Health Care Reform Myths

If you believe the myths, the medical-industrial complex through the paid-for mouths in Congress, has done their job on you.

Universal coverage costs too much. No it doesn’t.  Every other industrialized nation offers universal coverage at a cost much lower than we now spend in the U.S.

Your taxes will go up. Perhaps, but you are still likely to come out ahead when you consider the overall expenses.  Single payer will cost most people the same or less than the premiums and medical bill they are paying today and will be secure regardless of income or employment.

Americans get world class care-we shouldn’t mess around with that. In fact, many Americans don’t get world class care.  Sure, it’s great if you’re wealthy and have good insurance.  But on almost all measures of health care and mortality, we lag behind Canada and Europe.

Other countries have much longer waiting times than we do.   Actually there are no waiting lists for emergency surgery or urgently needed procedures.  Check commonwealthfund.org for studies on wait times.

There is no problem; people get care even if they’re uninsured. In fact, more than 60 Americans die daily from lack of care.  See www.cancer.org for more.

Single payer is socialized medicine.  No, Single payer is NOT socialized medicine because for the most part, government  will not own the hospitals and physicians will not be on a government salary.  It will work like the Medicare program for the elderly today in which patients see private doctors in (mostly) private hospitals; this clearly isn’t socialized medicine.  Single payer is actually public insurance rather than private insurance.

- Source: 10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care