Why I’m finally ready to agree a single-payer healthcare system would be better for business

So the federal government that cannot obtain honest prices in the defense of the nation will be able to micromanage healthcare for hundreds of millions of people?

Would you like to own the Brooklyn Bridge?

 

I wish everybody would look at this sham of a study. The authors take the ratio of drug spending to total health care spending in Canada and applies that to the US. That is the low side of "savings". Then the authors take the ratio of drug spending to total health care spending in Denmark and applies that ratio to the US. That is the high side of "savings". Then the authors basically say, "Welp, we can do somewhere in between these two ratios with Medicare drug costs if we would only have states negotiate with pharmaceutical companies using their huge market share as leverage." In other words it's a number they pulled out of a hat.

BTW, $73 billion over 10 years is $7.3 billion per year, or about what we will pay to health insurance companies for cost sharing reduction payments in 2017.

Look at it another way, it's about $23 savings per US citizen per year.

 

Ummmm.....
The Urban Institute was funded (at least in the past) by CIGNA and Pfizer. [ Urban Institute - SourceWatch ]

In 2016, there were NUMEROUS government agencies listed as donors, four of which donated $1,000,000 or more.
[ https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2016-annual-report-092217.pdf ]

I think we all agree that there is a healthcare crisis in this country, and in many ways it was a fire stoked by the ACA. I am perpetually amazed at how many people honestly believe that the ACA provides healthcare, which the reality is that it simply mandates very expensive insurance.

A single-payer system is not the answer.

Regards, hope all is well,
BiR