I was on Green Mountain Care https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform for a year or two when it was available in Vermont... it was absolutely genuine single payer insurance system that gave me access to no-copay services. Sadly the program was shuttered three years after it had been introduced but I remember it fondly. It was accessible, affordable, and extremely comforting to have access to.
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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Yeah. Lots of states have state-supported medical care but as I understand it single-payer means nobody else is paying for health care at all, anywhere in the system, other than the state.
AFAIK zero states. Most have Affordable Care Act/Obamacare/Romneycare, which are marketplaces of private health insurance companies where the cost is subsidized depending on income.
I dont think any do. Maybe ACCSC or whatever Arizona has is close, but you have to be dirt poor to keep it.
Why is "public health care" called "single payer" in the USA? It sounds so weird. Everybody pays for everybody, it's not a single payer.
I would take "Public health care" to mean the government runs all healthcare services.
Single payer means public health insurance, and the absence private health insurance. From the perspective of a private (or public) hospital, there is one payer: the federal government.
Yeah. The difference is that there's still private clinics (and maybe hospitals) that work as contractors.
California comes pretty close.
To little fanfare, as the new year has gotten underway, California has closed one of the largest remaining gaps in its healthcare coverage system. As of January 1, all low-income Californians, no matter their immigration status, no matter their age, qualify for healthcare coverage.
A marketplace of private health insurance companies is very different from single payer healthcare.
Yes. CA is looking to get single payer, but that has a longer runway because America.
As a Californian, this is mostly just propaganda. Yes, immigration doesn’t affect Medicaid eligibility, and yes that’s a good thing, but if you aren’t low ENOUGH income for Medicaid, coverage is expensive.
Also as others have noted (and more directly addressing OP) California isn’t anywhere close to a single payer system. We have a marketplace of private insurers like everybody else
Colorado tried a few years back. Vermont has made the effort over the years. Not aware of any successful ones, but like anything else it's a process and requires raising awareness/changing understanding before you'll get a ballot initiative through.
There were some elements of CO's proposal that I really liked.
Edit: It's not entirely dead but they're definitely not there yet.
I heard Hawaii, but that could be completely wrong.