I decided that the best way to learn about Paul Tsongas view on health insurance was to research by going to the library and reviewing the Lowell Sun and Boston Globe. In an interesting article from 1993, I found what I was looking for in the Sun. It was titled: Tsongas stumps for reform of U.S. health-care system. (lack of caps in the original). In it, he is speaking to the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine at the Massachusetts College of the Arts. In it, he says that the easy part is coming up with access for everyone. The difficult part, he says, is paying for it.
In the article, he talks about the coming friction between generations that will be caused by making the younger generation pay for the retirement expenses, including the medical expenses, of the older generation. He expressed his sentiment that young people would grow up and become persons in the medical profession who are not just working to help the sick, but expecting to make some profit in exchange for their studies. The United States medical system is a for profit system, he says. And, doctors want to have some say in the system by serving on the boards of the medical insurance companies.
I understand Mr. Tsongas’ message. Not only do doctors want to serve on the boards of companies that set rates for the doctors services, but they want to provide input into the care that their patients receive. We can all agree with those goals.
Mr. Jamie Eldridge, a candidate for the Fifth Congressional District’s House of Representatives seat, has espoused what he calls Single Payer Universal Health care. I have been to every debate thusfar, and I have no idea what that is, or how it is supposed to work. I learned more about it from Mr. James Miceli, who pointedly asked Mr. Eldridge how he intended to pay for it, then I have from Mr. Eldridge. I thank Mr. Miceli for his question. I await Mr. Eldridge’s answer.
I think, based on Mr. Micelis follow-up question, that Mr. Eldridge wants a system close to the Canadian system. But, as Mr. Miceli points out, Mr. Eldridge does not take into account the inherent failure of the Canadian system. Their drugs cost less, for instance, but they come without the assurances we get when we get drugs passed by the Food and Drug Administration.
The second argument that Mr. Miceli makes is that the Canadian system, he says, is two-tiered. The rich receive better care than the poor, despite the fact that the system is designed to provide individuals with the same high level of care. I do not know if that is true, but Mr. Eldridge failed to address it in his follow-up answer.I am very interested in the definition of single payer universal healthcare. As I said, in all of the debates, I have not gotten an answer to the basic question, what is it??
Massachusetts is light years ahead of the federal government in providing universal health care. It is now a requirement. But, as a native of another region of the country, I can say that few other states are at the point that they will, or can, provide universal health care. I take great pride in being from Massachusetts. I agree with universal health care. But, before the U.S. government gets involved with dictating universal health care for every individual, I want to know the proposal. Mr. Eldridge, it is only fair.
I was surprised to read that, although Canadiens pay half of what we pay for medicines, you consider their system a failure because they do not have FDA safeguards. Please wake up! Canadiens pay a fraction of what we pay because more of their representatives look out for their consituents rather than lining their pockets with drug industry money as is done here. Canadian drugs are perfectly safe. Intelligent Americans (including American cities) have imported them for years with no harm being done. Universal coverage, whether single or multi-payor, uses health care as a service not a product. Below is a reprint from Mass. Senior Action Council’s website on:
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THE FOUR BIGGEST LIES ABOUT A SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE SYSTEM (Let the education begin)
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When he announced his support for a single payer health care system last year, former Vice President Al Gore said he was making this statement reluctantly. Only after waking up to the fact that our present health care system is heading toward a terminal collapse, after looking at every other option, did Mr. Gore conclude that only a comprehensive system in which all of us had the same stake was the best choice for the United States.
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Of course, all converts are welcome, but what is intriguing about the word ?reluctantly? is that it seems to characterize not only Mr. Gore?s journey toward supporting a single payer system, but the one that the country as a whole is currently embarking on. Support for a single payer system is clearly building, but it seems as if the nation?s leaders must try every other conceivable option before single payer is finally implemented in the U.S.
