Talk:Single-payer healthcare

NY Times/CBS Poll UNRELATED to Single Payer Health Care

The poll should be removed from this page. The poll question asks if the respondents are in favor of a public health care insurance OPTION to compete with privatized health insurance. The caption of the poll states the poll is showing how the majority of the US is in favor of a single payer system when the poll itself makes no mention of a single payer system. Again, it refers to a public option in addition to privatized insurance, NOT a single payer system where government run health care is the only option. Please rectify this error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.28.130.3 (talk) 21:26, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

New section needed: Arguments in Favor of Single Payer

Initial skeletal outline:

1. Cost Savings by lowering bureaucracy, administration, and overhead (referneces to GAO and CBO studies having these findings..
2. Patient Freedom to Choose Doctors (related issues like portability when moving, changing jobs, can be put afterwards as well)
3. Healthcare decisions made by physicians and other medical experts and their patients.
4. Prioritizing sicker patients first, rather than more profitable procedures/patients first
5. Democratic (one vote per person) control over the healthcare system
6. Negotiating global budgets including negotiating best-prices from drug companies through purchasing power.
7. add your own additional reasons For here, if they really don't fit into any of the above, or add to the above... Suggest references for (and improvements to) above... --Harel (talk) 00:48, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

No, no, no, no no. A section like this would make this even more Americentric than it is. Let's have stuff about actual Single-payer-healthcare systems, not about US healthcare reforms. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there anything America-specific about the general concept of who makes the healthcare coverage decisions? No. (I'll resist the urge to put "no, no, no no" there) Global budgets possible, is that specific only to the US? No. How about having lower administration than private? No, that's not U.S. specific either, and one can add other studies besides GAO and CBO.

Clearly, it is relevant, and even critical, to a solid and thorough encyclopedia article about a policy option like this, what it's rationale is or what the reasons are, or what it allows, or doesn't allow. That's a far, far cry from having a debate (yes the title had "arguments for" in it to fit in with the flavor of the Entry as it stood at the time which covered various states, groups, etc) and it's a far cry from trying to quote 'all sides'; there are basic, factual, studied and regularly analyzed features and dimensions of such a policy option as single payer, and the list above was merely an outline not a final draft, of what some of those dimensions are. If you find some such future additions to be unfactual or otherwise problematic, by all means raise the concerns at that time. But you cannot give a blanked dismissal of having the article discuss such parameters, any more than you could for an article on a proposed new technology or even technological protocol; its potential advantages, as well as potential problems and limitations, are entirely relevant.--Harel (talk) 02:51, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Netherlands

I just read this section, and I'm not even sure that it is in fact a single-payer healthcare system. As I understand it, funding is provided through private insurers, who must provide a minimum standard cover and are tightly regulated to ensure that they do not discriminate against the sick. There is some funding to equalize risk, but I don't think that makes it a single-payer system. Anyone disagree? DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'm going to take this out. We can always put it back later. DJ Clayworth (talk) 13:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

United States National Health Care Act

It is unclear to me why the United States National Health Care Act, a bill which has been introduced on a regular basis in the US with no hope of actually becoming law, deserves a mention in the intro. It is already mentioned in the relevant section, and a single initiative (among many in the US) is not that important. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:19, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I've also removed some duplication of the various types of healthcare, and reduced the article's focus on the single-payer health care system that the US doesn't have. DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Article for deletion proposal - Shona Holmes

Editors to this page may wish to know that the article about Shona Holmes (who has appeared in advertsements and in congress campaiging against health care reform and especially single payer) has been nominated for deletion here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Shona_Holmes_(3rd_nomination)#Shona_Holmes Please feel free to add your comments about this proposed deletion as you see fit. --Hauskalainen (talk) 22:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Article should be balanced with a criticism section

