Re: President Obama - Your Turn: Join the National Online Discussion on Health Care Reform

[BostonRocker51]

if we could just kill all the lobbyists I think a single payer plan would sail thru Congress...

[swivelingchairguy]

The worker based health care program shifts the incentive structure in a way that prevents abuse.

[Rianoth23]

I agree! But I also think it would be political suicide right now as the country is still so divided. I think first there needs to be a lot of education so we can move in this direction. Then we can get this done, Rome wasn't built in a day.

[BusyBee4U]

you should repost with better volume!! i can´t hear it!!

[Magicocctopus]

Great!! your mike is low though.....

[grouphomebikes]

Your mic is low

Lets do what Canada does

[doctoraaron]

Right on. Sorry about the mic. My first webcam video.......

[rjruss]

Here! Here! How can we frame this question to be answered? Why must it be that employers can't choose the public option as their insurance company of choice? Is it because someone is pandering to the insurance industry?

[doctoraaron]

See my video response to my own video. It is an attempt at reframing.

[stscemsomemore]

Thanks for your question, concise and intelligent, I hope he answers it!!

[CarmenRGonzalez]

Medicare has demonstrated that it is more efficient than the private sector. With only 3% going to administrative costs, the government's program is far more efficient than the private sector's 14% expediture. Let's provide a single-payor system, and at the very least, single-payor option. Secondly, we've several white papers produced by many non-profits on how to reach out to communities of color regarding improved healthcare. Let's adopt the best in class of these models into our system.

[Fyshhed]

I happen to agree that a single payer system would be most cost-effective and efficient in the long run. Unfortunately, in the short term there are still strong political obstructions that do not permit a "radical" change of this kind to happen all at once. It would certainly seem less radical down the road to go from federal public option to single payer. Baby steps I suppose.

[doctoraaron]

Sadly, most of the public option proposals so far are empty. The supposedly progressive proposal offered by the House Tri-committee, for example, does not let employers choose the public option as the insurance coverage for their employees.

[buddhak0n]

I think any system which allows the end recipients of the funds to be the overall price setter is doomed for failure.

This idea that just because all parties pay into the same plan will not work. That's like allowing the government to be the procurement oversight agency for the purchase of hammers for the pentagon.

Allowing our current crop of physicians to submit charges from a single UMBRELLA insurer will lead to huge problems.

[qrmaug97]

Well stated question.

[Sieg786]

Public support for a single payer system is greater than for a public option. I think the reason is because the single payer system has been proven many times over in several formats in nations on 5 of 7 continents, whereas the public option has been tried in several states and has not eliminated the uninsured for a lower price than private insurance. The problem is adverse selection; where the profitable healthy people are lured into cheaper private plans while the expensive people are left.

[GenXFuturist101]

What a majority of your patients want is precisely what will happen and it's about time.

[doctoraaron]

Sadly, I think that though it needs to happen, it won't. The only hope at this juncture is that a large enough block of progressives will just say no to the watered down public option that is proposed and that the American people will then be able to address this issue again by consideration of all the options, including single payer.

[PLBrayfield]

If this is what we want, we need to bombard our legislators (not just the president) with letters stating and explaining it. It might be self-defeating, to refuse to accept meaningful reforms that include a public option among others, and have the whole idea of reform go down to defeat until some future election cycle when people are even more victimized by the system than they are now. That said, I agree with you. A single-payer, private provider system is the best. How to get there from here?

[doctoraaron]

You can follow me and my thoughts about health care on Twitter @doctoraaron.

[schuringb1]

"publically financed universal program" and a "private delivered health care" huh?! Those are two different things. the private sector is already covered

[doctoraaron]

You misunderstand. A single payer program just describes the manner of payment. The manner of health care delivery is a separate matter altogether. What I and most other supporters of a single payer program advocate would not alter how health care is delivered, i.e. we would see doctors in much the same settings as we currently do, but would simply alter how it is paid for.

[PLBrayfield]

Would this be on the model of Medicare? Whatever its shortcomings, people like medicare and are comfortable with the idea by now. Some people are fearful about a 'public option' or a 'single-payer plan' because they don't really understand the government's place in either of these. They don't associate them with the Medicare model.

[Magicocctopus]

I think that doctoraaron (my dad) is talking about a "medicare for all" program, which would be based pm the medicare model.

[rainy1sun]

yes, this question keeps coming up again and again....it a matter of public support vs political support.

maybe we should stop being supporting politicians if they can't support what we tell them we want ACTUAL healthcare reform that covers everyone!

[timwarner72]

Excellent question

[mariposaguy]

Go doc! Obama needs to answer your great question about single-payer and a public plan -- a question he has been largely dodging.