What will cost $400 billion, a giant leap over California’s total health care budget for 2018 of $179.5 billion, yet is not mentioned by California lawmakers? California’s free “single-payer” healthcare proposal.Clearly providing greater health care access to American poor people, at giant cost, has been a failure. A few million people not already eligible for Medicaid did get access, but they were primarily young people forced into plans they neither wanted nor needed in their early earning years. Those without private health care due to pre-existing conditions did get access, though many of them already were eligible for Medicaid and the costs remain high. Meanwhile, almost every company and individual has seen the cost of coverage skyrocket, in states like New York over 100 percent, impacting hiring decisions.
To solve the ‘unaffordable access’ problem, the state of California has decided to adopt a system like England’s National Health Service – one payer, the government.
The state faces a big problem starting from scratch; since 1970, the cost of health care has boomed 1,400 percent, far beyond inflation. That is not prescription drug costs, it is doctors and nurses and a defensive medicine system that adds huge unnecessary tests to ward off unlimited lawsuits. None of those problems are being fixed. Instead, the cost is going to be shifted. In California, that means to taxpayers.
The Healthy California Act wants to solve the problem of unaffordable premiums, deductibles, and copays with universal, government-run health care — and people are all for that, as long as it doesn’t raise their taxes. How can it not raise taxes? According to the California senate’s own study, the estimated cost of the single-payer program is $400 billion, while California’s total budget for 2018 is already a whopping $179.5 billion, according to Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD, (California) board-certified anesthesiologist, professor and Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Board of Directors member. “The bill naively or slyly makes no mention of funding. The top contenders are (of course) a 15 percent employer tax, a 2.3 percent sales tax increase, a 2.3 percent gross receipts tax, and existing healthcare-directed federal, state, and local funds.”
The real tragedy is that the call for single payer ignores what patients really want, writes Singleton. “Deloitte’s 2016 Consumer Priorities in Health Care Survey found that patients overwhelmingly wanted “personalized provider interactions”. Of course, with a universal, government-run system comes universal privacy eradication and intrusion into our medical records. Secondly, people wanted “economically rational coverage.” They did not say free; they just want value for their dollar. They want convenient access. None of these things will be found in a government-run health care factory staffed by “willing” providers.”
Title: California's Very Expensive Free Healthcare
Source: news from Healthcare Privacy
Link: http://www.science20.com/news_staff/californias_very_expensive_free_healthcare-225163
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Author: KI Design Magazine