1. #1
    PAULYPOKER
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    Single payer, meet all payer: The surprising state that is quietly revolutionizing he

    SINGLE PAYER, MEET ALL PAYER: THE SURPRISING STATE THAT IS QUIETLY REVOLUTIONIZING HEALTH CARE


    I'am posting the meat&potatoes of this article,because this article is lengthy........
    Click the link above to get the full story....



    ONE UNHERALDED REASON for Trumpcare’s many difficulties was a sea change in public opinion. A new Associated Press poll finds that 62 percent now agree the federal government has a responsibility to provide health coverage to all Americans, up from 52 percent in March. Republicans looking to take away coverage ran headlong into this wave of support for a bigger governmental role in health care.


    “Once you get something for pre-existing conditions, etc., etc. — once you get something, it’s awfully tough to take it away,” President Trump concluded.




    There is one state, however, where a combination of fewer institutional barriers and existing health care structures could make health-care-for-all an achievable reality: Maryland.


    It will take a grassroots groundswell and electoral victories, especially in next year’s governor’s race. One prominent gubernatorial candidate, former NAACP president Ben Jealous, has ardently endorsed single payer. “We have the opportunity in this state to make sure that we don’t have any more neighbors burying loved ones because they didn’t have access to health care,” Jealous said at an event where Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed him for governor.




    MARYLAND IS THE only state in America where all hospitals must charge the same rate for services to patients, regardless of what insurance they carry. There’s some variance between hospitals, but every patient in a particular hospital pays the same. Other states experience huge, seemingly random differences in hospital costs, depending on the insurer (or lack thereof).


    Maryland’s Health Services Cost Review Commission has set hospital reimbursement rates for over 40 years. The state obtained a federal waiver to include Medicaid and Medicare in its all-payer system, with the goal of keeping cost increases below Medicare growth. And it’s worked, creating the lowest rate of growth in hospital costs in America.


    In 2014, to prevent hospitals from making up profit margins through volume, Maryland tweaked the system, adding global budgeting. “The traditional way it worked, every hospital got a rate card,” said Joshua Sharfstein, an associate dean at Johns Hopkins’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a former head of Maryland’s Health Department. “Now you get a number, which is the total revenue for the year.”


    Because the global budget doesn’t change based on the number of admissions, this creates hospital incentives toward better outcomes. “It makes the health system focused on keeping people healthy rather than just treating illnesses,” said Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizen’s Health Initiative, a state advocacy group. That includes increased preventive treatment, using case managers to connect patients to primary care, eliminating unnecessary tests, and encouraging good health outside the hospital walls.


    Three years into global budgeting, the state is “meeting or exceeding” its goals, according to a January Health Affairs study. Hospital revenue growth is well below counterparts nationwide, or the growth of Maryland’s economy. Plus, state hospitals have saved $429 million for Medicare, more in three years than it targeted for five. Most important, every state hospital (all of which are nonprofit) and every insurer in Maryland are on board with the system.


    If a centralized rate-setter bands every insurer together to negotiate prices, all payer can functionally act like single payer in terms of bringing down costs. All payer reduces hospital and insurer overhead, since billing costs are known in advance. And because the Affordable Care Act caps the amountsinsurers can take in as profits, lower hospital costs should flow back to the individual in the form of smaller premiums.


    This is why five countries — France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and The Netherlands — use all-payer rate setting as the basis for their universal health care systems. These countries have been found to control costs far better than America’s fragmented system.

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    PAULYPOKER
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    US Republicans vote to advance Obamacare repeal

    US Republican senators have narrowly outnumbered in votes for opening debate to repeal Obamacare, former Democratic President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law.


    The US Senate voted 51-50 on Tuesday to proceed with a debate on Republican plans to dismantle Obamacare, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the tie-breaking vote.


    All 48 Democratic and left-leaning senators opposed the measure, along with Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Senator John McCain, recently diagnosed with brain cancer, entered the chamber to a standing ovation and cast a crucial Republican vote in favor of proceeding.


    The Republican senator said he would not vote for the healthcare bill "as it is today," and added, "I know many of you will have to see the bill changed substantially to support it."



    A still image from a video shows US Senator John McCain, who had been recuperating in Arizona after being diagnosed with brain cancer, speaking on the floor of the US Senate after returning to Washington for a vote on healthcare reform in Washington, US, July 25, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)





    President Trump, who hailed the huge political win, had earlier warned his party's senators that they would face strong repercussions if they failed to move forward on the legislation.


    "To every member of the Senate I say this: The American people have waited long enough. There's been enough talk, and no action. Now is the time for action," Trump said at the White House. "So far, Senate Republicans have not done their job in ending the Obamacare nightmare."


    Before Tuesday's vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also called on senators to take the first step to “provide relief on this failed left-wing experiment.”


    “I’d like to reiterate what the president said yesterday,” he said. “Any senator who votes against starting debate is telling America that you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare … That’s a position that even Democrats have found hard to defend.”




    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (C) speaks with reporters following the successful vote to open debate on a healthcare bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, on July 25, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)



    The vote sets up days of debate and votes on repealing and replacing Obamacare, which was designed to increase health insurance quality and affordability, lower the uninsured rate by expanding insurance coverage and reduce the costs of healthcare. Whatever the Senate approves will still require a vote in the House of Representatives.


    In the most contentious congressional vote of Trump's presidency in May, lawmakers voted 217 to 213 to pass the Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill.


    No Democrats backed Trump’s American Health Care Act (AHCA), also known as Trumpcare, and some 20 Republicans voted in opposition. Most of the Republican politicians have long vowed to repeal Obamacare.


    Healthcare experts from across the political spectrum have said that Trump’s bill is unworkable, suffers from fatal flaws and could lead to Americans dropping out of the healthcare market.


    Experts agree that the bill fails to reach the objectives laid forth by Trump, which includes affordable coverage for everyone, lower deductibles, healthcare costs and better care.

  3. #3
    VeggieDog
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    From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

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    RoyBacon
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    Tiring of these left spinning "reports". They fail nearly always to mention that Obamacare is in a death spiral. So yea, leave Obamacare alone and pretty soon the only ones that will be covered are the terminally ill.

    Single payer? That will happen right after taxes double which is not happening ever.

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    khicks26
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    jjgold
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    Saloon

    Trump is getting stronger and stronger in the blue states you can forget 2020 for any Democrat

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    khicks26
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  8. #8
    gauchojake
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    Quote Originally Posted by RoyBacon View Post
    Tiring of these left spinning "reports". They fail nearly always to mention that Obamacare is in a death spiral. So yea, leave Obamacare alone and pretty soon the only ones that will be covered are the terminally ill.

    Single payer? That will happen right after taxes double which is not happening ever.
    Obamacare is not in a death spiral. The individual marketplace is challenged in certain states like Tennessee and that is pretty easily fixed.

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  10. #10
    rkelly110
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    WTF else is new. Busting on bad boy Bill for getting head, while cheating on his wife with cancer.

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