Health Care Stories

bigguy

I just got an email from Biden (we're tight) with a link to stories of Americans' experiences with health care. It's pretty compelling stuff.

http://stories.barackobama.com/healthcare

boygabriel

It's hard not to think of free market health care companies as somewhat nefarious, which is a terrible way to be when your 'business' is people's health and lives. The practice of 'recesission', for example:

What is "rescission"? Here's how it works. At [a congressional] committee, investigations by a couple of news organizations and some state insurance commissioners, and lawsuits by policyholders have revealed, many insurance companies routinely take the opportunity of a serious accident or illness by one of their policyholders to launch an investigation to see whether they can drop the policyholder from coverage. They don't do this when you first sign up for your policy -- instead, they cash your premiums every month, waiting until you actually file a major claim. At that point, they begin poring over all your past medical records and every form you ever filled out for them, to see if they can find a reason to claim that you violated the terms of your policy. It doesn't even have to have anything to do with the illness in question -- for instance, the Los Angeles Times cited the case of a nurse in Texas who was booted from her insurance policy "after she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, for failing to disclose a visit to a dermatologist for acne."

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=health_care_reform_villains

eggcream

Tugs at your heart doesn't it which is what they want, but where is the 3 trillion cost coming from? 8 out of 10 people are happy with their insurance. He's backing out of his promise to tax employer sponsored health ins. Also, if it's such a ticking time bomb ( like the porkulas disaster and Cap and Tax) then why not start with caps on malpractice awards? Some people argue malpractice costs 100 billion a year forcing doctors to order unnecessary tests and others to leave high risk fields. Barry wants the medical industry to save 300 billion over 10 years and yet he could save 3x that amount with caps on malpractice suits. But we know that will never happen as ambulance chasers er trial lawyers such as John Edwards remain the largest contributor to democrats.



http://www.facesofgovernmenthealthcare.com/

boygabriel

eggcream wrote: Tugs at your heart doesn't it which is what they want, but where is the 3 trillion cost coming from? 8 out of 10 people are happy with their insurance. He's backing out of his promise to tax employer sponsored health ins. Also, if it's such a ticking time bomb ( like the porkulas disaster and Cap and Tax) then why not start with caps on malpractice awards? Some people argue malpractice costs 100 billion a year forcing doctors to order unnecessary tests and others to leave high risk fields. Barry wants the medical industry to save 300 billion over 10 years and yet he could save 3x that amount with caps on malpractice suits. But we know that will never happen as ambulance chasers er trial lawyers such as John Edwards remain the largest contributor to democrats.



http://www.facesofgovernmenthealthcare.com/

why do critics of health care reform and a public plan manage to never address (1) the shamefully high number of unemployed Americans, (2) how health care is actually a monopoly with little consumer choice, (3.) the despicable practice of rescission, (4.) the fact that Americans spend more money for worse care than any other developed nation in the world.

The status quo is great for Republicans b/c the health care industry gives them quite a pile of money.

bigguy

Eight out of 10 are satisfied with the *quality* of their health care. The number drops to 50% when costs are considered too. Still, those numbers don't sound too bad, even in the wealthiest country in the world.

But I'd suggest that a lot of the folks who are perfectly happy with their health care today, won't be when the sh*t hits the fan. Remember, health costs are a significant factor in 50% of U.S. bankruptcy filings.

carmen

who the hell are these 50-80% of people? Everyone I know (not just in NYC) hates their health insurance

vidro3

BigGuy wrote: Eight out of 10 are satisfied with the *quality* of their health care. The number drops to 50% when costs are considered too. Still, those numbers don't sound too bad, even in the wealthiest country in the world.

But I'd suggest that a lot of the folks who are perfectly happy with their health care today, won't be when the sh*t hits the fan. Remember, health costs are a significant factor in 50% of U.S. bankruptcy filings.

Medical Bankruptcy:

Need I point out this is but an extreme (or not so extreme) example of the phenomenon of medical bankruptcy, despite having both a job and health insurance when he was injured.

Will our health care reform end the "Only in America" phenomenon of medical bankruptcy? In America:

1. Illness and medical bills were linked to at least 62.1% of all personal bankruptcies in 2007. Based on the current bankruptcy filing rate, medical bankruptcies will total 866,000 and involve 2.346 million Americans this year – about one person every 15 seconds.

