Vermont Abandons Single Payor

[Yagents]

If a small state can't finance it, I doubt you'll see it in any form across the nation in the next decade. Damn taxes and cost got in the way. Even some liberals own a calculator, and understand they can't crush small business.

Governor abandons single-payer health care plan

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Calling it the biggest disappointment of his career, Gov. Peter Shumlin said Wednesday he was abandoning plans to make Vermont the first state in the country with a universal, publicly funded health care system.

Going forward with a project four years in the making would require tax increases too big for the state to absorb, Shumlin said

Shumlin said it showed the plan would require an 11.5 percent payroll tax on businesses and an income tax separate from the one the state already has of up to 9.5 percent.

Shumlin said small business owners would be hit with both, and he repeatedly expressed concern about whether those businesses, many of which now don't offer health insurance or offer much less costly insurance, could cover the new expense.

 

[AllenChicago]

Since several other countries have no problem with "Single Payor", are we to assume that a big problem here is that USA Medical providers demand too much revenue, and income, to make it feasible?

 

[taterpeeler]

Since several other countries have no problem with "Single Payor", are we to assume that a big problem here is that USA Medical providers demand too much revenue, and income, to make it feasible?

exactly what I have been preaching all along... instead of controlling the funding are(insurance companies) control the spenders(doctors)

 

[Winter_123]

If a small state can't finance it, I doubt you'll see it in any form across the nation in the next decade. Damn taxes and cost got in the way. Even some liberals own a calculator, and understand they can't crush small business.

Governor abandons single-payer health care plan

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Calling it the biggest disappointment of his career, Gov. Peter Shumlin said Wednesday he was abandoning plans to make Vermont the first state in the country with a universal, publicly funded health care system.

Going forward with a project four years in the making would require tax increases too big for the state to absorb, Shumlin said

Shumlin said it showed the plan would require an 11.5 percent payroll tax on businesses and an income tax separate from the one the state already has of up to 9.5 percent.

Shumlin said small business owners would be hit with both, and he repeatedly expressed concern about whether those businesses, many of which now don't offer health insurance or offer much less costly insurance, could cover the new expense.

Don't trust those commies in Vermont. The governor is doing a tag team operation with Bernie the Socialist Sanders.

Bernie is going to run for president as his parting gig and wants his legacy to be the Lefty with the Mostest and ahead of his times. He is obviously not running to win only to have his legacy show that he was Mr. Single Payor. It helps his cause to show that it cannot be implemented at the state level. Otherwise people will just say: hey, if Vermont wants it go for it and keep us posted but stay out of our state. And all the various scary state tax issues that are mentioned are just the foreplay that makes the argument that it can only be done at the national level and you need a national VAT tax to fund it. This is the socialist way, except the nordic countries have massive oil revenues to help fund it (revenues subject to change right as we speak).

Vermont has hosted a whole series of ongoing visits from Danish health officials in recent times. They aren't there because Bernie and company want to learn how to smoke herring and Bernie is not going to let all that advance commie training go to waste.

-posted anonymously

 

[somarco]

Since several other countries have no problem with "Single Payor", are we to assume that a big problem here is that USA Medical providers demand too much revenue, and income, to make it feasible?

Name some countries that don't have a problem with single payor.

OK, Cuba is one but that is an exception rather than the rule and their health care system is superior to ours.

 

[AllenChicago]

exactly what I have been preaching all along... instead of controlling the funding are(insurance companies) control the spenders(doctors)

Plus, U.S. citizens are spoiled. We gorge on fat/grease/sugar, but can't stand the pain radiating in the left arm, or the clothes getting too tight. So, we demand an arterial rotor-rootering, or a big rubberband surgically wound around our stomach.

When you create medical issues for yourself and demand that the medical profession install band-aids, so you can continue the self-abuse, these professionals can, and do, charge as much as they want.

It's free market capitalism with an inelastic demand curve, which doesn't work well with a single payer system that anyone can join for free.

 

[Winter_123]

OK, Cuba is one but that is an exception rather than the rule and their health care system is superior to ours.

Sure but Obama is normalizing relations with Cuba so imagine that before long Cuban doctors will want to earn more so they will be taking jobs at Red Lobster.

 

[mrcurious]

Since several other countries have no problem with "Single Payor", are we to assume that a big problem here is that USA Medical providers demand too much revenue, and income, to make it feasible?

Taterpeeler raises an interesting question: Is it the costs we should be looking at? Underwriting is one thing, but it is only driven by actuarial stuff and what the actual cost is. As a guy who has lived in both US and Canada, I'm fascinated by some big questions:
- is the % of GDP that Americans spend on health relatively high / crazy? (I think the data shows that it is yes? .. relative to other countries)
- if the carrier is incentivized (by the 80/ 20 rule) to have insurance claims go UP.. .not down... then WTF do we do about that? (the insanity here is that underwriters / carriers have a negative incentive to lower costs
- lastly, yes, we are a bunch of babies with our needs to have perfect health despite our deplorable personal behavior, but ultimately a system that benefits on rising costs won't fix that

so to me VT was the great american experiment, but I think what taterpeeler is saying (and I don't disagree) is that single payer would work in a same ecosystem, but that ship may have sailed in the post ACA world that the US now finds itself in

 

[Winter_123]

so to me VT was the great american experiment, but I think what taterpeeler is saying (and I don't disagree) is that single payer would work in a same ecosystem, but that ship may have sailed in the post ACA world that the US now finds itself in

Oh that ship has not even begun to sail yet, especially with Hillary and Bernie Sanders chomping at the bit to have a say on how the system needs to be "fixed."

The failure of ACA was always part of the plan to destroy the current system so that a Canadian type system would look good to the masses at some point. Bernie Sanders is not going to be elected of course but his swan song as he leaves the political stage is to run long and hard on why we need a Danish system. And Hillary can't wait to say "I told you so" about the need for a public option. So the lefty flag is going to be flying high, proud, and often for a long time to come.

This whole lefty agenda is not going anywhere soon and the more Crockcare shiites bed, the faster it will advance. And if anyone says that the Republicans need to develop an alternative, I am going to puke. When exactly do they think would be a good time to do that?

 

[G.Gordon]

Thinking that a US single payor system will look anything like any of the other countries that have done so is a joke.

Look at Medicare part D. It is bought and sold and ruled by big Pharma.

Any inroads to single payor or other alterations to the US healthcare payment system will be controlled by the groups writing the biggest checks to the rule writers.

If anyone thinks they can guess what comes next they ought to buy lottery tickets for a living.

The ACA was designed to kill the individual insurance market. It is working.