided family  health insurance will cost, on average, an extra $922 in 2005 to cover the unpaid expenses of health care for the uninsured. That figure will increase to $1,502 by the year 2010.
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