As it stands the article only seems to provide a positive view of the issue. Since this is a political issue, it does not make sense to have a "Proponents and support" section without a "Detractors and criticism" section as well. On a personal note, as a young adult entering the workforce in the US and seeing the demographic trends (i.e. the baby boomer generation reaching health-care age) it seems as though proposals like this are another way of transferring money that I don't have to the people who spent all their money on making housing unaffordable. The same generation of people who underfunded Medicare and Social Security their entire working lives and now expect my generation to pay for those too. If I am critical of this type of proposal in the US context, I am sure that someone, somewhere has written a criticism. Not that this isn't a good idea, it just is inappropriate in the US context at this moment in time. 72.203.157.85 (talk) 04:45, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

No, no, no, no, no. Criticism (and praise) sections make for bad and argumentative articles. Much better to merge positive and negative facts into the article. Non-facts shouldn't be there at all. Since we already have a large article on the US debate, this article can restrict itself to facts. Already did this. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:09, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

In most of the world, the children work and care for their parents in their old age. This includes medical costs. Usually this is through direct payment to medical providers (assuming that you can both pay and you can find a doctor with the skills needed nearby; neither of these are usually true in the third world.) In the first world, this is instead done through pooling of money by insurance or taxes.Grantor (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC).

Term in the US

If the title of this article really is specific to the US, then maybe we should change the article title to something more globally understood. The article should cover all the single-payer insurance systems (since we already have extensive articles on the US health care systems and the various proposals). What should the term be? DJ Clayworth (talk) 13:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I came to this page from googling the term "single-payer health care" after reading it in a US newspaper. Many of the the terms from discussion of the US healthcare reforms are not familiar to readers in the UK as there is a general consensus here that our government funded universal healthcare is the best option and therefore discussions about funding options are not often seen. Whilst many of the healthcare reform pages seem US-centic, I think this is inevitable as these issues appear to be much more significant in the US. The terms used may be unfamiliar to UK or global readers, but that it because the concept itself is unfamiliar; hence there are no "more globally understood" terms in British or International English.86.178.51.138 (talk)Caroline, London, 26th May 2010 —Preceding undated comment added 10:51, 26 May 2010 (UTC).

Definition(s) of single-payer

The introductory section where single-payer is defined and explained has major, multiple flaws.

1. "Single-payer health care is a public service financing the delivery of universal health care to a given population..."

Single-payer is an economic model for financing patient medical care. Universal care is the concept and practice that all persons within some given population have equal, guaranteed access to receiving some types of medical care. Single-payer is distinct from and unrelated to universal care. One can have a single-payer system without having universal care. One can have universal care without having single-payer. That first sentence presents itself as a definition of single payer, in order to be so, the reference to universal care needs to be removed.

2. "Single-payer health insurance collects all medical fees and then pays for all services through a single government (or government-related) source."

a. There is no such thing as a true single-payer system in the West. All Western nations involve a combination of public and private health care spending. In England, considered a "socialist" single-payer system, public spending is 85% and private spending is 15%. In France it's about 80% public, 20% private (this about average for OECD nations). In Germany it's 75% public, 25% private. In Canada it's 70% public, 30% private. In the US it's 55% private, 45% public (more on this case below). Obviously not all medical fees are collected and then used to pay all services.

b. The literal single-payer does not need to be a government entity, or government-related. One could have a single-payer system if there were a single-payer in the form of an HMO not operating as a government organ with public money. An HMO could gain a monopoly in health insurance coverage, along with the elimination of public health programs, and become a private single-payer.

3. "Medicare in the United States is an example of a single-payer system for a specified, limited group of persons within a country."

Per the explanation in #1 above, Medicare is not a single-payer system because it also includes private spending for the specified population in the form of, as in other nations with "single-payer," supplemental insurance (Medigap plans), complementary (secondary private coverage), out-of-pocket via deductibles and co-pays and non-covered services. In addition, with the enactment of the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) several years ago, Part C Advantage Plans provide coverage via private HMOs, as does Part D prescription drugs plans. Hence, the amount of spending for "Medicare" (treated similarly to single-payer systems in other nations) is no longer as much of a "single-payer" system as it was a decade ago.

