Last week, in a nail-biter of a Senate session, John McCain joined Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to be the three Republican Senators voting against the so-called “skinny” repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), joining all the Democrats. The repeal effort was defeated, and despite Trump’s castigation of the Senate for not persevering, that body has moved on to work on other projects. Repeal of the ACA appears to be dead for now, and this is a good thing, seeing how so many Americans have managed to obtain healthcare insurance for the first time through the ACA.
However, ACA does not, and can not, guarantee universal coverage, and surely, universal coverage ought to be a national objective. After all, the United States is the only first-world country that does not guarantee healthcare to all its citizens. One way to establish universal coverage would be to install a single-payer system, where the government displaces insurance companies to pay for medical costs of all citizens using funds obtained through taxation. Canada uses such a system, and various European democracies make either full or partial use of the concept in their national health plans.
Realistically, the best we can hope for from the current Congress is for them to fix the problems with the current ACA, and even then, it’s a slim hope. The idea that a majority of legislators in Congress would vote for a single-payer healthcare system, and that the current head of state would sign it, are unfathomable. However, some states have individually decided to try to pass single-payer through their legislatures to see how it might work out. There has been a fair amount of discussion on this site regarding the effort to do so in California, and efforts taken in New York have also gotten some attention. But it turns out that some individuals in Pennsylvania are trying to do it, too. Details on that below the fold.
But first, here’s a word from our sponsor:
Here at Top Comments we strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
The group most ardently pushing for single-payer healthcare in Pennsylvania is called HealthCare4AllPA. At the current political moment in the Quaker state, pursuit of single-payer is more than a little quixotic, given that both houses of the state legislature are controlled by Republicans, but you have to start somewhere. It’s not possible to pass a law unless a bill is introduced. If a single-payer bill is introduced repeatedly in successive legislative sessions, and the idea becomes progressively more popular, eventually the legislature is going to act on it. That’s the theory, anyway.
Specifics about the proposed bill can be found at the link above. Briefly, healthcare consumers would no longer pay for insurance premiums, co-pays, prescriptions, or other out-of-pocket expenses. This would be financed through a 3 % income tax on individuals, and a 10 % payroll tax for businesses. More than 80 % of Pennsylvanians pay more than 3 % of their income on healthcare costs, and for businesses that provide healthcare for their employees, it typically costs them more than 20 % of their payroll, so the taxes ought to actually reduce costs. There is an economic impact study (pdf) of the plan by Gerald Friedman, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There is even a plan to retrain workers in the healthcare insurance industry for other sorts of jobs, since, if single payer is ever implemented, healthcare insurance would go away. There are a number of additional expected secondary effects, but these are discussed in the EIS linked above.
Not being an expert in healthcare policy, I can’t really judge whether this plan is hard-headed or constructed entirely of moonbeams. Elsewhere, I’ve seen Gerald Friedman’s reputation impugned, but that’s to be expected. Single-payer healthcare has many enemies in this country, and those enemies will attack any visible authority who advocates for single-payer, whether they deserve it or not. Nonetheless, I think it’s a good idea to support the bill in its current form. We have to start advocating for universal healthcare somewhere, and an apparently quixotic effort at the state level seems to be as good a place to start as anywhere. So, if you’re a Pennsylvania resident, take time to contact your state legislators (House and Senate), and ask them to support HB 1688, the Pennsylvania Health Care Plan (PHCP).
And now, on to the comments!
Top Comments (August 4, 2017):
From your humble diarist:
This comment by peregrine kate, and TrueBlueMajority’s response, in response to Roxpert’s recommended post on Michael Lewis’ most recent article.
Highlighted by Hinoema01:
This comment by blue aardvark from Murfster35’s recommended post The Trump-Russia investigation has fundamentally changed
Highlighted by cultjake:
This comment by Laughing Gravy from Joan McCarter’s front page post Paul Ryan: When we lose in 2018 it will be the Republican Senate’s fault.
Highlighted by LogORhetoric:
This comment by ILoveBats from Walter Einenkel’s recommended post It turns out Stephen Miller’s immigrant great-grandmother couldn’t speak English.
Top Mojo (August 3, 2017):
Top Mojo is courtesy of mik! Click here for more on how Top Mojo works.
Top Photos (August 3, 2017):
Tonight’s picture quilt is courtesy of jotter!