How Funding a National "Medicare for All" Single-Payer System would save billions.

[Better Believe It]

Funding a National Single-Payer System
“Medicare for All” would save billions, and could be redistributive.
BY GERALD FRIEDMAN
GERALD FRIEDMAN is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
March 30, 2012

Health-care costs have risen much faster than income in the United States over the last 50 years, rising from 5% of Gross Domestic Product in 1960 to nearly 18% today. Some of the increase in costs in the United States, as with other countries, is associated with improvements in care and longevity. Costs have risen much faster in the United States, however, because of the growing administrative burden of our private health-insurance system.



With $570 billion in savings on administration and monopoly profits, a single-payer system would reduce dramatically the burden of health care costs on the United States economy. Over time, furthermore, a single-payer system would allow us to slow the growth in health-care spending.



A single-payer system would produce huge administrative savings by simplifying billing operations within providers’ offices and hospitals, and by redistributing the monopoly profits currently enjoyed by pharmaceutical makers and other companies.



The savings produced by a single-payer system would allow us to correct some of the problems within the current health-care system. In addition to extending coverage to all of those currently uninsured, we could also improve the coverage for those with inadequate insurance. Finally, we could correct the inequity in the current financing system by reimbursing providers equally for caring for the poor under Medicaid.



The single-payer system would be paid for by a variety of taxes. The Tobin tax is a tax on financial transactions that would raise revenue while discouraging the types of speculative finance that led to the current economic crisis. The remaining revenue would come from taxes targeted at those best able to pay, including those with high incomes and with incomes from property (including capital gains, dividends, interest, profits, and rents).



Read the full article and see all of the charts at:

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2012/0312friedman.pdf

[izquierdista]

1. Makes too much sense

I'll say what I've said before:

Instead of some "signature health care reform bill", Obama and the Dems in Congress should have been submitting riders to appropriations bills lowering the Medicare eligibility age, adding spouses and dependent children to VA benefit eligibility, and expanding Medicaid so that it flowed like crack-filler into the bottom of the safety net. Pretty soon, there would be a de facto single payer system. All that would be left is to reorganize it into one department. It's amazing what you can get done when no one is paying attention to what you are doing.

Subterfuge. Beat Republicans, ALEC, and the lobbyists at their own game. Sub-ter-fuge

[Better Believe It]

2. All Parties Ignore the One Way to Reduce Health Care Costs: Single-Payer

All Parties Ignore the One Way to Reduce Health Care Costs: Single-Payer
By David U. Himmelstein MD and Steffie Woolhandler MD
March 30, 2012

Someone - insurers, patients, doctors, hospitals or drug firms - will suffer if health care costs are contained.

Research shows that single-payer reform could save about $380 billion annually that's currently wasted on insurers' overhead and the unnecessary paperwork (and screen-work) they inflict on hospitals, doctors and patients. That's enough money to fully cover the uninsured and eliminate copayments and deductibles for the rest of us.

In the early 1990s, studies by the CBO and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) arrived at similar conclusions. Their basic findings still hold. And, of course, the experience of other developed nations has demonstrated this proposition in practice.

But taking this path would mean taking on the big insurers, drug companies and medical-equipment manufacturers. It's been much easier for politicians to toss some money to computer vendors and pretend that that will fix health care's cost problem.

Read the full article at:

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8195-all-parties-ignore-the-one-way-to-reduce-healthcare-costs

[ProSense]

3. This is good:

Can anyone see these new taxes being passed by the current Congress? I mean, they can't even pass the Buffet rule or end subsidies for Big Oil.

Conyers has more on the implemenatation.

<...>

Conversion To A Non-Profit Health Care System

Doctors, hospitals, and clinics will continue to operate as privately entities. However, they will be unable to issue stock. Private health insurers shall be prohibited under this act from selling coverage that duplicates the benefits of the USNHC program. Exceptions to this rule include coverage for cosmetic surgery, and other medically unnecessary treatments. Those workers who are displaced as the result of the transition to a non-profit health care system will be the first to be hired and retrained under this act. Furthermore, workers would receive their same salary for up to two years, and would then be eligible for unemployment benefits. The conversion to a not-for- profit health care system will take place as soon as possible, but not to exceed a 15 year period, through the sale of U.S. treasury bonds.

http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Issues.Home&Issue_id=063b74a4-19b9-b4b1-126b-f67f60e05f8c

[Xyzse]

4. Even if I agree

There is a whole industry and vested interest in keeping insurance companies going.
Single Payer would have been nice, it would have been nice if Obama fought for it early on to get more bargaining power, BECAUSE, no matter how much he would give in, they generally won't vote for anything he supports any way... However, I am being realistic enough that such a system would take a lot more than what we are experiencing to happen.

[SidDithers]

5. Awesome...

now get out there and convince the Republicans to vote for it.

Sid

[progressoid]

6. Yup

Just like they voted for PPACA.

[Prophet 451]

7. I always compare this to the NHS

The amount currently spent on the combination of Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance: aprox. $2.3 trillion annually.

Amount needed to cover entire US population under NHS model (discounting start-up costs): aprox. $600 billion annually.

[provis99]

8. sure it would save money, but it would interfer with our freedumb.

[Horse with no Name]

9. There is a big change my family would like to make

but instead, my SO is tied to a crap job that treats him horribly that may, or may not be there next year. BUT, presently our health insurance is tied to him so he cannot accept another much better job that would end up being a very good career move for him. But, it offers no health insurance.

So, he is stuck. And it really sucks.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and recommended for common sense, logic and reason.

Thanks for the thread, Better Believe It.

[yodermon]

11. we need a superpac to make this into a 1/2 hour infomercial and saturate the media n/t

[Uncle Joe]

12. That's a good idea, However I do believe, if the mandate is upheld,

the for profit "health" insurance industry will have vastly larger sums of cash; courtesy of the captured people, to run counter infomercials.

[bvar22]

13. DURec!

[font size=4]"We already pay for Universal Health Care.
We just don't get it!" [/font]---Dennis Kucinich




[font color=firebrick][center]”Unlike the other candidates, I am not funded by those corporate interests.
I owe them no loyalty, and they have no influence over me or my policies.” ---Dennis Kucinich [/font]
[/center]

[Better Believe It]

14. Kick