4. "Although the fund holder is usually the government, some forms of single-payer employ a public-private system."

This sentence is an inadequate attempt to explain and note the issues I have drawn attention to and explained in point 1, 2, 3.

The whole introductory part needs to be written in order to give readers an accurate, adequate understanding of what single-payer means. I'll be submitting language after discussion has begun.

I'll provide the specific OECD, WHO, etc. references and figures for the spending, etc. when I submit more comemnts to this Talk.

Theschwasound (talk) 06:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

• Be sure to make your changes one at a time, with an explanatory edit summary. Abductive (reasoning) 07:30, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree on all points and will make some of the changes. According to the Physicians for a National Health Program Single Payer "refers to one entity acting as administrator, or “payer.” In the case of health care, a single-payer system would be setup such that one entity—a government run organization—would collect all health care fees, and pay out all health care costs." http://www.pnhp.org/facts/what-is-single-payer Jerdwyer (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:42, 20 December 2011 (UTC).

Also deleted statement that medicare is a single payer system for a certain segment of the population. It's no more single payer than my company insurance is because it does not meet the criteria of a SINGLE entity handling all health care bills. A system in which some people are covered by medicare and others are covered by private insurance is a partially universal system, not a single payer one. Jerdwyer (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:53, 20 December 2011 (UTC).

I would like to point out that WP:RS, which is a firm Wikipedia policy, requires us to link to a WP:RS for every disputable claim. If an editor claims that the UK has a single payer system, that editor must supply a link to a WP:RS which says that the UK has a "single payer" system. You can't simply link to a description of the UK system, and conclude that, in your interpretation, that's a single payer system. The link (which I corrected) to the NHS Constitution in the UK section doesn't use the phrase "single payer" anywhere. I searched it. Therefore, the reference to "single payer" has to go out, until someone finds a WP:RS. --Nbauman (talk) 03:51, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I suspect there may be a terminological problem in that the term "single-payer" has no real meaning in the UK, or (I suspect) in the rest of the world outside the USA. If British people were asked to define what type of health care system we have, the general answer would be to define it as what it is called: a national health service which is owned and paid for by the nation collectively and managed by the government on behalf of the nation. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:48, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Types and variations and misc.

1. "Government is increasingly involved in U.S. health care spending, paying about 45% of the $2.2 trillion the nation spent on individuals' medical care in 2004.[3] However, studies have shown that the publicly-administered share of health spending in the U.S. is closer to 60%.[4]"

The sentence beginning with "However,...." contains the near-consensus rejected claim that "the publicly-administered share of health spending in the U.S. is closer to 60%.[4]"

There are not "studies." There is one (1) study that makes that claim. It comes from leading figures with the US single-payer advocacy organization Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). It is a tendentious study, presenting a biased opinioned motivated for the political purpose to make it appear the US government already spends so much money on health care that it wouldn't mean much of a change if the nation adopted single-payer and had government take on a bigger role in financing health care here. I'm a very active, ardent single-payer advocate. I was on the commission created by my state legislature several years ago to study single-payer (as a supporter), and was main author of the group's final report, which I helped present to a parent health committee. I've testified about progressive exhalent reform issues, including single-payer and universal care, 14 times in the past 5 years. I speak to group, give workshops, etc. I greatly appreciate Steffie and David's work in general, but this study of theirs is an embarrassment to the movement. The basis of their claim is that tax deductions employers and workers receive due to premiums paid for employee health plan coverage constitutes spending by the government. Hence, rather than spending 45%, government spends 60%. This is voodoo accounting. In accounting theory, what they're doing is claiming that money that could've been collected in the form of taxes (with different tax laws)--potential revenue--constitutes a real expense. What they claim is that money government never has, does not determine whether it is spent or not, or how much of it is spent or not, or how it is spent is spending by the government. It makes their claim that money spent by employers is money spent by government. This is crazy. Their argument is not taken seriously by people outside of the single-payer movement as far as I know in any wide-scale way. There’s one government economist who agrees with them. I could walk through more of the logic and math about why their argument is flawed, but given that it is given little currency it shouldn't be included on the page unless presented with a serious disclaimer. At that, there are other claims made about what the percentage is, but none hold much sway; 45% is the consensus figure. Get rid of the PNHP figure and its study--singular.

