WOW!!! :grin: How did I miss this story last week? Vermont: Home of Ben and Jerry’s,Maple Syrup,Bernie Sanders and the first state to pass marriage equality. Now, VT will be known for something that will impact every resident in the state.The ACA provided states with federal funds to institute a Medicaid expansion. The states chose to expand the program also were able to set up their own state exchanges, which were relatively free from the problems the federal site had. VT decided to take it a step further by setting up their very own single payer system. The slogan of the program: Everybody in, nobody out. The program will be fully operational by 2017, and will be funded through Medicare, Medicaid, federal money for the ACA given to VT, and a slight increase in taxes. In exchange, there will be no more premiums, deductibles,copays,hospital bills or anything else aimed at making insurance companies a profit. All hospitals will be nonprofit more
lol looks like the costs are a lot more than they originally thought... http://www.wcax.com/story/23969478/single-payer-to-cost-vt-more-than-first-thought
Using out of state taxpayers to fund your citizens' health care is a double edged sword. What happens to current for-profit medical facilities? Do the Vermont storm troopers take them over, Chavez style?
Either you are being disingenuous or did not read the article. Of course the hospitals are going to be against it. They could be right I don't think any knows knows until its implemented.
yep, and the doctors take to their mountain hideaways, staging a Randian work stoppage as parasites lay dying in the streets. Paul 2016! Meanwhile back in reality, the grown ups will probably figure something out.
I don't get this whole bit about diversity, anything but the American system has basically been proven to do well with, well, everybody in the developed world, it's not as if Britain doesn't have an explosive amount of demographic diversity, or Canada neither.
At least they are taking the proper amount of time to study and implement their plan. It looks like the projected cost increase amounts to about $1000/person. I can't figure out if that is a one time cost or if that is recurring somehow. If it's a one time cost then that is not bad.
texxx can be sly, but point out that about 45,000 uninsured per year died prematurely under the broken American system, and ask him how much a life is worth. that might give some pause.
Where do you place the value of an additional year of life? How does it vary depending on circumstances?
I was just noting that VT is extremely homogenous and small. It's going to be easier for them to agree on plans because of that.
I do agree with you on that, but I find the whole "American exceptionalism on healthcare" argument ("we're American, healthcare for others will never work for us")...grating I guess, so personally, any mention of "diversity" makes me think of that---
well, apparently, in one instance it's a couple of thousand of dollars spent on better healthcare, and on another it's a couple of thousand of dollars spent on jailing people for "ending life", and between the two, I'd rather say the former was a better investment
America has a lot of things that are jacked up with it. It amazing how successful and wasteful we are.
it also, well, gave us the internet healthcare.gov was built on lest we forget oh randian man-oracle-gods
I think you're giving the 'government' a little bit too much credit. There is the productive and innovative side of the government, such as NASA, USPS, some of the three letter agencies and some aspects of military, then you have the complete opposite side, which is wasteful and stubborn that brings forth crap like the ACA. There seems to be a distinguishing line between the two. One gets their jobs from merits and accomplishments, much like the private sector. The other side manipulates and distorts everything to get elected.