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[Ms. Toad]

2. That is an incredibly callous suggestion. My daughter would be dead before the year was up.

On her mid-5-figure income, my daughter has to pay $3500 each and every year in medical expenses, on top of $2400 in premiums, and $1000 or more for several items which are essential for her health, but not covered by health insurance.

Because - even with insurance - the portion of her income spent on health care far exceed that of most people. And she works 50 hours a week, including working through a bout with the super-flu leading up to Christmas, is because it is the only way she can afford both health care AND the rest of her expenses. And on the one day off a week she gets - at least every other week, that day is taken up by the medical care which keeps her alive.

If employer contributions are ended, she could not afford the health insurance needed to cover her $200,000 a year (each and every year) in billed medical expenses.

Sacrificing the most vulnerable is not an option.

[Henry203]

3. Unless all people are put in the same position

As people who have to pay for their own insurance we will never get single payer. I bought my own insurance so I know the pain.

[Swede]

4. It's so hard only 50 or so 1st world countries have it.

Nt

[BannonsLiver]

6. Agree. This is just a nimby mentality only instead of real estate it's the status quo.

It’s a pov that is is an example of what has led us down the road we’re on when it comes to healthcare.

[Ms. Toad]

12. Demanding that we not sacrifice individuals who are the most vulnerable is hardly nimby.

It is more akin to strategies which demanded one group of minorities continue to suffer while we worked on rights for other less "threatening" groups.

I would be making the same argument even if my daughter were not one of the most vulnerable - but in the medical arena most people do not have first hand experience of the consequences of the path they are recommending. Personalizing the consequences of a callous recommendation isn't trying to shove the problems elsewhere (nimby) - it is opening the eyes of the person making the suggestion to how that will impact real, very vulnerable, individuals on whom the consequences will fall.

[Ms. Toad]

7. And do you have a chronic, progressive illness that costs you $200,000 a year?

Have you been chronically ill since you were 4 years old?

Did you receive a diagnosis when you were a teen that carried with it a prognosis of of 10 years to death or transplant?

Were you forced to enroll in college repeatedly, knowing that it was near certain that you would need to drop out before the end of the semester - but enrolling full time was the only way to be permitted to remain on your parents' insurance?

Are you working a barely-above minimum wage job?

Are you barely able to keep your eyes open when you're not working - but you still have to work 50 hours a week to pay the bills?

Do you have to spend nearly every day off from work sitting in a medical facility getting an infusion, a transfusion, an MRI, or visiting your hematologist, gastroenterologist, hepatologist, immunologist, therapist, sitting in an emergency room for 10 hours after being forced to work while you were sick with the flu on top of the chronic exhaustion from your illness?

Are you at risk for 6 different cancers because of your illness?

And that's just a start on what my daughter lives with.

I somehow doubt you really know the pain. If you did, you would never suggest deliberately sacrificing people in my daughter's situation.

[EdmondDantes_]

8. Alternatively we might just get a society that goes unhealthy

Ignoring the people who will die without it, there's a substantial portion of people who would go without insurance, not have an immediate health issue, decide they like having that extra money in their pocket, and then we have no insurance and a silent buildup of health issues. Look at how much health care use has gone up after COVID delayed a lot of care for how quickly that becomes a problem.

Also without insurance there's less people using newer/more expensive drugs, particularly for less common diseases and that creates a spiral where there's fewer people buying drugs, so there's less research, so there's fewer new drugs, so each has to be more expensive, so there's fewer people who can afford them so there's less research, repeat.

[MichMan]

9. How do you get single payer without any government contributions?

"End employer and government contributions to health insurance"

[JI7]

10. This is stupid

We need a combination of different types of plans and ways to get access.

[MichMan]

11. Elimination of Medicare and Medicaid?