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eridani
eridani's Journal
eridani's Journal
March 28, 2014
Comment by Don McCanne of PNHP: Characterizing the Affordable Care Act as “the lowest common denominator - the most complex system,” President Jimmy Carter tells us that he would have favored “the expansion of Medicare to include all ages.”
He’s right, and here’s why. There have been numerous analyses of multiple models of reform. Most of them have included a model that would build on our private insurance system and expand Medicaid, just as is found in the Affordable Care Act. Of these analyses, this is the most expensive model and it falls short on important goals such as universality, equity, administrative efficiency, and affordability.
In contrast, single payer is the least expensive of the effective models and achieves virtually all of the goals of reform. An improved version of Medicare that is expanded to include everyone would be such a model. A health service model - socialized medicine - would also work, but the nation is still too leery of that much government involvement. The popularity of Medicare indicates that this is about the level of government involvement that most would support.
We have to keep reminding Americans that the exchanges are marketing private insurance - not government insurance, so they cannot confuse a government exchange with government insurance. In fact, the exchanges are prohibited from even including a government “public option” (which wouldn’t have worked anyway since the rest of the fragmented, dysfunctional system would have been left in place). Those who defend the private Medicare Advantage plans have to be reminded that they burn up more taxpayer dollars for administration and profits while depriving patients of choice because of their limited networks of providers. Once payment between government Medicare and private Medicare Advantage is equalized, the the private insurers cannot possibly compete with the government program because of their inherent inefficiencies. This was already proven by the failure of the Medicare + Choice plans that preceded Medicare Advantage.
It’s too bad that Jimmy Carter didn’t start talking about Medicare for all when he was president. It might have been helpful if the public had had a few decades to think about it before we got to the point that legislation could be passed. They could have pressured the politicians to do it right.
Jimmy Carter comes out in favor of Medicare for All
The Diane Rehm Show
March 26, 2014
President Jimmy Carter: "A Call To Action"
Diane Rehm: Briefly, how do you feel about the Affordable Care Act?
President Jimmy Carter: I was disappointed the way it was done and the complexity that it assumed. Instead of taking a leadership role from the White House and saying, “This is what we think is best,” they had five different congressional committees do it and it got, I think, the lowest common denominator, which is the most complex system. I would really have favored just the expansion of Medicare to include all ages, rather than just to deal with old people.
Video (38 second clip of quote above; also full 51 minute video):
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-03-26/president-jimmy-carter-call-action
March 26, 2014
President Jimmy Carter: "A Call To Action"
Diane Rehm: Briefly, how do you feel about the Affordable Care Act?
President Jimmy Carter: I was disappointed the way it was done and the complexity that it assumed. Instead of taking a leadership role from the White House and saying, “This is what we think is best,” they had five different congressional committees do it and it got, I think, the lowest common denominator, which is the most complex system. I would really have favored just the expansion of Medicare to include all ages, rather than just to deal with old people.
Video (38 second clip of quote above; also full 51 minute video):
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-03-26/president-jimmy-carter-call-action
Comment by Don McCanne of PNHP: Characterizing the Affordable Care Act as “the lowest common denominator - the most complex system,” President Jimmy Carter tells us that he would have favored “the expansion of Medicare to include all ages.”
He’s right, and here’s why. There have been numerous analyses of multiple models of reform. Most of them have included a model that would build on our private insurance system and expand Medicaid, just as is found in the Affordable Care Act. Of these analyses, this is the most expensive model and it falls short on important goals such as universality, equity, administrative efficiency, and affordability.
In contrast, single payer is the least expensive of the effective models and achieves virtually all of the goals of reform. An improved version of Medicare that is expanded to include everyone would be such a model. A health service model - socialized medicine - would also work, but the nation is still too leery of that much government involvement. The popularity of Medicare indicates that this is about the level of government involvement that most would support.
