“The Pool” Doesn’t Exist, That Is the Real Problem

[phantom power]

The real problem is that “the pool” doesn’t exist and the Affordable Care Act won’t create one. There is no one pool. Medicare has a pool, there are 50 different Medicaid pools, each large company has its own pool, some unions are their own pools, insurance companies sometimes have several pools.

We have literally hundreds of different pools who need to separately negotiate with thousands of different providers for every single price. This is why health care financing in America is an inconsistent bureaucratic nightmare full of completely made up prices, discounts, endless negotiations with massive administrative overhead.

The way to solve this problem is to actually get everyone into a true single pool. This can be done either directly adopting single-payer or indirectly using all-payer.

The ACA doesn’t put everyone “into the pool,” all it does is simply move some uninsured people into over a hundred different pools.

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2013/05/09/the-pool-doesnt-exist-that-is-the-real-problem/

[AndyA]

1. Single payer was never considered.

At that point, I knew whatever resulted would be considerably less than it could have and should have been.

It seems to me that single payer is really the only way to provide affordable health care for everyone.