Thanks for making the distinction so well and so obvious, SJ.

"Like me, I'm sure you look at this figure and reason that it serves as a pretty good argument in favor of single payer health care coverage"

- LOL, so now the reason for "the trillion bucks solution" is the executive compensation.

Monsanto, Hollings and Goldman Sachs were the biggest winners of cap-n-trade way of re-dividing the American energy spoils, and I can't wait to hear the collective liberal moan and whine when they realize who will benefit the most from the "public option".

Sleepin, you see, a good DA could do an investigation on that health care company.

And they could do a study on how many people have died in the last 4 years as a result of being turned down on a claim.

All you need is the number of one time insureds who died in the last 4 years. Then you select only the names of those one time insureds who were denied their claim for benefits.

THEN LET A JURY SORT IT OUT. SEE?

Then you fine the CEO 2 billion dollars and throw his ass in prison for murder.

It is easier than you think. The state could spend 30 million dollars and imprison 50-150 of those in management and claims, and get back five hundred million for the state and distribute the rest to the victims.

WHY NOT?

Once the first indictments came down, those yellow rotten rich cowards would start rattin on all their 'friends' you know, the friends who passed them on the upswing of the corporate elevator or whatever.

Okay, you give up ten of your friends, and we will settle for manslaughter, consecutive sentences, but in forty years, you might be able to joint a seniors bridge club or some such.

THE END

I think your single data-point emphasizes the need for regulation of the health insurance industry while we create our new system out of the Frankenstein monster that is currently ravaging the village. I would also be happy to have society change to the extent that such greed and incompetence is properly addressed, criminally if applicable laws can shown to have been violated.

Which brings us back to proper regulation and enforcement vice throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Very few countries of our size have a strictly single-payer system. In fact, none of them do.

Single payer is hardly the panacea this blog implies. There are a TON of potential issues with the design and roll-out of "Medicare-for-All" not the least of which being the existing Medicare and Medicaid system itself. There are things we can do immediately like fix the policies that are allowed in which people dying is the end result - like preexisting condition exclusions and the like - and there are long-term foundational changes that must be made on a number of fronts.

This not an Either-Or situation.

So, who here thinks Obama is getting less money from health insurance companies than his opponent, next cycle? What, no hands? Who thinks he has some of that money already? There they are.

Two things:

1. I fail to see how the compensation of an individual executive is relevant to the debate. Certainly his stockholders might well have something to say about his compensation (and they ought to say mor than they generally do), but absent a complaint from the owners, don't we have to presume that he was worth the salary? Maybe he earned $1.6 Billion because he saved $1.9 Billion in costs by squeezing doctors.

2. Single payer is great as long as you're not paying. Thing is, you are.