2. "Although many Canadian citizens have supplemental private insurance from their employers, this covers non-medically necessary expenses not covered by Canadian Medicare, and accounts for only 12% of national health care spending.[9]"

The source of that figure is not reliable; the paper does not adequately explain its terms and more. The percentage of private health spending in Canada is 29.9%, with public spending at 70.1%. Those are the relevant figures if one wants to portray the public vs. private spending dynamic, as the reference to US government spending of 45% or 60%. To contrast Canadian spending while comparing public insurance vs. private insurance is an apples-to-oranges comparison with the US. Non-parallel construction.

The authors of the study do not explain what they consider "private insurance." They do not specific what those figures. They portray figures for total private spending, and break it down side-by-side with public spending for different categories of care, e.g. in-patient, but not so with private "insurance." The private insurance figure cannot be analyzed sans details. Canada has private insurance, out-of-pocket, and a very small amount of spending in what is known as a "cash-market" where citizens can go to doctors who work outside the public reimbursement system and get care for anything that they can get in the public system. However, they have to directly pay themselves; they cannot use insurance to pay for those services. Whatever the case, the aggregate private spending information provides the relevant figures to contrast public vs. private. To refer to private insurance, a better source is needed.

I used to participate--years ago--in trying to maintain the entries for universal care and single-payer, but gave up given the game playing that goes on non-stop by ideologues from all sides. The current entries seem freer of that sort of gameplaying. However, a problem exists in the need to cite a source for certain terms like universal care and single-payer. All sorts of definitions exist, they differ, and I don't find any/many that are adequate and accurate. I’m a bona fide expert with my own organization and site and definitions but apparently I can't cite myself. It is a major failing of Wiki that sourced definitions from some pre-existing site are required in some cases where there are no good ones, or so many that it accomplishes little to cite merely one. Can the user community for a topic agree on one?

Theschwasound (talk) 07:51, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Very 1st world centric

The experience of the 2nd world in single payer healthcare seems to be entirely missing here. Since this negative experience is the source of much of the opposition to single payer systems in a modern context, the absence of USSR, Polish, GDR, Romanian, Mao era PRC single payer systems and the rest of their communist brother systems seems to indicate large POV problems here. TMLutas (talk) 11:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The "second world" also ran elections. Yes, they had elections. Horribly flawed and undemocratic, but they did have elections. Does this mean that we need to list the use of such elections as a section in Wikipedia's entry on Elections, as an argument against having elections? That's what the above logic would indicate. If you have arguments against single payer that are based on facts and logical analysis and you can cite, by all means we can incorporate such. That a one-party dictatorship does a less than wonderful job with financing-by-the-state is about as surprising as that this kind of one party dictatorship does a bad job with elections, or for that matter, public broadcasting" or anything else. --Harel (talk) 02:59, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I really don't understand the thrust of the argument. The essence of single payer is that it is unhelpful to have multiple players because in a multipayer system the payers engage in competitive practices just as you see now in the U.S. where insurers compete to get rid of the sick from their insured pools and retain on their books only the healthiest individuals (like those fit enough to be employed). In a system where there are not for profit insurers, the pools are owned by the contributing members, this tends only to benefit the healthy and dis-benefit the sick (which is the very converse of the object of insurance). In a system where there are for-profit insurers, things get even worse because the pool is not owned by the insured but third party owners, the shareholders, who can cream off any excesses from the pools for themselves. Thus you have the grossly offensive situation of the sick being denied access to insurance and the remaining contributors to the pool being relatively healthy and yet still having premiums sucked out of them and into the hands of people who are in the game only for the profit to be made. Sure, the insurers still do pay out of course, but the gross picture is very clear.