We have to keep reminding Americans that the exchanges are marketing private insurance - not government insurance, so they cannot confuse a government exchange with government insurance. In fact, the exchanges are prohibited from even including a government “public option” (which wouldn’t have worked anyway since the rest of the fragmented, dysfunctional system would have been left in place). Those who defend the private Medicare Advantage plans have to be reminded that they burn up more taxpayer dollars for administration and profits while depriving patients of choice because of their limited networks of providers. Once payment between government Medicare and private Medicare Advantage is equalized, the the private insurers cannot possibly compete with the government program because of their inherent inefficiencies. This was already proven by the failure of the Medicare + Choice plans that preceded Medicare Advantage.
It’s too bad that Jimmy Carter didn’t start talking about Medicare for all when he was president. It might have been helpful if the public had had a few decades to think about it before we got to the point that legislation could be passed. They could have pressured the politicians to do it right.
March 26, 2014
http://www.popularresistance.org/spaniards-say-no-to-privatized-healthcare/
The Spanish healthcare system was ranked seventh best in the world by the World Health Organization in 2000. But last year, Spain appeared to be well on its way to adopting a healthcare system more akin to the one used in the United States, which ranked 37th
In October 2012, Ignacio González, the leader of Madrid’s regional government, put forward a plan to privatize six hospitals and 10 percent of the city’s health centers. Critics feared the plan was the first step toward privatization of hospitals in other regions.
But after a wave of strikes by medical providers, as well as lawsuits and a popular referendum, Spanish unions and citizens have won a decisive victory in the battle for public healthcare. On January 27, the Popular Party (PP), Spain’s center-right ruling party, canceled the planned privatization of Madrid’s hospitals.
Shortly after the plan was announced in 2012, a coalition of unions called the first general strike in Madrid’s healthcare sector. The “white wave”—a reference to the medical smocks that strikers wore—quickly spread to the rest of the country as healthcare workers in 15 cities supported Madrid by staging a sympathy strike. This was followed by a popular referendum in May 2013, which resulted in more than a million people going on record to oppose privatization.
Spaniards Say No to Privatized Healthcare
http://www.popularresistance.org/spaniards-say-no-to-privatized-healthcare/
The Spanish healthcare system was ranked seventh best in the world by the World Health Organization in 2000. But last year, Spain appeared to be well on its way to adopting a healthcare system more akin to the one used in the United States, which ranked 37th
In October 2012, Ignacio González, the leader of Madrid’s regional government, put forward a plan to privatize six hospitals and 10 percent of the city’s health centers. Critics feared the plan was the first step toward privatization of hospitals in other regions.
But after a wave of strikes by medical providers, as well as lawsuits and a popular referendum, Spanish unions and citizens have won a decisive victory in the battle for public healthcare. On January 27, the Popular Party (PP), Spain’s center-right ruling party, canceled the planned privatization of Madrid’s hospitals.
Shortly after the plan was announced in 2012, a coalition of unions called the first general strike in Madrid’s healthcare sector. The “white wave”—a reference to the medical smocks that strikers wore—quickly spread to the rest of the country as healthcare workers in 15 cities supported Madrid by staging a sympathy strike. This was followed by a popular referendum in May 2013, which resulted in more than a million people going on record to oppose privatization.
March 21, 2014
Comment by Don McCanne of PNHP: According to the Bloomberg Businessweek report, Ben Rosenthal and reader John Alexander purchased the highest tier plans available - platinum plans - to ensure that they would have coverage for their current physicians and hospitals. No way. Insurers have pushed the perversity of narrow network plans all the way to the top.
Before Barack Obama was even nominated, the Democratic strategists had already decided that “Choice” would be a campaign slogan to market health care reform. Some of us protested that Celinda Lake and Herndon Alliance were pushing “choice of private health plans” when what the Democrats should have been advocating was “choice of physicians and hospitals.” It is clear which faction won this debate, as single payer supporters had the door slammed on them.
But look at the consequences. We were promised that we would have our choice of any plan we wanted with benefits as rich as desired, and with a selection of any health care providers we preferred. We could choose our doctors and our hospitals. But what happened?
So they did set up four levels of plans that we could choose from, plus a fifth catastrophic plan as an option for younger individuals. So we could buy a cheap bronze plan that would cover an average of 60 percent of our health care costs, 70 percent for silver, 80 percent for gold, all the way up to an expensive platinum plan that would cover 90 percent of costs. But there would be only negligible differences in the benefits since all plans had to cover the same ten categories of benefits, though some variation within each category is allowed as long as it had the same actuarial value.
