The govt needs to rip out the tax deduction for employers, which is a big band aid. Until this is done nothing will change.

Your company doesnt pay for your car insurance or home insurance, why does it pay for your health insurance?

Agreed this needs done asap. Benefits hold unsatisfied workers captive, get rid of this bandaid -- and maybe we can afford Medicare for all.

One other option -- make Hospitals be both insurer/provider. They get recurring monthly income, they'd pay 'other' providers when you're travelling out of network, but they'd be more able to bring down costs, the government should set limits though on surgeries and their needs to be more transparency in pricing.

You'd subscribe to your local hospital and pay a % of your income to the hospital they'd take everyone regardless of income level.

If this is all that's done and companies stop paying for insurance, I would expect employers to use the opportunity to pocket most of the savings and only pass on a pittance to their employees.

Also, uninformed consumers will opt for cheap plans without checking for (or realizing their personal susceptibility to) major pitfalls that the ACA used to protect against before the Republicans pulled it apart.

These healthcare companies make a huge amount of money billing insurance companies and medicare, so I imagine at some point its profitable for them to pay for the transport of the patient back and forth.

In any other field all of these billing scams would be a federal crimes.

Congress could solve this issue overnight by passing a 1 line law:

If a patient is using services that is not covered by their insurance, or if they have no insurance, no medical service provider can change more than the official medicare standard rate for any services rendered.

Problem solved.

That quickly becomes single payer, since prices will be set to a price ceiling of whatever medicare (the gov't) sets it at. Good luck!

Sam Harris - Waking up Podcast. Dan Carlin - Hard Core History Econtalk

I have a yuba mundo cargo bike with a BBSHD 750W motor and Panasonic 52V battery. The whole setup costs around 2.5K, as I did the electric setup myself. It has been great as I can carry 2 kids on it, and as I live in a urban environment I never worry about parking. The BBSHD is a powerful motor and has been trouble free.

> I can carry 2 kids on it

Are you nuts? Do you want them to die?

They are in child seats, the Yuba is a great bike that is rated for over 700 pounds and has lots of child friendly adapters.

You can see more examples of parents pushing their kids in cargo bikes here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yy3kXIaKp8

Without electric it can be a real workout, but with electric assist its so much more fun. The kids cry these days if we tell them they need to go into the car.

You can buy a Yuba with Electric from the company, but its 5K which seemed way too much when you can do it yourself for 1/2 the price.

Have you thought of what would happen if you collided with a car?

And then, have you thought of what would happen if you were in a car?

In the car, you have a crumple zone.

In the bike, your kids are the crumple zone.

Any particular reason you say that? The Mundo is an extended-frame cargo bike that has really excellent accommodations for carrying two kids (or a week's worth of groceries, or a hundred kilos of other cargo).