TMLutas seems to be confusing single payer health care and communism. These are about as wide apart conceptually as it seems possible to get. Single payer health care is about providing health care from a single source of funding (typically taxation) but not restricting where you get service from. Communism is a political philosophy in which the state controls the means of production, distribution and exchange and in which property is owned collectively and decisions taken democratically. In single payer systems, doctors take medical decisions and the cost of those decisions are carried by the community. All single payer systems give people the right to choose and if your choice is not covered by the single payer system then you have an absolute right to pay for service privately, either out of pocket or by insurance. There is thus a great deal of plurality embeded in the philosophy of single payer, (and by the way, this extends to systems like those in England or Scandinavia where the single payer also provides the main health care service). The degree to which the state controls the financing of health care is totally in democratic control. If the state provides poor coverage, people will finance the coverage they need themselves (albeitly from their own resources like most other things). That in places like Canada, Sweden, Denmark, they choose not to is a sign that the democratic system is producing the required results.

In a perfect communist system, there would not be any choice other than that which the state allows. The funny thing is that you included the People's Republic of China on your list, and as far as I know, medicine there has never been fully run by the state and it still is not, even to this day. It might be a communist country but it does not have socialist medicine.--Hauskalainen (talk) 13:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Hauskalainen has given a good summary of how very far apart single payer is from the official rherotic/official ideology of Communism. Thus TMLutas' examples are off. But since the actual examples TMLutas cites are ones in which the official ideology of "property is owned collectively and decisions taken democratically" was not respected, the examples are one more step even further away removed from single payer. So single payer differs from what TMLutas conceived in all the ways Hauskalainen summarized, plus also different in this additional way. --Harel (talk) 21:58, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Hauskalainen and the UK

I've removed now several times statements by User:Hauskalainen that the UK's system is not a single payer healthcare. I did this for two reasons 1) it's not clear that the authority he is citing as not considering the UK as single payer is the definitive authority. The statement is a bit short on references, and prima facie the UK healthcare system is paid for by one payer (the government) 2) He changed only the intro, while leaving the discussion of the the UKs system in the rest of the article. If he truly believes this to be the case, he needs to cite references andestablish a consensus on this page for the change. He also (if he gets consensus) needs to change the whole article to reflect this view, not just the intro. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:16, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I can find several sources that explain that the UK system is not single payer with a really quick search of the internet. The fact is that the UK is not single payer system because in single payer systems you have government paying for the insurance but the practitioners are mostly privately run. In the UK the vast majority of hospitals are government run and the doctors and nurses are employees of the government. Personally, I think that unless you have a reliable source that the UK system is single payer that it should not be listed as such. DanielZimmerman (talk) 15:36, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

"most European countries have single-payer health insurance programs"

There is no citation for users to see a listing of who is a single payer and who is not. In fact, my reading has indicated that most European countries use mandatory private insurance, with subsidies for the poor. That does not fall within the range of definitions for "Single-payer health care". Here is a example article: [1]

Specifically, Switzerland and Germany are entirely private health insurance companies. In Germany's case, there are 200 insurance companies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grantor (talk • contribs) 21:38, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

TAKE IT DOWN- it's still shit

yes this article is still shit. single payer is still a term with most of its play in the u.s.

the article sub headings for "in favor of" arguments having redirections to other articles is terrible anti-topical structure.

the "arguments in favor" amount to the necessary parts of this article to describe what was going on.

i say take the article down rather than let it be written and rewritten as it has been to date.

Rewrite

Have started rewriting this page. Am open to suggestions. info@healthcareforeveryone-alabama.org Wretan (talk) 12:37, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

NOT "Single Payer" in Continental Europe

Most continental European countries do NOT have "single payer" systems, but systems of multiple private providers operating and competing within tight regulatory parameters. The UK's National Health Service viewed in isolation is a single-payer system, but it is supplemented by private sector provision (including BUPA) for hypocritical left-wing politicians and other wealthy folks.

statistical nomenclature

This article uses the term "median" in describing wait time for services in countries that have some form of single payer health system. Median describes the value at which one-half of the observations fall above the value and one-half fall below it. It may be that the correct term to us in the wait-time discussions is to use "mean" as this would be the average wait time and might have some meaningfulness to the readers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.27.230.232 (talk) 00:14, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Health insurance vs health care

Isn't single payer a health insurance scheme not a health care scheme? Wouldn't that clear up the debate?

