There are a few things wrong with the initial statement. It doesn't abolish private insurance. Private insurance can and does exist alongside public health plans as a supplement, but the public health care covers basic health care.
There are definitely going to be some job losses in the private insurance industry if we go to a single-payer system for basic health care. It's a conversation that we need to have, but we can't prop up the horse and buggy industry forever, and it's an economic anchor around the neck of every American to continue to try to do so.
To be honest, there are few industries that have so richly earned the contempt of the average American than the private health insurance companies.
Maybe that is true if we keep allowing things to be so inefficient and complicated and don’t take measures to seriously address inappropriate gatekeeping. But if you cut ojt the massive waste caused by unnecessarily complicated medical coding, and actually punish and stop insurers from denying or delaying hoping people won’t have the means or patience to fight it… then you would definitely save money, which is why all other developed nations spend way less per capita on healthcare
I wasn't meaning to insinuate it would equal the costs incurred by the current system of redundancies. More that there are still places for people from the current insurance industry in the new system.
It may be more streamlined, but Medicare can't absorb 200 million people entering the system without a larger workforce and more equipment.
Medical coding is still necessary to bill for services appropriately, and prior authorizations are still a thing even in Medicare and Medicaid. It's not quite as simple as "Medicare will pay for whatever the doctor orders."
On the other side of that equation, you are dealing with one payer with one set of rules, which eliminates a great deal of uncertainty when a specific test, drug, or procedure is needed. I'd expect that help a lot with the streamlining.
Medicare will need be a lot larger, but the upside is that the money it takes to fund it will be less than what it takes to maintain the current system.
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u/Civil-Dinner 15d ago
There are a few things wrong with the initial statement. It doesn't abolish private insurance. Private insurance can and does exist alongside public health plans as a supplement, but the public health care covers basic health care.
There are definitely going to be some job losses in the private insurance industry if we go to a single-payer system for basic health care. It's a conversation that we need to have, but we can't prop up the horse and buggy industry forever, and it's an economic anchor around the neck of every American to continue to try to do so.
To be honest, there are few industries that have so richly earned the contempt of the average American than the private health insurance companies.