As you know, I am a firm supporter of a single-payer system such as the one Kucinich would like to implement. That said, I am wary of the numbers quoted in this bit. From what source(s) was this magical $800 billion derived? Are they accurate? Peer-reviewed? CBO’d? Is it really that easy to determine? My guess is no. I think that estimating the costs and/or savings of single-payer is extremely difficult.
Yes, I DO believe single-payer would be a more efficient, and certainly more humane system, but from my experiences with nationalized health care in Japan and Hungary, there would also definitely be some kind of taxation imposed. This is the yoke which most Americans, and certainly most legislators, resist. Of course, if you pay 10% of your income for private health insurance, what would be different from paying that in tax? The answer is the illusion of the American confidence in free-market capitalism that (despite the Great Recession), we somehow cannot reform: that the market will provide.
Only when things get so bad that we cannot do anything else, will real reform happen. This is the American way.
Claudette
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.â€
As you know, I am a firm supporter of a single-payer system such as the one Kucinich would like to implement. That said, I am wary of the numbers quoted in this bit. From what source(s) was this magical $800 billion derived? Are they accurate? Peer-reviewed? CBO’d? Is it really that easy to determine? My guess is no. I think that estimating the costs and/or savings of single-payer is extremely difficult.
Yes, I DO believe single-payer would be a more efficient, and certainly more humane system, but from my experiences with nationalized health care in Japan and Hungary, there would also definitely be some kind of taxation imposed. This is the yoke which most Americans, and certainly most legislators, resist. Of course, if you pay 10% of your income for private health insurance, what would be different from paying that in tax? The answer is the illusion of the American confidence in free-market capitalism that (despite the Great Recession), we somehow cannot reform: that the market will provide.
Only when things get so bad that we cannot do anything else, will real reform happen. This is the American way.
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.â€