Canada taxes and pays (as a single payer) for health insurance but private companies provide the care. Public insurance, private care. Great Britain=public care. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.219.33 (talk) 15:57, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

California section update request

CA State Senator Mark Leno reintroduced California SB 810, "The California Universal Healthcare Act" on March 11, 2011. Can an editor please update the California section with this information? Thanks!

Senator's page for SB 810: http://dist03.casen.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={5938D509-03E9-4845-9605-F46F87A1758B}

Video to press conference announcing reintroduction: http://dist03.casen.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC={0E44D2C9-74BE-4B0C-81BD-CEA912593120}&DE={DF45DD07-C60E-4D0E-BB14-2DC6EE79F3F2}

98.248.161.70 (talk) 18:20, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Article is biased.

This reads more like a persuasive essay than an encyclopedia article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.44.247.184 (talk) 02:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Rassmussen Reports Has Been Accused of Conservative Bias Multiple Times

They're inclusion on this subject should be removed and they have been accused of conservative bias multiple times and clearly slanted the results.

Is this right?

From the lead: "Single-payer is a market in which one buyer faces many sellers". Is that right? Surely the single health fund is the seller (of insurance)?PiCo (talk) 01:42, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

On the polling section

I cleaned up some accuracy issues on the polling section, which was largely distorting the evidence it was using. Specifically talking about "national health insurance" during the timeframe that the United States was discussing the so-called "public option" is not an implication regarding single payer, for instance. There are a few more issues that come up in light of this:

• The infographic provided is misstating the NYT poll completely. The poll does not show that much support for single payer, but for a "willing[ness] to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance" that would compete with private plans - decidedly not single payer.[2]
• The first line shows 78% support for single payer according to FAIR citing a 1987 poll - do we have access to that poll anywhere? If we cannot see the actual poll, given the problems with polling on this issue, I'm not sure we should include that line at all.

Hopefully we can clean this issue up as soon as possible. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

• I've made the changes to remove the infographic and to tie the reporting of the poll to FAIR as opposed to simple stating it at this time, given the lack of any protest over the last week. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

DOMINANT or SINGLE? WRONG CHARACTERIZATION OF EUROPE

I just read the many complaints about this article on this discussion page and I have to agree with many of them. I cannot think of a single country that has a "Single Payer" for health care services. In Europe it may be that your employer picks up the tab, or the employer and the employee contribute jointly into a trade union insurer. There may be a private insurer, or if you are rich you pay for it yourself from your own pocket. If you're poor or unemployed or retired the government surely helps out. Its your choice and its not a monopoly. The UK and Ireland certainly have dominant payers but not single payers but where do you stop counting? In most countries people pay something for their health care, employers pay something and the government pays something. But then government gets its money from taxpayers anyway (people and businesses) so its just a matter of how want to look at it.

This article seems to me to be too dominated by an American perspective and the term, as far as I can see, is mostly used by Americans to characterize Canada's provincial health insurance programs of which there are many in the nation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.250.230.158 (talk) 02:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

File:PNHP poster.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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Overlapping article Health insurance madate

Please note overlapping article with similar problems. Isthisuseful (talk) 17:26, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect information on Canada

- The bulk of Canada's health care funding does NOT come from the provinces, but rather from transfer payments from the Federal Government to the Provincial Governments. - Wait times for procedures, diagnostics and surgeries vary widely from province to province and within provinces. The statistics given in this article pertaining to Canada are far too general at best and, most likely, inaccurate at worst. There is no current citation. Ntkahnert (talk) 20:06, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Problem with "like medicare" in polling section

One of the main problems with the polling section is the claim that some of the polls were compared to Medicare. The section in question is that

Many polls, such as ones administered through CNN,[57] AP-Yahoo,[58][59] New York Times/CBS News Poll,[60][61] and Washington Post/ABC News Poll,[62] Kaiser Family Foundation[63] showed a majority in favor of a form of national health insurance, often compared to Medicare.