2. Most medically bankrupt families were middle class before they suffered financial setbacks. 60.3% of them had attended college and 66.4% had owned a home; 20% of families included a military veteran or active-duty soldier.

3. 78% of the individuals whose illness led to bankruptcy had health insurance at the onset of the bankrupting illness; 60% had private insurance.

4. 69% of debtor families had coverage at the time of their bankruptcy filing; 60% of families had continuous coverage.

Surprise, medical bankruptcy is also linked to losing your home, and to homelessness. Duh.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/28/94046/5867

doctorj

I bet most of those 50-80% are simply ignorant, and haven't experienced the lower costs, higher security, better availability, simplicity of access, and better outcomes you get when you live in any other wealthy democracy, all of which have a universal public option.

vidro3

Also read this article from a former health insurance executive:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=a571410c-634b-4424-a6c1-d6760cd507eb&p=1

Health Insurance Exec Speaks
by Wendell Potter
Testimony of Wendell Potter before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Post Date June 24, 2009

...
To win the favor of powerful analysts, for-profit insurers must prove that they made more money during the previous quarter than a year earlier and that the portion of the premium going to medical costs is falling. Even very profitable companies can see sharp declines in stock prices moments after admitting they've failed to trim medical costs. I have seen an insurer's stock price fall 20 percent or more in a single day after executives disclosed that the company had to spend a slightly higher percentage of premiums on medical claims during the quarter than it did during a previous period. The smoking gun was the company's first-quarter medical loss ratio, which had increased from 77.9% to 79.4% a year later.

To help meet Wall Street's relentless profit expectations, insurers routinely dump policyholders who are less profitable or who get sick. Insurers have several ways to cull the sick from their rolls. One is policy rescission. They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment. Asked directly about this practice just last week in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers refused to end the practice of cancelling policies for sick enrollees. Why? Because dumping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line. Ten percent of the population accounts for two-thirds of all health care spending.1 The Energy and Commerce Committee's investigation into three insurers found that they canceled the coverage of roughly 20,000 people in a five-year period, allowing the companies to avoid paying $300 million in claims.

They also dump small businesses whose employees' medical claims exceed what insurance underwriters expected. All it takes is one illness or accident among employees at a small business to prompt an insurance company to hike the next year's premiums so high that the employer has to cut benefits, shop for another carrier, or stop offering coverage altogether--leaving workers uninsured. The practice is known in the industry as purging. The purging of less profitable accounts through intentionally unrealistic rate increases helps explain why the number of small businesses offering coverage to their employees has fallen from 61 percent to 38 percent since 1993, according to the National Small Business Association. Once an insurer purges a business, there are often no other viable choices in the health insurance market because of rampant industry consolidation.

An account purge so eye-popping that it caught the attention of reporters occurred in October 2006 when CIGNA notified the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust that many of the Trust's members in California and New Jersey would have to pay more than some of them earned in a year if they wanted to continue their coverage. The rate increase CIGNA planned to implement, according to USA Today, would have meant that some family-plan premiums would exceed $44,000 a year. CIGNA gave the enrollees less than three months to pay the new premiums or go elsewhere.
...

boygabriel

I wonder what the 50-80% number drops to when you include people who don't have health insurance. Are they satisfied?

Also, can I see the study/poll this number came from?

brooklynjack

Carmen wrote: who the hell are these 50-80% of people? Everyone I know (not just in NYC) hates their health insurance

Actually I got to say my health insurance has been pretty good with a couple of exceptions. But then, my wife makes little money as a teacher but is compensated by a good health insurance plan. Which leads me rant about the idea of taxing of health insurance as a benefit. It is really going to hurt all those employees, many of them working in the public sector, that get good benefits as compensation for lower pay than in the private sector

eggcream

doctorj wrote: I bet most of those 50-80% are simply ignorant, and haven't experienced the lower costs, higher security, better availability, simplicity of access, and better outcomes you get when you live in any other wealthy democracy, all of which have a universal public option.

