DEBUNKING THE FALSE INFORMATION ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM

A single payer health care system would essentially be a government handout to the uninsured another form of welfare.

A single payer system would result in a number of moral, economic, and cultural benefits . It is not a welfare policy for the uninsured; rather, i t is a policy whose benefits would accrue to all Americans . For example, single payer would save money, improve health, and create a society with more equal opportunity for all Americans. These are the ideals America is based on. there are many services that are provided by the government that can be Seen as “handouts.” The recent bailout of the financial and automotive industries serves as a prime example of corporate welfare. Education is provided by the government to benefit society very few are opposed to it In fact many opposed to the single payer plan used some sort of “public” support to attend college. Similarly, health care should be financed by the government based on a similar belief.

Why should I pay for someone else’s poor health choices? I don’t want to pay for some crackhead’s addiction.

Even if you’re healthy and have private health insurance through your employer, your health care costs are currently subsidized by the federal government through tax exemptions. This is a net loss of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the federal government, a loss that is financed by all Americans. Single payer would promote healthier lifestyle choices by providing all Americans access to preventive care. Some people are unhealthy because they don’t take ca re of their health, many people are unhealthy because of factors beyond their control , such as genetic predispositions. The strong interaction between environment and genetics makes i t extremely difficult to determine whether poor health can truly be entirely attributable to an individual ’s behavior.Fact: When a person is rushed to the emergency room because of an overdose taxpayers already pay .

Health care should be treated like an individual commodity ‐ it should only available to those who can afford it.

Health care is a basic human need. You can live without individual commodities (like a car, iPod, cell phone, diamonds), but a lot of people can’t live without health care in their everyday lives , and no one can live without health care when they are seriously ill . Health care costs are unpredictable you never know when you are going to get sick or have an accident

We have the best health care system in the world, why change it?

There is no way to objectively measure which health ca re system is the best in the world. The United States, however, does not measure well against other countries. Organization ranks our health care system 37th on overall performance, and 24th on health level attainment. All of these mediocre performance measures are unacceptable, especially given that we spend more than any other nationnin the world per capita on health care. It is true that America offers some of the best t care in the world but only for the select few who can afford it, the fact that a person has health care insurance does not mean they can afford the best service, the insurance company can drop or not pay for healt care that is beyond the coverage amount. Comparable countries with regard to many health indicators . For example, our life expectancy lags behind that of many countries and our infantmortality rate is higher than that of many countries.

The government can’t do anything right and definitely shouldn’t be involved in our health care system.

Medicare is a government‐administered program that, despite its problems, including underfunding, however it is still one of the most efficient and popular social programs in the country. Other effective government programs include the NIH, CDC, social security, FDA, HLS,ADA, and countless others.

I don’t want government‐run health care.

There is nothing about single payer or a robust public option that implies that the government “runs” health ca re. The idea is to give a basic guarantee of access to health ca re to all Americans – clinical decisions are completely left up to the provider. In such a system, health ca re would be publicly financed but privately delivered. Medicare is a government‐run insurance program, but the government does not deliver services, rather the delivery of Medicare services occurs through private providers and hospitals.

Single payer is code for big government, we have been taxed enough I hate big government.

The hidden assumption in this argument is that single payer would somehow require a massive outlay of federal spending. Physicians for a National Health Program recently released a study projecting that single payer health care reform would save the federal government at least $ 3.5 trillion over ten years .

The free market is the best solution to the lack of insurance.
The health care market is fundamentally imperfect.

There is significant asymmetry of information between providers and consumers . A functional free market requires a large number of buyers and sellers . Because of the consolidations of hospitals and insurance companies , there are actually few buyers and sellers of health care in
any given area. In more than 90% of measured areas in the United States , competition is restricted to less than three private insurers . An unfettered free market would price many people out of insurance. In order to provide access to life saving medi cal ca re to all Americans , there is a need for significant governmental regulation of the heal th insurance
industry.

I don’t want single payer because it is socialized medicine.

Single payer itself is not socialized medicine, which refers to medicine that is both financed and delivered by the federal government (where the government owns and operates the entire system). In the U.S., any politically viable single payer solution would not be socialized
medicine as health care delivery would remain private.

America cannot afford a single payer option Obama is spending to much money

America can’t afford to not have single payer. The Institute of Medicine estimates that at least $500 billion is los t annually due to the diminished productivity of our uninsured population, who are less healthy and therefore less able to be productive members of society. Other economic costs include a loss of global competitiveness, unnecessary use of the expensive ER, strain on small businesses, and paying for preventable costly diseases due to lack of healthcare access.

Single payer would create waiting lists.

There is already an infinite waiting list for people who are uninsured in America. Waiting lists in other countries are frequently deployed as a scare tactic. Few, if any, single payer systems have extensive waiting lists for medically necessary procedures.