For one, only 4 of the 17 polls (3 that are used in the article) actually compare it to Medicare. The other problem is that Medicare is a form of single-payer and says as much in both this and the Medicare article.

Saying whether or not a single-payer option is "like Medicare" is like saying single-payer is "like single-payer". I don't think we should remove the fact-check citation but we definitely need to remove the "often compared to Medicare" and replace "national health insurance" with single-payer (especially since the AP poll was directly asking about single-payer without mentioning Medicare and there aren't other real "national health insurance" plans other than single-payer). CartoonDiablo (talk) 01:48, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't reflect the wording in the polls or the wording as understood by respondents. We must go with what the sources say - anything else is original research. With this said, separating out the polls that say "like Medicare" from those that do not for clarity would be a reasonable compromise, but I'm not convinced it's necessary. Thargor Orlando (talk) 03:40, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

First of all what you did was revert it and in the process reverted the addition of another poll. Secondly you completely avoided the fact that only 3 of the 17 polls actually used the words "Medicare" so saying "often compared to Medicare" is not accurate.

But more importantly, The polls were cited in numerous sources as being polls on single-payer. For one, the AP-Yahoo one directly used the words "single-payer" and what other "national health insurance" exists? If Americans weren't supporting "single-payer" on the polls what were they supporting?CartoonDiablo (talk) 05:42, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

The public option was considered "national health insurance" because that's what it was - insurance, offered nationally. To give an example, your "question 49" on the ABC poll says "national health insurance...like Medicare." NOT single payer. Saying that the poll shows support for single payer is completely 100% false, as it did not ask about single payer. You've ignored the rest of my point. Regarding your new poll, the way the LAT positions the poll is not how they asked it - the question never asks about single payer, but "national insurance" "like Medicare." The current wording cannot stay, as it is factually inaccurate. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:26, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not talking about the ABC poll; I'm talking about the 2007 AP-Yahoo poll and the 2009 Time Magazine poll. And that aside, you might want to check the public option article which never uses the phrase "national health insurance" nor has anyone on the subject called it that.

The point with the "like Medicare" comparison is it's like asking whether it's "like single-payer" Medicare is single-payer. It's why outside the context of the fact check citation it shouldn't even be mentioned. Also a comparison to Canada and England is used about as much as the comparison to Medicare. That and most of the plans you seem to think are just "national health insurance" and not single-payer directly compare themselves to Canada including phrasing about "guaranteed coverage."

The bigger point of course is that you are not a healthcare expert or an RS. Multiple sources have called all them "single-payer" polls including the one now and PNHP. No one has called them "national health insurance" or "government in various levels of healthcare" polls. The obvious POV wording is the one that exists now. CartoonDiablo (talk) 17:10, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

We need to go off the actual poll wording, not the spin by the writers on the poll. The LA Times one you added, for example - the overview wrote "single payer," but they never asked that. Why? Because people do not perceive "Medicare" as "single payer." Because when single payer is asked, it tanks. Another option, as opposed to using misguided, inaccurate spin from media players - offer the polls as the question was asked? Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:21, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

So the 2007 AP-Yahoo poll tanked? How about the polls that compared it to Canada and England? The bigger question is, are Medicare (US) and Canada/England single-payer systems? And if so, why don't simply call them single-payer polls when two sources are doing that. CartoonDiablo (talk) 17:38, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

You're right on the AP poll, so I'll make that change. The comparison ones don't tell us that, and the "bigger question" is not "are they single payer systems" but rather "do voters recognize them as single payer systems." It's why we get diverging results when the questions are asked a certain way. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I think asserting that voters do not recognize the polls as single-payer would count as WP:OR since (a) all the sources list them as "single-payer" polls and (b) no source has said that Medicare (US) or Canada/UK are not single-payer systems or that supporting Medicare etc. wouldn't be supporting single-payer etc. The other problem is just language, if we assumed voters didn't know we would have to specify on every poll that was "like Canada's system" or "like Medicare" which itself would be burdensome.