Any facts to back that up? Simplicity of access? Waiting months and months for an appt. is simplicity of access?

boygabriel

wait times and ease of dealing with a public or private bureaucracy are not the same type of issues.

the wait times in the US are low b/c we have so many uninsured people who you don't have to wait in line behind.

danielle123

eggcream wrote: Tugs at your heart doesn't it which is what they want, but where is the 3 trillion cost coming from? 8 out of 10 people are happy with their insurance. He's backing out of his promise to tax employer sponsored health ins. Also, if it's such a ticking time bomb ( like the porkulas disaster and Cap and Tax) then why not start with caps on malpractice awards? Some people argue malpractice costs 100 billion a year forcing doctors to order unnecessary tests and others to leave high risk fields. Barry wants the medical industry to save 300 billion over 10 years and yet he could save 3x that amount with caps on malpractice suits. But we know that will never happen as ambulance chasers er trial lawyers such as John Edwards remain the largest contributor to democrats.



http://www.facesofgovernmenthealthcare.com/

I don't know you from a hole in the wall, eggcream, but I know your politics just by the fact that you call the president, "Barry".

As much as I despised George W. Bush, I never called him, "George" or "Georgie". I called him, "Bush".

The president's name is "Barack Obama". Pick one of those 2 names and use it, [censored]. Otherwise, your comments have little credibility.

doctorj

eggcream wrote: [quote=doctorj]I bet most of those 50-80% are simply ignorant, and haven't experienced the lower costs, higher security, better availability, simplicity of access, and better outcomes you get when you live in any other wealthy democracy, all of which have a universal public option.

Any facts to back that up? Simplicity of access? Waiting months and months for an appt. is simplicity of access?

You just wouldn't ask that if you'd used other health systems in the civilized world for any length of time. If you want numbers, I'm sure we can drag up the WHO stats for % of citizens covered, cost per citizen over a lifetime, life expectancy and infant mortality.

It's my personal experience in several countries of doctors and hospitals: never had to wait for anything I needed. Much more paperwork and phonecalls and faxes in the US, longer waits in emergency, no mandated personal GP for immediate consultation (inc. night service) or alternatively, difficulty finding a local GP on short notice due to shortage of walk-in clinics, more out of pocket expenses, drawn out 3-way fights with doctors and insurance company, less choice when it mattered, due to the whole in-network thing, fewer nurses per patient, lack of electronic data integration, the list goes on... And I've got expensive top shelf US insurance. No matter which aspect, from cost to overcrowding to trouble finding a GP or specialist to personal financial risk to the downright scariness and chaos and even unhygienic conditions in our local hospitals, I put the US last on every count. Except maybe the incredible number of expensive diagnostic tests ordered; the US is #1 in this category because that's how doctors and hospitals make their money back, via billable procedures, no matter whether they're worthwhile or how invasive.

Once or twice might be a coincidence, but after many years, many doctors, many hospital stays, the pattern is undeniable. So much so, that either this president fixes it, or I can't justify keeping my family here long term. Too much risk to our health and finances in the long term compared with the other countries we can choose from, not to mention all the extra wasted time and stress of dealing with the system here, and not knowing whether it's going to bankrupt you one day.

boygabriel

no name-calling please, thanks.

eggcream

[censored, no personal attacks PLEASE]

-mods

eggcream

doctorj wrote: [quote=eggcream][quote=doctorj]I bet most of those 50-80% are simply ignorant, and haven't experienced the lower costs, higher security, better availability, simplicity of access, and better outcomes you get when you live in any other wealthy democracy, all of which have a universal public option.

Any facts to back that up? Simplicity of access? Waiting months and months for an appt. is simplicity of access?

You just wouldn't ask that if you'd used other health systems in the civilized world for any length of time. If you want numbers, I'm sure we can drag up the WHO stats for % of citizens covered, cost per citizen over a lifetime, life expectancy and infant mortality.

