Those countries you listed all have something close to single payer. It may not actually be a single payer, as I noted, but it's universal health care ultimately paid for through taxes. Many of those countries (like Japan) allow you to opt out of the national system if you're covered through private insurance through your employer but there's the government option to fall back on if you have nothing else.

If you want to make some nitpicky point about whether it's technically single payer or not you can and I don't really have an interest one way or the other. The fact remains that the US is practically the only first world country in the world that doesn't have universal health care underwritten through taxes in one form or another.

Thank you for agreeing with everything I say. The Bismark Model is the way to go for health care, particularly the French version.

Germany alone has over 200 payers. In every country in the Bismark model, the employer and employee contribute to a particular private insurance. You can even get extra supplimental insurance (this is the for profit plans that are allowed) if you want to spend your money that way to get a better nursing home, cosmetic surgery, total knee replacements, etc, etc.

By definition this is not single payer, they are not completely funded by taxes (most payements come from employer and employee unless you lose your job, then the government will pay), though they are universal which I am not disputing.

Snarf the German system is still close to single payer. I am not sure what point you are trying to make.

Their insurance, the part that is what the government "pays for" is far different than our own. The biggest difference is that the plans share risk pools.

 

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It is still is a multipayer model. They are able to achieve single payer like results because the government is able to tightly regulate prices of procedures and services so it achieves the "cost control control clout that the single-payer Beveridge Model provides" (Reid, T.R.The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, p. 17).

So it's a multipayer model that is basically like a single payer model in the important ways. Glad we cleared that up.

It still isnt the same. The differences (though you can't see them) are enough for some to propose changes in the Swiss system to a single payer government run model. The 2007 referendum that was attempted to establish this change from private run multipayer model to government run single payer plan was SOUNDLY defeated. I guess you think they were voting to change their "single payer" system to a "single payer" system. hah

You are starting to remind me of AA or something. Arguing with phantoms.

If you want to say it isn't a single payer but functions in a similar way to a single payer that's fine and no one is arguing with you. No one really cares.

The point is the US is practically the only first world country left that doesn't use a single payer system or a system that replicates most of the advantages of a single payer system.

There is no doubt we have unfair, unaffordable, and ineffecient health care in the U.S. The U.S. has every model of health care insurance. We are very unique and very inefficient.

For most working people under 65 we are Germany, France, or Japan (albiet a way more expensive version). The worker and employer share the premiums for insurance policy.

For Native Americans, millitary personnel, and veterans we are Britain or Cuba. The VA and much of the Pentagon's Tri-Star system involves doctors who are government employees working in government owned clinics and hospitals. Following the Beveridge Model, Americans in these systems never get a medical bill. The Indian Health Service also provides free care in government clinics.

For those over 65 we are Canada. U.S. Medicare is essentially a National Health Insurance scheme, with the near-universal participation and the low administravive costs that chareterize such systems.

For 45 million uninsured Americans we are Cambodia or rural India. Out of pocket.

Old people spending a half-million their final year of life is a completely separate issue.

We need fair pricing. Try paying cash at an emergency room, you'll see. Prices HUNDREDS of times higher than what an insured patient would pay. All because of EMTLA.

That makes it very difficult for people without insurance to get emergent care.

 

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