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So just a reminder that the USA spends like 3X the amount on health care that Spain does, but live on average Americans live 4 years less.

Yeah but that's probably from drinking wine with lunch then taking a nap all afternoon.

thrill wrote:Here is a picture of me pondering Bruce Hamilton's question:

There should also be a picture of Carter and Ted Kennedy here. The Dem's had all the pieces to pass single payer anytime between 1978 and 1980 but due to political rivalry between them, could not reach a deal.

Schlich wrote:Aetna to exit nearly 7 in 10 Obamacare plans

Like other insurers, the company blamed its withdrawal on a pool of exchange participants that has turned out to be heavier users of their insurance plans than previously predicted. Insurers need healthy plan members to off set sick patients to balance the books.

Single Payer. Its the only real solution.

yup

But. But. But. FREE MARKET. Because capitalism.

pioneer98 wrote:So just a reminder that the USA spends like 3X the amount on health care that Spain does, but live on average Americans live 4 years less.

That's all part of the competition provided by the free market.

Joe Shlabotnik wrote:Single Payer. Its the only real solution.

The deeper issue here is a Congress that won't act to make technical fixes because it prefers failure. Any major new initiative, even single payer, would almost certainly have required corrections of various sorts with experience. The thinking seems to have been that once passed, it would be politically impossible to take health coverage away from millions, so Congressional Republicans would have to buy in. That was a serious error in judgement.

Arthur Dent wrote:

Joe Shlabotnik wrote:Single Payer. Its the only real solution.

The deeper issue here is a Congress that won't act to make technical fixes because it prefers failure. Any major new initiative, even single payer, would almost certainly have required corrections of various sorts with experience. The thinking seems to have been that once passed, it would be politically impossible to take health coverage away from millions, so Congressional Republicans would have to buy in. That was a serious error in judgement.

So the alternative to would be to pass something with no Republican buy in, but that would still require technical fixes later? I'm confused about how that would have been tons better.

There were "blue dog" Democrats that held out for a long time and weren't that much different than the moderate Republicans they were courting. I don't think the law would have looked very different if the Democrats had just ignored Republicans and went it alone because they needed every single Democrat vote they could muster to pass it.