The United States Federal Government should adopt a Single Payer Health Care system

single payer health care is better than our current health care system i am borrowing this debate from else where. please use this link to find working links in this debate http://www.debate.org... The right single payer system would cover everyone, while yielding better results, and saving money. BETTER RESULTS WHILE SAVING MONEY: we spend more per capita, and get less health care results back... than any other country in the world: http://cthealth.server101.com......... -we spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare, while single payer countries spend 10%. that 7% represents a lot of money, a trillion dollars. -the savings come from a decrease in administrative costs: insurance companies are a middleman that serves no real purpose other than spending 30% of revenue on administrative costs and profit, costs that could be just as easily streamlined by the government down to less than 5% or so. (medicare for example requires 3% for administration). The costs are higher with so many companies, because there's so much redundancy... thousands of payroll departments instead of one, for example. -More Options: "For a dozen years now I've led a dual life, spending more than 90 percent of my time and money in the U.S. while receiving 90 percent of my health care in my wife's native France. On a personal level the comparison is no contest: I'll take the French experience any day. ObamaCare opponents often warn that a new system will lead to long waiting times, mountains of paperwork, and less choice among doctors. Yet on all three of those counts the French system is significantly better, not worse, than what the U.S. has now" -"Why I (an economically right leaning libertarian) Prefer French Health Care" http://pnhp.org......... full article: http://reason.com......... More from the Congressional Budget Office: ""The Congressional Budget Office and related government agencies scored the cost of a single payer health care system several times since 1991. The General Accounting Office published a report in 1991 noting that "[I]f the US were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer, as in Canada, the savings in administrative costs [10 percent of health spending] would be more than enough to offset the expense of universal coverage."[40] The CBO scored the cost in 1991, noting that "the population that is currently uninsured could be covered without dramatically increasing national spending on health" and that "all US residents might be covered by health insurance for roughly the current level of spending or even somewhat less, because of savings in administrative costs and lower payment rates for services used by the privately insured.[41] A CBO report in 1993 stated that "[t]he net cost of achieving universal insurance coverage under this single payer system would be negative" in part because "consumer payments for health would fall by $1,118 per capita, but taxes would have to increase by $1,261 per capita" in order to pay for the plan.[42] A July 1993 scoring also resulted in positive outcomes, with the CBO stating that, "[a]s the program was phased in, the administrative savings from switching to a single-payer system would offset much of the increased demand for health care services. Later, the cap on the growth of the national health budget would hold the rate of growth of spending below the baseline."[43] The CBO also scored Sen. Paul Wellstone's American Health and Security Act of 1993 in December 1993, finding that "by year five (and in subsequent years) the new system would cost less than baseline."[44]"" -our GDP is 14 trillion, our national debt is close to there. 1 trillion dollars a year, enough to boost our economy significantly, or eliminate our debt if we wanted (political football as to how that would be done), or at the end of the day simply keep more money our pocket. -if the government did it right (big if, granted), it would be a self contained system (no taxes other than from those who want to join), we would not coerce people to join, and/or they could utilize 'supplemental insurance' in addition to the government's system and get more options. they wouldn't have to wait in lines then, which aren't that long to begin with. (two weeks max for most standard procedures, short for emergencies etc, and with many insurance companies worse than many single payer systems... and most citizens in single payer countries do not envy us). -insurance companies could even still exist (they may need to retain the current regulations to cover some preexisting conditions by law, so as to prevent them from skimming off a bunch of healthy people from government plans, to ensure the pool is sufficient to cover everyone in it to a reasonable extent--the most difficult aspect of allowing insurance companies to still exist, the government's power here and the overall give and take here, is huge). -there could be limits on the amount of care which is essentially what insurance companies already do and people understand as a necessity (eg, a 200k policy) (there would be no need for 'death panels'). the copays, premiums (or taxes), carrots and sticks, could be done so as to ensure people don't abuse the system (as they do with so many insurance plans already) ------------------- some opponents cite this source as to whether medicare would cost more, even if administration costs would be about the same... http://tinypic.com......... heritage used 'justice' expenses to come to a higher per patient cost. those expsnes include nonmedicare related expenses. if you took that into consitiation.... "So almost all of the $7.2 billion should be taken away from the allocated indirect Medicare expenses. Being generous to Book and Zycher and taking away only $6 billion reduces the per-beneficiary expense for FY 2005 from Book"s $509 to $356. That compares to $453 for private sector insurance. So without addressing any of the other questionable expense allocations, Medicare administrative expense per beneficiary is at least 21 percent lower than that of private insurance." - See more at: http://angrybearblog.com......... http://www.angrybearblog.com......... assuming this is true, though, doesn't mean a single payer system isn't most economical... it means that we should not use a program that is like medicare. We could do as Europe does and have a tightly regulated insurance industry, with government involvement. This is from the doctors for single payer link I cited above... "The nation should listen when a prominent libertarian extolls the virtues of social insurance. Once we accept the principle of social insurance, then we can have a more rational debate over whether we want that to be a single-payer Medicare-type program or a European-style social insurance program using using private plans that are so tightly regulated that they almost function as a single payer system." we can regulate the system to ensure redundancy and waste and not there. Basically, to be more like other single payer countries... At the end of the day, it's well established common knowledge that single payer countries pay around ten percent GDP, and we pay seventeen percent. That's the bottom line.