It's my personal experience in several countries of doctors and hospitals: never had to wait for anything I needed. Much more paperwork and phonecalls and faxes in the US, longer waits in emergency, no mandated personal GP for immediate consultation (inc. night service) or alternatively, difficulty finding a local GP on short notice due to shortage of walk-in clinics, more out of pocket expenses, drawn out 3-way fights with doctors and insurance company, less choice when it mattered, due to the whole in-network thing, fewer nurses per patient, lack of electronic data integration, the list goes on... And I've got expensive top shelf US insurance. No matter which aspect, from cost to overcrowding to trouble finding a GP or specialist to personal financial risk to the downright scariness and chaos and even unhygienic conditions in our local hospitals, I put the US last on every count. Except maybe the incredible number of expensive diagnostic tests ordered; the US is #1 in this category because that's how doctors and hospitals make their money back, via billable procedures, no matter whether they're worthwhile or how invasive.

Once or twice might be a coincidence, but after many years, many doctors, many hospital stays, the pattern is undeniable. So much so, that either this president fixes it, or I can't justify keeping my family here long term. Too much risk to our health and finances in the long term compared with the other countries we can choose from, not to mention all the extra wasted time and stress of dealing with the system here, and not knowing whether it's going to bankrupt you one day.

Hawaii tried it and failed. The Gov't can't run Medicare or Medicaid. Why not try and fix those first?

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&btnG=Search+News&q=nhs

vidro3

did hawaii get rid of their free health care? last time i was there it was still free.

boygabriel

eggcream wrote: Hawaii tried it and failed. The Gov't can't run Medicare or Medicaid. Why not try and fix those first?

and yet private insurance is failing worse...

boygabriel

Not that people who are anti-health care reform are interested in actual details, but here goes:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/07/05/healthy_examples_plenty_of_countries_get_healthcare_right/?page=full wrote: a long piece[/url] in the Sunday Boston Globe examining how France and the Netherlands deliver high quality health care to all of their citizens. One uses non-profit private insurerers, the other a government-run system. Both work. Both are significantly lower cost than the U.S. Neither has the long emergency room waiting lines that characterize U.S. health care . . . .

doctorj

USA spends the most on health care by a good margin, for below average results for a wealthy country.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

Even the often maligned UK NHS (which is not a modern example that I think the US should follow) gets better marks.

Arguments about waiting lists for elective surgery that compare the US to countries with universal health care are simply numerically wrong: if you take into account the substantial fraction of US citizens who wait until they rot because they don't have insurance, or have to choose between waiting and bankruptcy because they're underinsured, then wait times in the US are on average not short but infinite, and the expense on average is catastrophic.

The way it works in practice in a lot of countries is that there is a parallel private system for non-emergency procedures, and/or access to neighboring countries' systems, at a price. People can privately insure or pay their way to fast service if they want to -- the fact that most don't is because most are satisfied with the public option (95%+ approval in European countries, according to the latest WHO report).

As for fixing Medicare/Medicaid... I'm sure private insurers would do a better job running that than the government -- that's why private companies are falling over each other to profit by cherry picking all those poor and old people away from the public system.

eggcream

doctorj wrote: USA spends the most on health care by a good margin, for below average results for a wealthy country.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

August 22, 2007
Why the U.S. Ranks Low on WHO's Health-Care Study
By John Stossel

The New York Times recently declared "the disturbing truth ... that ... the United States is a laggard not a leader in providing good medical care."

As usual, the Times editors get it wrong.

They find evidence in a 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) rating of 191 nations and a Commonwealth Fund study of wealthy nations published last May.

In the WHO rankings, the United States finished 37th, behind nations like Morocco, Cyprus and Costa Rica. Finishing first and second were France and Italy. Michael Moore makes much of this in his movie "Sicko."

The Commonwealth Fund looked at Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States -- and ranked the U.S. last or next to last on all but one criterion.

So the verdict is in. The vaunted U.S. medical system is one of the worst.

But there's less to these studies than meets the eye. They measure something other than quality of medical care. So saying that the U.S. finished behind those other countries is misleading.

First let's acknowledge that the U.S. medical system has serious problems. But the problems stem from departures from free-market principles. The system is riddled with tax manipulation, costly insurance mandates and bureaucratic interference. Most important, six out of seven health-care dollars are spent by third parties, which means that most consumers exercise no cost-consciousness. As Milton Friedman always pointed out, no one spends other people's money as carefully as he spends his own.

Even with all that, it strains credulity to hear that the U.S. ranks far from the top. Sick people come to the United States for treatment. When was the last time you heard of someone leaving this country to get medical care? The last famous case I can remember is Rock Hudson, who went to France in the 1980s to seek treatment for AIDS.

