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Health insurance

Thursday, August 16 at 1:35 PM

Dewey Walker of Denver writes:

Subject: Blue Ribbon Commission’s Options.
No matter how you cut it, health insurance is a major part of our current problem with health care. Just look at the differences in costs of administering programs: 26-31% for insurance companies, 3-5% for programs like Medicare. By cutting out insurance companies costs you could cover everyone for basic health needs including prevention programs.
Medicare is not considered socialized medicine. Medicare for all would likewise not be socialized medicine.

This letter has not been edited.

READER COMMENTS

So, if medicare is not socialized medicine, what is it?

From Wikipedia:
"Socialized medicine or state medicine is a term used principally in the United States to describe health care systems which operate by means of government regulation and subsidies derived from taxation.[1] Socialized medicine can refer to any system of medical care controlled and financed by the government. The term is often used disparagingly to describe publicly administered health care systems such as the British National Health Service,[2][3] and the Canadian health care system.[4]"

From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
"Main Entry: socialized medicine
Function: noun
: medical and hospital services for the members of a class or population administered by an organized group (as a state agency) and paid for from funds obtained usually by assessments, philanthropy, or taxation"

Medicare is socialized medicine by definition.

Posted by The bogey man on August 16, 2007 04:34 PM

Medicare IS socialized medicine, and the bill introduced by Kucinich and others to extend medicare to all Americans would be a socialized, single payer health program. Though, you are right that private health insurance very wasteful when compared to national health insurance.

Posted by Kyle on August 17, 2007 02:48 AM