Benefits of Medicare for all!

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i. insuring the uninsured - gains from a medicare type system

this section calculates the number of uninsured who could be insured from the savings that would result from replacing the current system of decentralized private insurers with a centralized medicare type system. the calculations assume that the only gain from this switch is the difference in the administrative expenses for a medicare type system compared with the administrative expenses for the current system. based on data from the medicare trustees report, the calculations assume that administrative expenses for a universal medicare type system would be 1.65 percent of health care spending. by contrast, the administrative expenses for the current for profit insurance system are calculated as 15.4 percent of the health care expenses paid out through this system. (see the appendix for a more detailed discussion of the methodology).

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from katrina vandenheuvel: http://www.alternet.org/story/47273/

1. healthcare for all

more than 47 million americans are now living without health coverage. representative john conyers's united states national health insurance act (hr 676) would create a single-payer healthcare system by expanding medicare to every resident. all necessary medical care would be covered -- from prescription drugs to hospital services to long-term care. there would be no deductibles or co-payments. funding would come from sources including savings from negotiated bulk procurement of medications; a tax on lower than what employers currently pay for less comprehensive employee health coverage.the top 5 percent of income earners; and a phased-in payroll tax that is

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"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand"

Milton Friedman

Pete Fitzpatrick

RN, CFRN, EMT-P

Writing from the Ninth Circle

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"if you put the federal government in charge of the sahara desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand"

milton friedman

pete fitzpatrick

rn, cfrn, emt-p

writing from the ninth circle

the nation's william greider posted a highly critical analysis of friedman and the impact of his (a)moral philosophy on the function of government, business and health care. see http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061211/greider.

enterprise and markets were indeed set "free" of government regulation, but big government did not go away (it grew bigger). only now government acts mainly as patron and protector for the largest, most powerful interests--the same ones that demanded their liberation. instead of serving the broad general welfare, government enables capital and corporations to feed off the taxpayers' money and convert public assets into private profit centers, shielded from the wrath of any citizens trying to object. if that is what friedman really had in mind, he should have said so. ...

his most profound damage, however, was as a moral philosopher. he championed an ethic of unrelenting, unapologetic self-interest that effectively pushed aside human sympathy. in fact, humans' responsibility to one another has been delegitimized--portrayed as an obstacle to the hardheaded analysis that maximizes returns....

friedman's utopia is also drenched in personal corruption. the proliferating scandals in business, finance and government flow directly from his teaching people to go for it and disregard moral qualms....

this is what the memorials left out: the cruel quality of friedman's obliviousness. art hilgart, a retired industrial economist, recalls hearing friedman lecture in 1991 and recommend the destruction of medicare, welfare, the postal system, social security and public education. the audience was dumbfounded.

finally, a brave young woman asked what this would mean for poverty. "there is no poverty in america," friedman instructed. a clear voice arose from the back of hall: "bullshit!" the audience cheered wildly.

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I think I'll side with the Nobel-Prize-Winning economist, thanks.

Did you use red for emphasis by coincidence?

Pete Fitzpatrick

RN, CFRN, EMT-P

Writing from the Ninth Circle

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I think I'll side with the Nobel-Prize-Winning economist, thanks.

Did you use red for emphasis by coincidence?

Pete Fitzpatrick

RN, CFRN, EMT-P

Writing from the Ninth Circle

Milton Friedman the father of the free market. His phylosophy has contributed to the downfall of the middle classes, and has made countries like China rich. Corporate CEOs have also benefited from this free market system to where they now earn more than 400 times the salary of the worker.Look at the growth of the drug, insurance and banking industries, while the manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas.Who is getting rich in this system and who is falling further and further behind?The average middle class and the poor just keep getting poorer.
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i think i'll side with the nobel-prize-winning economist, thanks.

did you use red for emphasis by coincidence?

pete fitzpatrick

rn, cfrn, emt-p

writing from the ninth circle

i did highlight using red. the full article also discusses how his economic theory was discarded by the federal reserve as a tool for managing the money supply. the problem with the competing self interest mindset is that it focuses on the interests of the individual without any concept of altruism or people working together for the common good. conservative governance and policies over the last 25 years has failed to produce a broadly shared prosperity which is the real lesson of greider's critique.

see: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070205/madrick for another take on the impact of friedman and his followers.

still, has mobility declined in recent decades? mazumder and others think it has. their research finds that the correlation of income between generations rose markedly in the 1980s and '90s. again, not all economists agree, but most of those doing research in the area do concede that income mobility today is greater in many european countries than it is in america. my guess is that few in congress, or in the media for that matter, believe that yet. reality dawns slowly on unwilling eyes.

the findings would not be as disturbing, of course, if incomes had been growing about equally for all levels of americans over the past quarter-century. but income inequality has risen since the 1970s to the levels of the roaring twenties. for example, the income of the top fifth of american households after inflation has risen by 50 percent since the late 1970s, the next fifth by only about 20 percent and the middle fifth by only 10 percent or so. a gain of 10 or even 20 percent over roughly a quarter-century is close to trivial, and the income of those in the bottom fifth did not increase at all over this period. by contrast, throughout american industrial history, incomes grew 30 to 50 percent or more every quarter-century, and in the quarter-century after world war ii, gains reached more than 100 percent for all income categories. since the late 1970s, only the top 1 percent of households increased their income by 100 percent.

i think the evidence of the failure of friedman and his policies on a moral political level is compelling. use this link to write your congressman to express your preferences. http://www.capwiz.com/thenation/issues/alert/?alertid=9280556

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Specializes in burn, geriatric, rehab, wound care, ER.
Did you use red for emphasis by coincidence?

RUN, RUN the communists are coming, check under your bed!:chair:

When are you guys going to get over you McCarthy-esque paranoia and let the country move forward?

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RUN, RUN the communists are coming, check under your bed!:chair:

When are you guys going to get over you McCarthy-esque paranoia and let the country move forward?

Really, for such an intelligent, sophisticated country as ours, we are reliving McCarthyism. Every change for the better for ALL is looked at with a suspicious eye, yet we have gone along with wars in foriegn countries , lost many lives and much money that could have been used to further our own citizens.The status quo is ruining this country, not change.
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