So what's wrong with the WHO and Commonwealth Fund studies? Let me count the ways.

The WHO judged a country's quality of health on life expectancy. But that's a lousy measure of a health-care system. Many things that cause premature death have nothing do with medical care. We have far more fatal transportation accidents than other countries. That's not a health-care problem.

Similarly, our homicide rate is 10 times higher than in the U.K., eight times higher than in France, and five times greater than in Canada.

When you adjust for these "fatal injury" rates, U.S. life expectancy is actually higher than in nearly every other industrialized nation.

Diet and lack of exercise also bring down average life expectancy.

Another reason the U.S. didn't score high in the WHO rankings is that we are less socialistic than other nations. What has that got to do with the quality of health care? For the authors of the study, it's crucial. The WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how "fairly" health care of any quality is "distributed." The problem here is obvious. By that criterion, a country with high-quality care overall but "unequal distribution" would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution.

It's when this so-called "fairness," a highly subjective standard, is factored in that the U.S. scores go south.

The U.S. ranking is influenced heavily by the number of people -- 45 million -- without medical insurance. As I reported in previous columns, our government aggravates that problem by making insurance artificially expensive with, for example, mandates for coverage that many people would not choose and forbidding us to buy policies from companies in another state.

Even with these interventions, the 45 million figure is misleading. Thirty-seven percent of that group live in households making more than $50,000 a year, says the U.S. Census Bureau. Nineteen percent are in households making more than $75,000 a year; 20 percent are not citizens, and 33 percent are eligible for existing government programs but are not enrolled.

For all its problems, the U.S. ranks at the top for quality of care and innovation, including development of life-saving drugs. It "falters" only when the criterion is proximity to socialized medicine.

Next week: the truth about the Commonwealth Fund study.

eggcream

Another Bogus Report Card for U.S. Medical Care
by John Stossel
08/29/2007

In May, the Commonwealth Fund issued its latest comparison of the U.S. medical system with five other wealthy nations' systems: Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and Great Britain.

Predictably, the study begins: "Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms."

I was immediately suspicious, considering the loaded study by the World Health Organization seven years ago. (I wrote about it last week.)

My suspicion was justified. It turns out the new study is almost as biased as the WHO's. The authors write, "The U.S. is the only country in the study without universal health insurance coverage, partly accounting for its poor performance on access, equity, and health outcomes."

I see. America "underperforms" because we don't have enough government intervention.
But while the U.S. lost points for not having national health insurance, the authors added, "[I]f insured, patients in the U.S. have rapid access to specialized health care services."
That's an understatement. Insured Americans have almost immediate access to cutting-edge procedures performed by some of the best-trained doctors. It's why our outcomes for such diseases as prostate and breast cancer are markedly better than in Canada's and Britain's socialized systems. The Commonwealth Fund doesn't mention that.

The United States is the center of medical innovation for the world. When internists ranked the world's top 10 medical innovations, eight were developed thanks to American innovations. The Commonwealth Fund ignores all that and focuses almost exclusively on the problems of our uninsured population.

As I've noted previously, the problem of the 45 million uninsured is exaggerated. The statistics represent a snapshot, and many uninsured people are reinsured in less than a year. The same people are not uninsured year in and year out.

The Commonwealth Fund study divides "quality" into right (effective) care, safe care, coordinated care and patient-centered care. The U.S. placed fifth or sixth in the last three.
But where did the U.S. place in "right care"?

First.

"Right care" is the most important criterion because it includes things like how often women have mammograms and whether diabetics get proper treatment.

The Commonwealth Fund ranked the U.S. last in "equity": "Americans with below-average incomes were much more likely than their counterparts in other countries to report not visiting a physician when sick, not getting a recommended test, treatment or follow-up care ... because of costs."

But how much of that is due to the government's increasing the cost of care and insurance through mandates, a tax code that encourages reliance on expensive insurance and bureaucratic red tape?

The Commonwealth Fund's study has other problems. It was based on telephone interviews with patients and doctors. So it grades nations on people's perceptions without controlling for their expectations. Yet patients who live in a country with long waits for medical care and bureaucratic inefficiency may have low expectations.