But the shocker is the networks that the insurers established. As the AEI report indicates, for plans offered by the same insurer in the same market, the provider networks were just as limited for the high end platinum plans as they were for the cheapest bronze plans. If you want your medical bills paid, you do not have a choice of physicians and hospitals. You have to stay in network. Typically seventy percent of the providers are outside of the narrow network plans offered through the exchanges.
The Remapping Debate report reveals a further complication. Previously plans were available that provided reduced payments for care obtained out of network, with the patient paying a greater share of the costs. Now in areas such as New York City, none of these plans are available through the exchanges. You must stay in network or pay the full bill.
According to the McKinsey report, in some markets plans are available with broader networks, but these are less prevalent and declining in availability, and they are exorbitantly expensive. They will likely be subject to the death spiral since most markets do not have enough super wealthy individuals to maintain a vibrant market of broad network plans. The super wealthy then will simply pay their own bills.
So the Democrats traded off our choice of physicians and hospitals for a choice of deductibles and copayments, as the insurers took away the choices that we actually wanted. The narrow and ultra-narrow networks were a decision of the insurers, not us. We are getting what they want rather than what we want, simply because the Affordable care Act was designed to leave the insurers in charge.
As we’ve said before, all of this would go away if only we would enact a single payer national health program. As PNHP president Andy Coates says, physicians are placed in an “ethical bind” as they practice under “a corporate medical model that threatens to squeeze the humanity out of our interaction with our patients.”
Even with Platinum coverage, you still get narrow networks
Guess what? Most Americans don't give a shit about choice of insurance plans, but they really, really care about choice of providers and hospitals.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-20/obamacare-limits-choices-under-some-plans
I had the exact same problem as Mr. Rosenthal only in Florida with Blue Cross Blue Shield. Got screwed, as I also picked the Platinum plan and found out my hospital and doctors were not covered. The best research I did before hand indicated I would be covered and found after the fact I was not. Got furious with BCBS and they agreed to correct a few cost items with my doctors. They are playing dollar games with our health and I am completely frustrated. I am not upset with Obama-Care, only with the sligh and sneaky Insurance companies. Cannot drop my insurance and/or change until November of this year. What a fiasco. A singly payer system would correct all of this smoke and mirror games played by the Insurance industry.
I had the exact same problem as Mr. Rosenthal only in Florida with Blue Cross Blue Shield. Got screwed, as I also picked the Platinum plan and found out my hospital and doctors were not covered. The best research I did before hand indicated I would be covered and found after the fact I was not. Got furious with BCBS and they agreed to correct a few cost items with my doctors. They are playing dollar games with our health and I am completely frustrated. I am not upset with Obama-Care, only with the sligh and sneaky Insurance companies. Cannot drop my insurance and/or change until November of this year. What a fiasco. A singly payer system would correct all of this smoke and mirror games played by the Insurance industry.
http://www.aei.org/article/health/in-obamacare-go-for-bronze-health-plans-for-most-people-buying-up-to-gold-or-platinum-plans-is-a-waste-of-money/
Data to support this claim:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/201871033/Comparison-of-Bronze-Versus-Platinum-Obamacare-Plans
The bottom line is this. When you’re choosing a particular insurance offering, you typically can’t trade up to a better benefit by buying the gold or platinum variety of that plan. It’s usually the exact same benefit regardless of the metal you choose.
So what varies between these different metal plans? Typically, just the co-pay structure and deductibles. As you pay higher premiums for a gold or platinum plan, your deductibles and co-pays will decline. The insurer will typically cover 60 percent of expected medical expenses in a bronze plan, 80 percent in a gold plan and 90 percent in a platinum plan. So, by buying the costlier plans, all you’re doing is fronting a higher premium to buy down your anticipated out of pocket costs. You’re not getting a better network of doctors or a better formulary of drugs.
