Oh well, not even the Democrats when they had control of both houses of Congress and the White House even pushed single payer.

Single payer has been dead for years: Hillary killed it off when she tried to push her plan through Congress without even thinking of getting input from Congressional leaders.

How is this much different from a union-based healthplan across multiple businesses? Isn't this the sort of thing unions do? Honest question. (I've never been part of a union or an industry that has them, so I don't know if this is even a thing.)

, the trio of giants said the partnership will "address health care for their U.S. employees, with the aim of improving employee satisfaction and reducing costs. The three companies, which bring their scale and complementary expertise to this long-term effort, will pursue this objective through an independent company that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints.

I'd call this a huge admission that profit-making isn't compatible with healthcare but stopping short of calling for single payer. Why would this independent company come up with something different than say Kaiser Permanente within the current context?

@1 Clinton couldn't have killed single payer since she never proposed single payer.Quit regurgitating what you hear on corporate media., mkay?

#3. Actually Hillary was pushing Universal Healthcare in 1993, as the leader of Bill's commission on healthcare reform.

So, eventually we'll have single payer. It's just that the single payer will be Amazon.

@8 You hit the nail on the head there. We are so fucked. Might be a few years to mature though. Can't wait for the healthcare based individually targeted internet marketing, and the reception-free primary care offices where you slide your card, enter a cubicle when the assigned door opens, and put your relevant body part into a hole in the wall or ceiling so diagnosis can be made remotely from a Doctor-Hub (trademark) staffed by teams of fifteen to twenty high school graduates overseen by one medical school graduate - like happens now when you contact a Dell technical assistance call center.

@7 I was discussing single payer, not universal healthcare.

Send out Doctor Drone! He can diagnose, set up the printer, operate, stitch you up, and leave you with just the right amount of Oxy, all whilst telling you Norman Rockwellish excellent-outcome type stories. I feel a touch of Nostalgia coming on....

Just another scheme for Amazon to gather data on every man, woman, and child in the US. I fear Amazon more than I do the NSA.

Jesus Fucking Christ! Is there any GOOD news ANYWHERE anymore?

Curious why Edgy Katie Herzog thinks that large employers setting up nonprofit insurance arms moves us further away from single payer. Seems to me that the first group to control costs while delivering outcomes will show us how to deliver on single payer. Kind of like Kaiser and their origins, or Group Health and their relationship with Boeing.

The bottom line of this is at the end of the article- it's ultimately a profit boost for the companies involved, not an altruistic desire to help, or to create solutions that benefit the public. It will potentially create an ugly loophole for HIPPA as well. Your medical records are private, except to your insurer. Your diagnoses are right there in your billing statements. If your employer is your insurer, the company can have access to all of that.
Also, just a little aside... Apple Care protects your phone, Apple Health is Washington's Medicaid system.

#18, Just for the record, Medicare gets the best price for the consumer of any carrier, by far. When I was on my wife's Aetna 80/20 plan I had to pay my chiropractor $9/visit as my 20%. On Medicare I pay $5.50. That means the the "allowable" has dropped from $45/visit to $27 (which indeed is the stated allowable on my Medicare quarterly report).

Yes, I know that providers hate that part of it, but those who don't accept Medicare are either Beverly Hills "Surgeon to the Stars" sorts or treating illegal immigrants. And it's only going to get worse (from their perspective).

There are reports of "Medicare" fraud (which are usually MedicAID fraud) but even with that wastage if we were on "Medicare for All" the national portion of GDP spent on healthcare would fall three or four percent. It would make a huge difference.

@9 not Doctor-Hub; FireDoc!!!

@20 FTW

@16

Ooooo, you got that whole adding-a-vaguely-demeaning-adjective-to-someone's-name thing from Twump, didn't you?

That's so...wait for it...edgy of you