I took a third way and created a chart. CartoonDiablo (talk) 00:05, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

This works. I would, however, consider removing the three-state Quinnipiac as it's not national. Otherwise, good job on this. Thargor Orlando (talk) 02:59, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Need unbiased author

This article is written more as a promotion than an explanation, citing benefits without corresponding detriments. It also features images that advocate a single-payer healthcare system, as well as poll results showing its favorability, both of which further erode its credibility. Given that this article should be informative rather than persuasive, I recommend deleting the entire article unless it can be rewritten by someone who doesn't have a vested or political interest in the subject. KiloVoltaire (talk) 18:18, 30 June 2012 (UTC)KiloVoltaire

I don't disagree - any suggestions? Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:01, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

"Right wing polls"

My restoration of the old prose section was reverted, claiming that it used "right wing polls" to "mislead." What data was missing? What "right wing polls" are being used that make my prose section (with essentially identical data) problematic as compared to the table? Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

The content you put in used push polls to skew responses. They gave a misleading impression of how much Americans would rather have a single-payer system. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:10, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you please be more specific? The table section is merely the polls in the prose organized into an unsightly mess. If there are polls to add to the prose, by all means, but this idea that there's a skew isn't evident. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:25, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

The Rasmussen poll is a push poll. It's designed to make it seem as if American's don't want single-payer, when they clearly do. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:22, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Rasmussen is not a push poll, it's a respected, widely-cited organization. That you dislike their results is one thing - that the version you reverted back to includes it anyway tells me that we shouldn't have an issue. Thargor Orlando (talk) 02:33, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Scott Rasmussen is respected by the right-wing, but every organization familiar with polls knows that Rusmussen polls always skew a point or two to the right. But that's not the issue. The problem here is that the specific poll used here is a push poll, with questions designed to get a result favorable to interests against single-payer health care. As you can see from the list of polls helpfully provided by the 31.170.166.18 below, the Rasmussen result is an outlier. Your version of the wording assumes this outlier is the norm, whereas the other version of the wording correctly does not ascribe too much weight to the Rasmussen result. Anyway, there's no consensus for your change to the existing wording. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:56, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Where's the consensus against it? And you have no proof of it being a push poll, just your long-standing political biases. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

It was rewritten, and then you reverted it because you didn't like the way it was worded. America wants single-payer and that outlier poll doesn't reflect reality. Please stop using Wikipedia to further your agenda. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Where is the evidence that America wants single payer? Even Politifact rates that false. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Click on the link left below by 31.x. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:21, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, most of those polls aren't about single payer. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:17, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

LOL. One of the polls (the last one) is not about single-payer. All the rest are. You're killing me, Thargor. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Really? Is single payer "universal health insurance?" Is it something as simple as "guarantee health insurance for all" or does that imply something more for the questionee? By your logic, anyone who was in favor of the "public option" was actually in favor of single payer. There's a reason Politifact considers your belief generally false. So are you still going to fight this, or are you going to accept the facts? Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:20, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

You are wrong or unable to read or both. The polls in that link all talk about full health coverage paid for by the government in one form or another. That is single-payer. Maybe you don't understand the meaning of single-payer? -- Scjessey (talk) 22:18, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

[3] has a comprehensive list of polls from 2007-2010. 31.170.166.18 (talk) 16:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

For the sake of reference, about six different sources consider all those to be single payer polls (including the Rassmussen one). CartoonDiablo (talk) 19:24, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Yet none of them actually are. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:34, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

You're wrong. As usual. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:18, 14 October 2012 (UTC)