Data to support this claim:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/201871033/Comparison-of-Bronze-Versus-Platinum-Obamacare-Plans
The bottom line is this. When you’re choosing a particular insurance offering, you typically can’t trade up to a better benefit by buying the gold or platinum variety of that plan. It’s usually the exact same benefit regardless of the metal you choose.
So what varies between these different metal plans? Typically, just the co-pay structure and deductibles. As you pay higher premiums for a gold or platinum plan, your deductibles and co-pays will decline. The insurer will typically cover 60 percent of expected medical expenses in a bronze plan, 80 percent in a gold plan and 90 percent in a platinum plan. So, by buying the costlier plans, all you’re doing is fronting a higher premium to buy down your anticipated out of pocket costs. You’re not getting a better network of doctors or a better formulary of drugs.
http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/healthcare_systems_and_services/latest_thinking
Across silver tier networks in our 20 analyzed rating areas, 58 percent of the lowest-price products utilize ultra-narrow networks and another 26 percent utilize narrow networks. Network breadth appears to be positively correlated with premium levels in many cases, but the use of narrower networks is common at all price points.
Across silver tier networks in our 20 analyzed rating areas, 58 percent of the lowest-price products utilize ultra-narrow networks and another 26 percent utilize narrow networks. Network breadth appears to be positively correlated with premium levels in many cases, but the use of narrower networks is common at all price points.
http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/out-network-coverage-new-york-we-left-it-insurers
New York’s health insurance exchange (called “NY State of Health”) offers individuals and families numerous insurance plan options at various “metal” levels. What it doesn’t offer in most parts of the state are plans that provide coverage for non-emergency out-of-network care. In a sample Manhattan zip code, for example, there are 62 plans available at all metal levels. Not one of those plans pays for out-of-network care.
Why then did New York State not require out-of-network coverage? “We left it up to the insurers,” said (Department of Health’s Randi) Imbriaco, and the insurers, she continued, arguing that “a closed network helps keeps costs low,” chose not to provide out-of-network coverage in most of New York State, including New York City (some plans in the western part of New York State do offer such coverage).
New York’s health insurance exchange (called “NY State of Health”) offers individuals and families numerous insurance plan options at various “metal” levels. What it doesn’t offer in most parts of the state are plans that provide coverage for non-emergency out-of-network care. In a sample Manhattan zip code, for example, there are 62 plans available at all metal levels. Not one of those plans pays for out-of-network care.
Why then did New York State not require out-of-network coverage? “We left it up to the insurers,” said (Department of Health’s Randi) Imbriaco, and the insurers, she continued, arguing that “a closed network helps keeps costs low,” chose not to provide out-of-network coverage in most of New York State, including New York City (some plans in the western part of New York State do offer such coverage).
Comment by Don McCanne of PNHP: According to the Bloomberg Businessweek report, Ben Rosenthal and reader John Alexander purchased the highest tier plans available - platinum plans - to ensure that they would have coverage for their current physicians and hospitals. No way. Insurers have pushed the perversity of narrow network plans all the way to the top.
Before Barack Obama was even nominated, the Democratic strategists had already decided that “Choice” would be a campaign slogan to market health care reform. Some of us protested that Celinda Lake and Herndon Alliance were pushing “choice of private health plans” when what the Democrats should have been advocating was “choice of physicians and hospitals.” It is clear which faction won this debate, as single payer supporters had the door slammed on them.
But look at the consequences. We were promised that we would have our choice of any plan we wanted with benefits as rich as desired, and with a selection of any health care providers we preferred. We could choose our doctors and our hospitals. But what happened?
So they did set up four levels of plans that we could choose from, plus a fifth catastrophic plan as an option for younger individuals. So we could buy a cheap bronze plan that would cover an average of 60 percent of our health care costs, 70 percent for silver, 80 percent for gold, all the way up to an expensive platinum plan that would cover 90 percent of costs. But there would be only negligible differences in the benefits since all plans had to cover the same ten categories of benefits, though some variation within each category is allowed as long as it had the same actuarial value.
