Quote:
Originally Posted by Maple Leaf
Interesting observation.
Does the US government not already provide healthcare, paid for by the tax payers, to the people who would be apt to be heavy users of a universal system?
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Not to the degree that the system would be overwhelmed if they had access to "free" healthcare without question and that is exactly what a single payer program would end up being for millions of Americans. The rest of us would end up paying their premiums.
As is they can get critical care that is paid for by all and they can also go to free or charity clinics based on your ability to pay. I have two relatives who have gone to those type clinics over the past year because they were in a situation without insurance temporarily. Does not mean they will not have insurance again soon though. It was a good temporary resource.
Here is how these type government programs go down in America. For example take the noble goal that LBJ had of helping indigent mothers with dependent children.
A welfare program was designed to help this very small minority of women who were trying to raise children on their own due to absentee fathers.
However once a program was in place and the amount a recipient received was based on the need (translated = number of children), babies started popping out like microwave popcorn at about 700 watts!
By the mid 1970's when I lived in a '"gument" housing project with my widowed mother we were surrounded by households with not one, two or even three children of mothers without husbands but usually close to a half dozen or more and usually by as many different men. The more fatherless kids the bigger the "gument" check and food stamps were.
Thankfully several decades later welfare reform slowed that nonsense down but it proves my point about how if you have a government program to fulfill a certain need it will undoubtably grow beyond your wildest expectations.
If the government came up with a plan to help out one armed red haired folks there would be a run on hair dye and knives as people would put themselves in that position.
My state of Tennessee has almost gone bankrupt experimenting with an alternative to medicaid that was intended to offer single payer insurance to those that could not get it on their job. The result was a lot more cost than ever anticipated and employers dropping their health plans because they know their employees can get on TennCare.
I actually had a temp employee I wanted to hire full time for my company a few years ago decline the job offer because her TennCare coverage and premium was cheaper than our company coverage. Of course it was only cheaper to her because all of the rest of us taxpayers in Tennessee were footing the real bill.
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