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That our current health care system is rapidly approaching D.O.A. status is beyond argument. Rising costs, declining service, hospital closings, the shortage of nurses willing to participate in the system, the dumping of seniors by Medicare HMO?s are all evidence of a system more concerned with cash than care. Because it is so difficult to defend the current system, those with a stake in propping it up, are concentrating their energies on spreading false information about our current condition and about how a single payer system would operate. Printed below are four of the biggest falsehoods being spread about a single payer health care system.
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We do not need to change to single payer; the U.S. has the best health care system in the world.
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Wrong! The World Health Organization undertook a comprehensive assessment of worldwide health systems based upon an overall index of performance. Despite being #1 in per capita health care expenditures, the U.S. health care system ranks 37th in the world. When we were compared with 29 other industrialized countries, the U.S. ranked, respectively, 19th and 25th in female and male life expectancy.
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Single payer is too expensive.
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Wrong! A study done for the state of Vermont showed that a single payer system would save an estimated $118 million dollars in its first year. A recent Massachusetts study showed greater savings through single payer than through any other system. Almost 40% of current health care expenditures support insurance company expenses such as administration and advertising, expenses that would be eliminated under a single payer system
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Single payer is socialized medicine, a big government bureaucracy.
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Wrong! Medical care remains private under single payer. A single payer system changes the financing of health care, not the care itself. Administration of a single payer system would be more efficient than the bloated bureaucracies in place in many insurance companies. More resources would be directed toward care rather than billing.
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The increased taxes for a single payer system would drive my employer out of business?
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Wrong! The taxes paid for a single payer system mean that businesses no longer have to shop for health benefits. They will no longer have to create part time rather than full time work to avoid increased health care costs and, best of all, won?t have to compete with businesses who don?t provide health benefits since everyone will be operating on the same level field. For unionized companies, health care will no longer be a subject for bargaining. More than 80% of the strikes during the last decade were over health benefits.
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There it is. A single payer system?s biggest obstacle is not cost or efficiency; its disinformation.
to refute these 4 points that stgm brings us.
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before you change the subject and start ranting about Gummint Run healthcare and socialism and big scary unknown and perpetuating the cato institute talking points, please try to discredit these verities first.
From DrSteveB on Daily Kos and his truly fantastic “Health Care Thursdays”
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Then there’s our very own MassCare statewide coalition that’s been working for state-level single payer reform for over 10 years. btw I was in the room full of activists out at UMass Medical School back in the ’90’s when we were brainstorming and then voting on what to name this new coaltion… We’ve been reintroducing and lobbying for a bill that would establish a state level single payer system every session for 10 years now. We’re out-lobbied/ massively out -spent by the hc cartel big time every time.
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MassCare’s exec director is Ben Day who’s very approachable if anyone wants to connect or has questions that the webiste doesn’t answer. MassCare’s details on Single Payer, including how we’d pay for it, can be found here
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All these resources are readily available which is what leads me to conclude that Kayot is merely an anti-jamie troll, but in case the above info is useful to others with a sincere interest I wanted to make an effort to share it. btw the Mass. fake reform law that tries to force feed expensive and crappy private insurance is revealing itself to be an insurance-industry concocted POS. Learn more about that in a powerpoint here. Heartfelt thanks to STGM for posting solid info here as well.
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peace, Ann
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p.s. for info and some fun resources the health justice battle that’s being waged, check out these new websites related to the “Scrubs for Sicko” national campaign (I’ve been with them in DC and NH last week): SickoCure.org and GuaranteedHealthCare.org
… the healthcare systems of Canada and other countries (and you should be if you are sincere at all about wanting to fix what is wrong in our own system), I highly reccomend this article by Ezra Klein. It is a very useful primer on the different systems that are out there.
Klein’s article includes this:
Our health care system is better than Slovenia’s!Goes well with
I can see it now. US guy, vacationing in Costa Rica. Chest pains.
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Next words: “whew, thank god I’m in Costa Rica and not the US”.
because of the cost and easy access. and quality.
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and i got malaria medicine at a beautiful pristine hospital in pretoria, south africa for $26. while the travelers clinic at mount auburn hospital in cambridge told me that the same thing would be at least $310, though they were not sure what the final total would be.
