Social Security & Medicare Notes: Quinnipiac Poll - 53% of Americans would pay higher taxes for guaranteed Health care.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Quinnipiac Poll - 53% of Americans would pay higher taxes for guaranteed Health care.

Quinnipiac reports (Feb 22, 2007) a national poll that says:

By a 64 - 31 percent margin, American voters say, "It's the government's responsibility to make sure everyone in the United States has adequate health care," according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.

Democrats support this position 81 - 15 percent, as do independent voters, 67 - 28 percent, but Republicans oppose it 55 - 41 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN- uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

American voters also say, 53 - 42 percent, that they would be willing to pay more in federal taxes to provide health care to all Americans. Democrats back higher taxes 70 - 26 percent, along with independent voters, 56 - 39 percent. Republicans oppose paying higher taxes for health care 63 - 32 percent.

If we are all paying taxes (instead of having the price of health care deducted from our salaries)we would have universal national single-payer insurance.

Health care providers could put clinics and emergency rooms where the people had more illnesses, rather than where they had more money. Everyone would have the same rules for their insurance, so the community would develop knowledge of what was covered and what was not covered. Hospitals and other health care providers could simply provide care and know they were going to be paid, rather than first checking the patient's wallet for an insurance card. HMO networks would disappear. A patient could choose any licensed healthcare provider. The cost of trying to collect fees from people who don't have the money would be taken off the hospitals, and the numbers of patients driven into bankruptcy by medical bills would be sharply reduced.

Then there is the massive benefit that would be given to the automotive companies. They would not have to include $1700 in the price of every car for health care. Yet the much simplified administration (a single set of claims procedures and no insurance companies trying to find reasons not to pay claims) would more than cover the cost of this system.

And anyone who has had to decide which Medicare or Medicare Part D plan to choose would find the stress sharply reduced. There would not be a set of critical or potentially critical insurance decisions to make just because you are age 65.

The savings in administration would very likely more than cover the cost of covering everyone, so the increase in taxes would be accompanied by a decrease in insurance payments. [The employers would probably get that cost savings, but wages and salaries would not be reduced because health insurance was so expensive to them.]

The American people are ready for universal healthcare. It is only the insurance companies and their bought-and-paid-for politicians who are holding things up. This is a solution to a lot of American problems that should be implemented as soon as the lost war in Iraq is liquidated and Bush/Cjeney leave the national political scene.

[H/T to TPM Cafe.]

Labels: Health Insurance, single-payer, taxes