I hear Bernie Sanders is writing or has written a bill for a single-payer healthcare system - which is lovely and long over due in the US but if it ever gets passed, will continually be vulnerable to the whims of the GOP who will attack it by under-funding it, or attempting to repeal it (like with the very poor ACA) with their incessant belief that all money belongs in the hands of the already rich and let ordinary people die because they don't have access to affordable healthcare.
They will wail and moan about how we can't afford it - how the rich need more tax cuts whether the economy is good or bad - the solution is more tax cuts for the rich.
You know the drill - you've heard it all before.
The solution might be a healthcare co-op.
How I envisioning it working is that this co-op people would pay their healthcare premiums into it and get healthcare at the local county hospital system or charity healthcare facilities - yes I know not very glamorous - but this is the bootstrap situation, so then we pay the hospital for the services the people receive. This might be an alternative for small businesses wanting to give their employees healthcare, and may even start as a number of small businesses banding together to get better healthcare for their employees or themselves and family if they are owner-operators.
As the co-op gets bigger then more people pay choose to opt into the co-op and perhaps local govt who provide healthcare for those who live locally or even states could pay the co-op instead of a health-care insurance corporation for their healthcare.
As the co-op grows in size and covers more people in the US, the co-op will have the ability to bulk purchase pharmaceuticals. The problem with pharmaceuticals is that this is not a free market as libertarians like to tell you, and nor should it be - because not all pharmaceuticals are of use to all people and most often the corporations aren't competing to sell their products anyway.
The biggest problem government has is that the government voted on a bill denying government bulk purchasing - however the co-op is under no such obligation.
The co-op would no doubt allow people to vote on what is covered, but it would be a nonprofit, it would not require a co-pay, probably, it would be fairly basic healthcare - until we can get the larger corporations on board then the co-op might able to work deals with health insurance corporations for better services, like private hospital rooms for instance.
Anyway, it's just a first draft of an idea for a healthcare solution.
They will wail and moan about how we can't afford it - how the rich need more tax cuts whether the economy is good or bad - the solution is more tax cuts for the rich.
You know the drill - you've heard it all before.
The solution might be a healthcare co-op.
How I envisioning it working is that this co-op people would pay their healthcare premiums into it and get healthcare at the local county hospital system or charity healthcare facilities - yes I know not very glamorous - but this is the bootstrap situation, so then we pay the hospital for the services the people receive. This might be an alternative for small businesses wanting to give their employees healthcare, and may even start as a number of small businesses banding together to get better healthcare for their employees or themselves and family if they are owner-operators.
As the co-op gets bigger then more people pay choose to opt into the co-op and perhaps local govt who provide healthcare for those who live locally or even states could pay the co-op instead of a health-care insurance corporation for their healthcare.
As the co-op grows in size and covers more people in the US, the co-op will have the ability to bulk purchase pharmaceuticals. The problem with pharmaceuticals is that this is not a free market as libertarians like to tell you, and nor should it be - because not all pharmaceuticals are of use to all people and most often the corporations aren't competing to sell their products anyway.
The biggest problem government has is that the government voted on a bill denying government bulk purchasing - however the co-op is under no such obligation.
The co-op would no doubt allow people to vote on what is covered, but it would be a nonprofit, it would not require a co-pay, probably, it would be fairly basic healthcare - until we can get the larger corporations on board then the co-op might able to work deals with health insurance corporations for better services, like private hospital rooms for instance.
Anyway, it's just a first draft of an idea for a healthcare solution.
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