Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare

Re:Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about s... by surfmike on Wednesday March 08, 2017 @07:45PM (#13825593)

It sounds fanciful to say that we'll just use our existing Medi-cal budget but now it will cover everyone.

If the government had so much bargaining power, then Medicare and Medi-cal would already have far smaller costs. We don't really see that.

Also, who exactly, would we be negotiating with? I don't know that you can squeeze the budgets of hospitals in California by 50% and have everything carry on like normal.

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Re:Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about s... by nikdaheratik on Wednesday March 08, 2017 @09:49PM (#13826497)

Except that the lawmakers in Washington actually wrote the laws to forbid the government from negotiating for special rates for Medicare and Medicaid, unlike the UK or Canada. Which is why drugs there, for example, are so much cheaper than in the U.S.

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Re:Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about s... by surfmike on Thursday March 09, 2017 @02:20AM (#13827682)

Hmm, interesting. I know medicare reimbursement rates are still quite low compared to private insurance, so I wonder how that squares with a 'no negotiation' policy.

Edit: One study from Texas found that Medicare reimbursement rates were 70-80% below the private average. https://www.texmed.org/June16Journal/

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