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Probably the malaria script was Halofantrine, patented and manufactured by Smith Kline & French, a US company. Absent that innovation, you’d have been given, say quinine, with mixed results.
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Thank goodness for that product of US innovation, huh.
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South Africa healthcare in a few words: and is 175th on the WHO list.
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BTW, it’s interesting that WHO ranked US as 37th and Cuba as 39th. One of the five (5) factors listed in developing that list is the overall population health. A few thoughts: (1) Cuba is a totalitarian government. You trust info/statistics from that country? (2) the overall health of the fat american is pretty much caused by being a fat american–life style, not healthcare. (3) Seriously New Englander, would you rather find an unwanted lump while visiting Cuba or while visiting, say Florida.
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And, with regards to #1, France. Free healthcare for all, ignores the 13.5 % payroll tax, the 5.25 sales tax that fund the system–a system that is running a $12 billion deficit.
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Oh, also, 92% of all French carry a private health insurance policy because the public health isn’t really so great. But, the French do live longer, probably because they’re French and live in France and less because of their health system.
Why fabulous Halofantrine (if that’s what it was), a product of good old Yankee ingenuity, costs so much more to us Yankees than seemingly everyone else.
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Is there a good reason for that?
Because the healthcare system in the US virtually wiped out Malaria in the southern US, there’s no reason to keep an obscure drug on stock. Keeping it for the few people that need it costs money because it’s purchased in low quantity.
it was really a horrible experience. it only seemed efficient, professional and cost-efficient.
it wasn’t halofandrine or whatever.
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and to blow yet another hole in your fantasy rebuttal gary, pretoria south africa is not even considered a primary malaria zone. so they have no reason to have huge stockpiles of anti-malarials either. i was getting the prescription for onward travel to another country.
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What was it? Let’s have some details to evaluate your anecdote. Compare US pricing and such.
The article–apparently an unbiased source–indicates South Africa as a two-tiered, system with a public component that lacks physicians because they flee to the private component.
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Yet, your experience was good.
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Perhaps, because you used the private component.
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How would that potentially differ from the US with a Universal system? Would a private component be permitted to develope? And, if there was 2 systems, is there a chance that the public tier would fail, or would provide poor service or turn bloated by government.
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Just questions with uncertain answers. Yet, the left chases the Single Payer model like the holy grail: it appears to be a faith based initiative.
…a quinine derivative.
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More than a few pharmaceuticals are actually derivatives of known treatments, perhaps regulated and adjusted for dosage.
digitalis is a derivative of the foxglove plant. The plant’s paliative qualities were well known, long before digitalis was “invented.” All that the digitalis “inventors” did was isolate the active ingredient and adjust for dosage.
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All Henry Ford did was figure out how to put a motor on wheels and mass produce it…
…Henry Ford invented neither the gasoline powered automobile (Daimler had done it before him) nor the assembly line (the Brits had it at least a century earlier).
And yet, Henry Ford became wealthy, I guess you’d say for doing something that wasn’t so special. Too bad the government wasn’t so wise to stop him or regulate the profit he earned.
I heard a radio story about retirees in Costa Rica — one of the retirees specifically praised the health care as being quite good there.
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If I were drinking something, I would have promptly spit it out on the screen.
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Unlike Canada, we make no bones about America being a “tiered” system. Instead, though, we have various levels of shitty insurance, 50 million or so people witout any insurance, another 50-100 people people with lousy (yet expensive) insurance, people like my friend who had ‘decent’ insurance, but a $100 co-pay at the emergency room (so she elected to NOT go to the ER when she thought she broke her wrist). Then, there’s the lucky few… people like me, who happen to have really, really good insurance. Yet, I’m out of college and Blue Cross Blue Shield only covers children up to a certain age and I’m hitting that wall fast. So, a year from now, I’ll be on a completely different tier.
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Furthermore, unlike Canada, our tier system is not only legal – but encouraged. Clearly, the person who wrote this diary knows almost NOTHING about various health care systems. Ever hear of Google? Or, how about checking out the various campaign websites?
