Single Payer Too Exspensive, No Way?

I agree -- the system does need reform. But less government interference, not more, is the reform it needs. Remove government interference, going all the way back to barriers against interstate competition, and insurers will have to contend with consumer choice again, which will necessarily drive down prices. How do we know this will be the result? Because the result of the opposite is what everyone's rightly complaining about. When consumers in a given state are stuck with one or two insurers -- or nothing at all -- those insurers have a captive market and can charge whatever the hell they feel like charging. And that's exactly what they've done.

But more of the disease -- government meddling -- is not the cure.

So your opinion is not dependent on any facts. That's unusually honest, at least.

Actually, my opinion is dependent on a lot of facts. One is the fact that the OP of this thread is proof that single payer will be too expensive for the country. There's also the fact that the US is a republic and should be treated as such. We don't need a one size fits all, centralized healthcare system. We need to allow We the People of the individual states figure out a) if they even want to provide healthcare for their citizens and B) if they do, by what means? In other words, practice federalism. There's also the fact that I'm a libertarian and as a libertarian, I cannot in good conscious support a single payer system for several reasons. I will name four reasons specifically. One, it raises taxes on all Americans, but specifically the poor and the middle class, two, it restricts liberty, and three, it creates yet another bureaucracy and entitlement that we can't pay for and lastly, and this may be the most important, it violates the Constitution. There's no way I could support that and then look you in the eye and honestly call myself a libertarian. Nope, I would be just another statist who thinks they know better than you of what you want and need in your life. Another fact is that the Affordable Care Act is not making heath care more affordable. Adding another layer of government intervention is not going to make things any better. There are reforms, ideas and real life market based solutions that will make things better, single payer is not one of them. Another fact is that socialism and communism do not work and have proven to not work, So, yeah, my opinion on single payer is fact based and these are the reasons why I will never be convinced otherwise, it goes against every fiber of my being, every belief that I hold sacred. I will not support it.

Just not the "facts" the church elders want you to accept, ya dirty heathen, you! Single payer will work, you heretic! Also, Uncle Sam knows best, Jesus loves you, and the Easter Bunny shits chocolate eggs.

And there we have it: No matter what evidence there is, you'll stay loyal to your ideology and insist that it can't work because ... it can't, it just can't!

Looks to me like he's insisting on the evidence over the claims. The evidence shows that it doesn't, despite the number of claims that it would.

I'm just going to throw this quote out there.

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” - Milton Friedman

Oh, you know your family saved $2500 a year on heath insurance because of the ACA. You just won't admit it!

More people getting vastly more services for a fraction of the cost just by adding vastly more bureaucracy and impenetrably opaque money transfers between different government departments, insurance companies, and hospitals.

How can it, if you disregard sources without looking at them?

You continue with a perfect example:

But that's not what the OP says, and when people offer you evidence, you say you won't look at it because it won't change your mind anyway.

Clearly, you neither understand the word "republic" nor the word "federalism", if you think having a single payer in one state contradicts either.

Oh, so you're political opinion is based on facts by virtue of being one of the unchangeable facts you start off with!

Amazing. I never believed that a little education could be a dangerous thing, but you are getting close to proving me wrong.

So I guess we won't be hearing any more from you about "Grubergate."

Aside from the facts of life, and laws of economic reality, you're right, there's nothing to support the claim.

The best thing that can be said of the goal of 'single payer' if it realized its best potential, is that everyone could then have access to same mediocre (reduced) health care. Less innovation, fewer miracle drugs, Yugo-level health care for all. Which is a good thing sort of, in 40 years at least US will no longer be subsidizing the world's access to better health care, devices and drugs. Lowest common denominator will be in reach of all.

And, too, Obamacare is a worthwhile legacy- a crap system from a crap president. Fitting.

But wonderful?

Great, go out and find a single payer system in the United States so that you can evaluate it. As the article in the OP points out, Vermont wasn't that. I already suggested you look at California, but you seem not capable of doing so. What's wrong, no blog posts about it yet?

And I suppose your access to these facts has also been honed, like Farmer's, by diligently avoiding any sources that offer factual information?

Obamacare isn't single payer, and you're commenting on an exchange on Obamacare there.

I'm on record as opposing single payer, though for quite different reasons; but if you want to convince anyone, this would be a good moment to add some facts and sources to your claims. If, you know, you had any. As opposed to the tactic you're defending here.

What the article points out, actually, is that it's unfeasible for even Vermont to be that. If it won't work in just one little parcel of a continent-wide country, it's even less feasible for a continent-wide country.

There is one form of single payer that has historically worked in this country, though: You use it, you pay for it. Of course, that was back when insurance wasn't used for absolutely everything.

No, it specifically says Vermont wasn't trying for single payer, and explains that it couldn't due to federal meddling. Now there's something you should go after, but you and Federal Dumbass instead focused on the headline which wasn't remotely accurate.

According to you they weren't going for single payer, but the governor disagrees as I pointed out earlier.

Posted by the guy whose specialty is completely ignoring results...

No I'm not ignoring results, you are every time you copy and paste from healthcare.gov instead reading the article after article I've posted to the contrary.

You've yet to refute one single real-life datum that's resulted from the PPACA. When asked to do so, you play Grubergate and have gigglefits with Castle.

• Apparently all those people reported to have coverage who didn't have it before are lying.
• Apparently all the data on how hospitals are reducing costs and seeing fewer non-emergent cases in their ERs are false.
• Apparently all those charts by all those economists showing the impact on the economy as a whole were made up just to lie to you.
• Apparently you are the Sole Possessor of the Truth.

From someone getting a free ride on someone else's insurance, and who can't even remember which lies he's told about his age from one message board to another, this is the nth degree of irony.

But please do continue. Years from now when people look back at the early years of insurance reform and wonder what took the U.S. so long to catch up with the rest of the industrialized world, people like you will serve as a cautionary tale.

I guess the people who lost their doctor and their plans were lying too? Or how about everyone was supposed to save $2,500, did that come true? The whole law is a lie as Mr. Gruber pointed out on several occasions. Years from now when we have yet another entitlement that we can't afford, people will look to people like you to blame.

Among the statistics, fewer people are seeking health care because the deductibles went way, way up. The ACA has made lower-middle class Americans go to an out-of-pocket health care system.

The Poster Child for the "I lost my plan" propaganda did in fact turn out to be lying.

If you've got any actual data about "people who lost their doctor," you're welcome to post it now.

I lost my doctor.

He's wise to avoid Munchhausen patients.

Where did you see him last?

When the ER first wrote his name down as the person they wanted me to see, I did a double take "What?!!!!" because I used to work with him when he had a medical robotics company on the side. His job back then was treating terminal cancer patients in the last few days of life. All his patients died.

I thought I had lost my doctor, but then I found him between the couch cushions.

Well, you have a difficult circumstance here, because the article you cite as proof that the governor used the correct label actually contradicts the governor. So is the article correct, in which case, shut the fuck up about the governor, or is the article wrong, in which case, why post it?

While even the Politico article from which you gleefully extracted the "No True Scotsman", does call it single payer, repeatedly. So maybe you shouldn't keep trying to stomp a hole in the bottom of Federal Farmer's boat unless you're ready to go swimming yourself.