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Female OH Legislator Wants Law Regulating Men's Reproductive Health

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by BNWriter, Mar 12, 2012.

  1. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    3/16/12
     
  2. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    3/17/12

    http://www.doonesbury.com
     
  3. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Not that I would expect them to show some guts, but if I were the Dems in the Senate, I'd offer a government-run single-payer health plan now.

    Then, when the GOP howls that they don't want big government involved in health care, point out each and every one of these abortion laws.
     
  4. A proposal to enact a true single-payer plan would backfire massively.

    A true single-payer plan would be summarily rejected by the electorate. Polls that have shown the most support for single-payer plans almost always had wording comparing it to universal Social Security or Medicare. That won't fly in a public debate. When Republicans bombard the airwaves announcing that, unlike Social Security or Medicare, a true single-payer plan would prevent you from paying for alternative medical services not authorized by the government, you'd turn Rick Santorum into a legitimate candidate — and maybe even a winner.

    Heck, within the past month, nearly 3 in 4 Americans — including a majority of Democrats and supporters of the ACA — think the individual mandate is unconstitutional. http://www.gallup.com/poll/152969/Americans-Divided-Repeal-2010-Healthcare-Law.aspx

    There is no way a true single-payer plan would fly politically.
     
  5. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    People already are prevented from paying for alternative medical services. By the corporate health insurance companies. Repubs convieniently ignore this, and the Dems are too wussy to point it out.

    That's always been a weakness of the Dems when it comes to winning the debate. They're always playing defense, and frequently doing it poorly, while the Repubs play an offense that would make Paul Westhead proud.

    The individual mandate looks bad because, well, it's the government telling people to buy a private product. Except, that mandate is being used to pay for this plan, which wouldn't have been necessary had the insurance companies just not tried to screw over their customers for every little thing.

    Not to mention, when you think about it, government telling people to buy a private product for their health care is exactly what these anti-abortion laws are now trying to make women do. Force them to undergo a second medical procedure in order to undergo the legal one that they want.
     
  6. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Not with the heavy cannons of the Faux Noise machine unlimbered against it shrieking "SOCILISM!!!!!!!!!!" at air-raid volume 24/7.

    Social Security and Medicare are always hysterically popular with the public, until the corporatist media conspiracy fires up against them.
     
  7. You must lack reading comprehension. I pointed out that a single-payer system would be different from Social Security and Medicare, not the same.

    People are not prevented from paying for ANY alternative service. If your health insurance doesn't cover a medication, a therapy, or even a surgery, you can pay for it yourself. In a true single-payer regime, it would be illegal to pay for ANY medical service not paid for by the government.
     
  8. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Most proposals for the US have been for a mixed system, in which the government would basically have their own health insurance plan to compete against the private health insurance companies. People would be free to choose either the private plan, or the government plan.

    The insurance companies don't like it, of course, because then they'd be competing against the government.
     
  9. Baron, what you suggested has many benefits and would be less controversial, but it is not a "single-payer" system. A single-payer system, by definition, forecloses the possibility of alternative purchasers ("payers").

    The economic advantage in a single-payer system, compared to Medicare, is that it maximizes the government's purchasing power, which allows costs to be better controlled. Medicare for all would help reduce costs, but not to the same extent as a single-payer system.
     
  10. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Semantics. "Single-payer" is a term that covers a lot of ideas. Few, if any, people who advocate single-payer intend to outlaw private medical payments.
     
  11. Then how about you be more specific and read what I write more carefully. I know people throw around the term recklessly, so every time I talked about it in response to your first post on the subject, I qualified it with "true" single-payer programs.

    You ignored that.

    So, please, learn to read.
     
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