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Kamala Marx

Would you consider EMTALA as already guaranteeing a level of healthcare to every citizen (in fact, it's not even limited to citizens -- or even immigration legal status)? For all intents and purposes, it's generally used this way.

I don't think single-payer healthcare is a good idea. And this is evident by looking at the systems that have been in place for sufficient amount of time to evaluate. They haven't cracked the code, they've just chosen a different poison.

But, as I said above, I have always been intrigued by Singapore's system (Medisave) -- which is basically:

1) people of working age have MSAs (which do have some subsidy for low-income) which they use to pay the vast majority of their healthcare transactions.

2) Payroll deductions of 8.5-10% of earning fund the savings account.

3) The catastrophic insurance is single-payer, for expenses beyond the MSA.

4) People are incentivized to use as little of their MSA as possible to meet their healthcare needs -- but still have the funds and insurance in place to meet those needs.
Re EMTALA, I thought that was Obama's best argument for his desire to change the system: that path is way too expensive. We need to get people into preventative care, to save on overall health costs.

Re Singapore, I'm always sceptical of comparing the US to smaller nations like that with different demographics. Too many variables that we don't even know about. Not sure how it would help the larger number of unemployed here. But I agree with the notion that we need to get consumer buying decisions into the healthcare market, I'm just not sure how to do it.
 
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