More ridiculous is the arbitrary way the Commonwealth Fund assigns weight to each of its measures. The proportion of patients who say they got infected at a hospital counts about the same in the "quality" measure as the proportion of doctors who use automated computer systems to remind them to tell patients their test results. Those things aren't equal in my book.

The study's authors also consider having high administrative costs and spending the largest share of GDP on health care worse than having the highest share of patients who wait four months or more for surgery. This seems designed to make the U.S. look bad.

Finally, the study penalizes nations for having large numbers of patients who spent more than $1,000 on medical care out of pocket, as if third-party payment is somehow superior.

Michael Cannon, the Cato Institute's director of health policy studies, summed up what's wrong with the study: "The report does nothing more than reveal which nation does the worst job of satisfying the subjective preferences of the people who conducted this study."

Fans of the Canadian system should note that Canada ranked fifth out of six and did worse than the U.S. in many ways.

Are you listening, Michael Moore?

vidro3

john stossel is an ass

vidro3

http://www.factcheck.org/politics/the_real_uninsured.html

boygabriel

eggcream, very convincing stuff.

Basically all Stossel managed to say was, "it's government's fault," which strangely seems to be conservatives' explanation of everything, even though they dominated government from 2000 to 2008, and Congress for much longer than that.

This was yet more commentary from you and conservatives that doesn't deal with rescission or the fact that Americans spend more money on health care and get less per dollar than any other advanced nation on Earth.

Nothing to see here folks.

eggcream

Boygabriel wrote:

Nothing to see here folks.

You see what you want to see. Next time you or your loved ones are sick, hop on a plane to Cuba and let us know how things turned out. You still haven't told me how Barry and Co. are going to pay for this trillion dollar nightmare? Socialism works till you run out of other people's money.

Not to worry, Barry's giving us yet another Czar to control our lives. More control, more destruction.

Jul 07, 2009

"Health care overhaul legislation from President Barack Obama's congressional allies would create a federal insurance czar with sweeping new powers to oversee medical plans nationwide, an idea already drawing fierce criticism," The Associated Press reports. "State insurance commissioners are objecting, saying it would duplicate what they now do without offering any better protection for consumers. Conservatives are calling it a textbook example of a big government mentality."

"The insurance czar, known as the Health Choices Commissioner, would head a new independent agency called for in the 800-page draft bill released by House Democratic leaders.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2009/July/07/Czar.aspx

boygabriel

Labeling health care reform as 'socialism' is intellectually lazy.

I see yet another response from you not dealing with rescission or the fact that Americans spend more money on health care and get less per dollar than any other advanced nation on Earth.

vidro3

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/7/751100/-How-I-lost-my-health-insurance-at-the-hairstylists

doctorj

eggcream wrote:
You see what you want to see. Next time you or your loved ones are sick, hop on a plane to Cuba and let us know how things turned out.

Note: in most rich countries with universal healthcare, it is easier for people to see a doctor, and faster in the emergency waiting room. As study after study attests (also my personal experience). Never had to fly to Cuba. But if I or anyone in my family got seriously ill, and were still able to fly, we would definitely leave the US to get treated in the universal systems in one of the other countries we belong to. Unless the US introduces universal healthcare, we will also proactively relocate before we get old, or if we find ourselves without sufficient employer-based coverage (including denials and bills we wouldn't be faced with elsewhere).

eggcream wrote:
You still haven't told me how Barry and Co. are going to pay for this trillion dollar nightmare? Socialism works till you run out of other people's money.

Enrolling everyone in public insurance would drive down the total cost, as every other country doing this demonstrates. My tax rate on paper might go up a couple of % but I would end up with more money in my pocket at the end of the day. Employers would spend less on overly expensive policies so regular wages would rise. Adding young and middle class people to the public system is cheaper per capita than continuing to only subsidise the elderly, poor, and uninsured including illegal immigrants via the emergency room.

If you think universal healthcare is socialism, do you have the same opinion about universal education, universal fire departments, universal policing, the universal judicial system, and especially the universal US military? You'd have to be a serious anarchist not to support some level of taxation and government services; the disagreement is simply over which services require what level of government administration due to market failure. And if ever there were a clear case of market failure, it's the US health industry.