Link: www.commondreams.org/…
Hillary Clinton made a claim in the debate last night that Bernie Sanders’ numbers for a single-payer system “don’t add up,” likely referring to a study done by Emory University’s Kenneth Thorpe. However, experts in the public health field disagree.
"It's indisputable that single-payer systems in other countries cover everyone for virtually everything, and at much lower cost than our health care system," Woolhandler said. "Experience in countries with single-payer systems, such as Canada, Scotland, and Taiwan, proves that we can have more, better and cheaper care."
For example, "if the U.S. moved to a single-payer system as efficient as Canada's, we'd save $430 billion on useless paperwork and insurance companies' outrageous profits, more than enough to cover the 31 million Americans who remain uninsured, and to eliminate co-payments and deductibles for everyone," she said.
In January, Woolhandler and her colleague Dr. David Himmelstein authored a response to Thorpe's analysis that found it to be based on "several incorrect, and occasionally outlandish, assumptions," including "administrative savings of only 4.7 percent of expenditures" and "huge increases in the utilization of care, increases far beyond those that were seen when national health insurance was implemented in Canada, and much larger than is possible given the supply of doctors and hospital beds."
Furthermore, much greater savings can be realized by utilizing tougher negotiations with drug companies, as the United States pays far more than other countries for their drugs (and drug companies, of course, donate millions to certain candidates that fight against single-payer).
It sure is funny that all of these other first-world countries can manage to make a single-payer or universal system work at a fraction of the cost of the U.S., but we are simply unable to make it happen.
Luckily, Bernie Sanders and his supporters know better than to listen to politicians that are bought-off by health care companies.
YES, we can do big things again.
VOTE BERNIE SANDERS.