From The Seattle Times:
Elizabeth Warren: ‘The next step is single-payer’ health care
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Tuesday that opposing the Republican health-care bill wasn’t enough and the Democratic Party should start running on a new national single-payer plan.
“President Obama tried to move us forward with health-care coverage by using a conservative model that came from one of the conservative think tanks that had been advanced by a Republican governor in Massachusetts,” she told The Wall Street Journal. ”Now it’s time for the next step. And the next step is single payer.”
Massachusetts tried single-payer and it failed spectacularly with overall costs skyrocketing. There is no incentive for a hospital to keep costs low - there is no competition. England has its National Health Service and it too is failing with staffing shortages, exorbitant waiting times (hip and knee replacements have average wait times of over 100 days), a large number of unnecessary deaths - 1 in 28 - four times that of US Hospitals.
Single payer is the worst form of health care - if we think that the Veterans Hospitals are bad, wait until every hospital is just as bad. Open up the health care markets - bring in competition and we will see better care and lower costs.
Leave a comment