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The person could go to the library to read up on old Paul Tsongas articles – because his words offer such expertise in today’s rising health care expenses – yet, couldn’t bother going to Jamie Eldridge’s website to find more about his health care plans?
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Can someone say Hit Piece? Why is this even front paged?
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Canada’s system isn’t perfect. However, everyone’s covered. Everyone has high quality insurance. The life expectancy in Canada is higher than America – which says something about the quality of care they receive. Everyone gets the same quality of care, except for the people who are willing to pay for procedures with absolutely NO government help. If someone chooses to go to a Doctor that has refused to be paid by the Canadain government, they’re on their own… so, needless to say, that upper tier is a very, very, very, very tiny percent of the population – which is quite unlike America, where the lower tiers comprise at least a 1/3rd of the population.
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A requirement? Well, it’s a requirement for some people. However, we DON’T have universal insurance in this state. It got watered down. That’s one reason why Jamie Eldridge says we need a single-payer system: it’s the only way to insure EVERYONE has health insurance. Systems like Massachusetts will inevitably leave people behind. The government simply doesn’t have enough money to pay for the people in the donut whole, who can’t afford to pay for their own insurance, yet the Government can’t afford to pay for them. So, they’re screwed… and that’s going to be tens of thousands of people.
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Furthermore, our insurance doesn’t cover people who are offerred insurance through work – but can’t afford it. Everyone who works at Dunkin Donuts, for example, can get health insurance – yet, a full time employee there makes less than $20k a year. They can’t afford the DD plan. But, because that company offers one, they will get no help by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to get insurance.
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Most importantly, all of the cheaper – “affordable” – plans out there have caps on coverage between 50-100k. You could get in a car accident and end up with a bill more than $50 thousand dollars. Once you use up your insurance, you’re screwed. What happens if someone gets cancer? Some other bad, chronic disease? They’re screwed.
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No, Massachusetts isn’t lightyears ahead of the National Government. We’re just giving insurance companies some more corporate welfare – because, clearly, Harvard Pilgram needs it. Right? The only real answers to these questions, and a 1,000 others (like controlling costs in our cities and towns) is a National Health Care system that’s single-payer. It would save this country tens of billions every year, while covering everyone and giving better coverage to almost everyone, except the people who have the most elite plans that almost no one can afford. And, if those people want to continue to have those plans, they can always buy additional insurance – like you can do in almost any country that has Single Payer (like France).
… did you check out Ezra’s take on Canada. Is there anything there you’d disagree with?
Because it’s a good representation of what we’re facing — certainly not because I agree with it. It’s front-paged so that you and others can do exactly what you’re doing — demolishing it.
which I don’t because I don’t have the time and because writing takes me too long.
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If I had a blog, it would, of course, be consciously liberal, it would actively recruit moderates, and it would welcome conservatives as guests. I would have a weekly feature called something like Kicking the Tires where I’d take something liberals tend to believe (raising the minimum wage does not raise unemployment markedly, sales taxes are regressive, there is no liberal media bias, gun control lowers crime in urban, etc.). In this weekly feature I’d sketch why liberals believe what they do and then I’d outline the 2 or 3 main conservatives criticisms with some indication of the standard liberal rebuttal. My fantasy is that this would lead to some very interesting discussion where the liberal contributors would be able to exercise all their skepticism and questioning without having to swat off gotcha games. I imagine such discussions could be very productive because there are a lot of liberals with a deep interest in policy, a questioning attitude, and an ability to weigh unthinkable positions without acrimony.
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Such posts, of course, would take a lot of research to put together. They’d require knowledge deeper than whatever Google turns up today on the first two pages of search results. On the other hand, they would contribute to my goal of making liberalism “an attractive and useful ideology” and they would strengthen our ability to advocate the liberal positions in the marketplace of ideas and, also, in the emotional melodrama of political campaigns.
I guess you’re just a nicer Editor than I would be on a community blog.