Let's prove single-payer healthcare works! - sm Posted: Nov 7th, 2018 - 6:02 pm
I propose that all the people who want single-payer healthcare get together and go for it.
Here's what I propose:
1. Everyone who wants single-payer healthcare can assemble themselves into a nationwide pool.
2. Enrollment is open to anyone and any number of people.
3. The government is accountable to anyone enrolled. Any decisions made by the government and financial statements will be posted for the group of enrollees.
4. Enrollees pay in advance in the form of quarterly taxes plus some additional amount of money. For example, if I wanted to enroll in the 1st quarter of 2019, I'd have to pay my fair share of whatever the group's medical bills were in the third quarter of 2018. I'd also have to cover some amount of inflation so the group fund doesn't go bankrupt, maybe an additional 10%, or 25%, something like that.
5. The government can make changes to the program as necessary. They can shuffle costs, mandate preventative measures, outlaw certain procedures, do collective bargaining, etc.
6. Anyone can leave the program at any time. They will remain covered until the end of the current quarter.
7. There could be a slush fund set aside, perhaps $1 billion, to get the program up and running and to keep the program from running out of money mid-quarter if enough people didn't sign up. Or not. I'm thinking like bank and other federally backed insurance programs people probably want to feel safe in their investment.
8. Pre-existing conditions are covered, of course.
9. There will be administration fees (to ensure the program runs correctly) and enrollees will be charged quarterly, in advance of receiving services.
At the end of the trial period, let's say 5-10 years we'll have a good body of evidence that the program works, how it worked, and how much money we could expect it to cost if rolled out to the nation. In fact, we wouldn't even need to roll it out to the nation. If it works, people should be happy to join, provided they want a single-payer system.
If it doesn't work, we'd know that as well. We would also know why and how it failed, if we wanted to try again later.
What do you think will happen? Succeed or fail, everything that could apply to 3000 people should also scale to 300 million.
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