Single Payer Insurance

So it seems the idea of getting single payer insurance is losing ground in congress in favor of a 'public option'. In case you are unaware of the differences basically here is a quick run down of what they would mean.

Single payer insurance would basically mean we would switch to a European or Canadian style of healthcare. Everyone is covered and the government acts as your insurer and you pay no premium of any kind. The positives of this system are many, One you no longer have to pay insurance costs. You also do not have to worry about your provider dropping you for any reason or denying to pay for your expenses.

The other upside of this program is it forces an overhaul of our medical industry. The government negotiates what it is willing to pay for medical services and prescriptions. This is why prescription drugs are much cheaper in Canada then the United States. A prescription here that may cost $70 for a months worth of pills may only cost $10 in Canada.

So what is the downside you ask? Well you will pay higher taxes, how much depends on how quickly and efficiently we overhaul the costs of health care. And again obviously wealthy Americans will pay more in taxes.

The second option is 'public insurance' and it has being getting allot of traction lately unfortunately. With public insurance the government becomes a insurance company. You can then decide to keep the health insurance you have or to sign up for the governments insurance policy. The plus to this is that the governments insurance would have much less overhead then private owned company's around 2% compared to 12% of private firms. So in theory the government offered insurance would costs less and no discriminate against anyone due to prior illness and so forth.

The downside to a public insurance program is that you still must pay insurance premiums, albeit possibly cheaper then you pay now. The other downside is the public option still does very little to correct the issue of inflated health care costs. It's basically turning the government into an insurance company who then competes against the other insurance giants.

The third option is to do nothing, and keep the system we have now with massive medical costs and millions of Americans being uninsured. Obviously this third option of doing nothing is unacceptable.

So the real debate is between single payer and public insurance. The problem with public insurance is it still requires people to pay premiums, which many of uninsured Americans simply cannot afford. Allot of family's currently scrape by now, and the public insurance does nothing to help those who cannot afford health insurance. If a family cannot afford $500 a month in premiums dropping that to $400 doesn't really fix the problem now does it?

The other problem is it does nothing to get control of the insurance and medical industry who routinely deny proper health care to people. We have a serious problem in this country when it comes to health care. We are the only country in the civilized world where we allow fellow Americans to die because they do not have health care.

Let's for example say someone needs a kidney transplant. If that person does not have insurance they cannot be put on the donor list because the hospital does not consider that person a viable candidate because they are unable to pay the costs for the transplant or afford the anti rejection drugs they would need.

So, because they do not have health insurance we have basically said sorry... nothing we can do. And you have basically handed that person a death sentence. As a society we are allowing people to die because of situations like this. We also are driving health costs even higher because people don't have access to proper prescriptions because they cannot afford them. In turn these people who may have easily treatable medical conditions end up getting worse and most likely end up in the ER time and time again.

The only solution that makes these problems obsolete is the single payer option, where every American regardless of class, race, job or income level receives the same health care they need.