But the shocker is the networks that the insurers established. As the AEI report indicates, for plans offered by the same insurer in the same market, the provider networks were just as limited for the high end platinum plans as they were for the cheapest bronze plans. If you want your medical bills paid, you do not have a choice of physicians and hospitals. You have to stay in network. Typically seventy percent of the providers are outside of the narrow network plans offered through the exchanges.
The Remapping Debate report reveals a further complication. Previously plans were available that provided reduced payments for care obtained out of network, with the patient paying a greater share of the costs. Now in areas such as New York City, none of these plans are available through the exchanges. You must stay in network or pay the full bill.
According to the McKinsey report, in some markets plans are available with broader networks, but these are less prevalent and declining in availability, and they are exorbitantly expensive. They will likely be subject to the death spiral since most markets do not have enough super wealthy individuals to maintain a vibrant market of broad network plans. The super wealthy then will simply pay their own bills.
So the Democrats traded off our choice of physicians and hospitals for a choice of deductibles and copayments, as the insurers took away the choices that we actually wanted. The narrow and ultra-narrow networks were a decision of the insurers, not us. We are getting what they want rather than what we want, simply because the Affordable care Act was designed to leave the insurers in charge.
As we’ve said before, all of this would go away if only we would enact a single payer national health program. As PNHP president Andy Coates says, physicians are placed in an “ethical bind” as they practice under “a corporate medical model that threatens to squeeze the humanity out of our interaction with our patients.”
March 21, 2014
Aasif Mandvi of The Daily Show used his wit to force the truth out of Fox conservative business commentator Todd Wilemon. It was a smooth takedown that left the professional in a fight for words.
When asked to name five countries with better healthcare systems than the US, Brock ran off a litany of countries in excess of the five. It turns out the US is ranked 37th in the world.
Mandvi then confronted Wilemon with what he had found out without telling him that the place with Third World healthcare conditions is Knoxville, Tennessee. He told him the place he came back from had shockingly poor healthcare conditions and was still reeling from the loss in the Civil War. One quarter of the people are living in poverty. They have high rates of cancer and heart disease. How did Wilemon respond to that?
“This is how bad it could get,” he said. “If we keep going down the path of more government control, less innovation. I don’t know if we can be that place unless a great catastrophe happens in this country.”
Mandvi tells Wilemon he is talking about Knoxville. Wilemon goes into a 13-second silent panic. “People do fall through the cracks,” he responds. But it gets worse. He starts making comments like, everyone will get care but they may have to wait. Some people will get great health care while some will just get good healthcare. If you are poor, stop being poor. That is the healthcare system Wilemon and his ilk want. That is what Obamacare fixes.
Fox commentator admits America has Third World health care
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/16/1285230/-Fox-conservative-commentator-admits-America-has-Third-World-HealthcareAasif Mandvi of The Daily Show used his wit to force the truth out of Fox conservative business commentator Todd Wilemon. It was a smooth takedown that left the professional in a fight for words.
When asked to name five countries with better healthcare systems than the US, Brock ran off a litany of countries in excess of the five. It turns out the US is ranked 37th in the world.
Mandvi then confronted Wilemon with what he had found out without telling him that the place with Third World healthcare conditions is Knoxville, Tennessee. He told him the place he came back from had shockingly poor healthcare conditions and was still reeling from the loss in the Civil War. One quarter of the people are living in poverty. They have high rates of cancer and heart disease. How did Wilemon respond to that?
“This is how bad it could get,” he said. “If we keep going down the path of more government control, less innovation. I don’t know if we can be that place unless a great catastrophe happens in this country.”
Mandvi tells Wilemon he is talking about Knoxville. Wilemon goes into a 13-second silent panic. “People do fall through the cracks,” he responds. But it gets worse. He starts making comments like, everyone will get care but they may have to wait. Some people will get great health care while some will just get good healthcare. If you are poor, stop being poor. That is the healthcare system Wilemon and his ilk want. That is what Obamacare fixes.
March 13, 2014
Today’s hearing is focused on “international single payer health system models that provide universal coverage of health care.” I will tailor my remarks according to the three sub-themes the Committee wishes to explore, namely:
* Primary care access in single payer systems
* Health care costs in single payer systems, and
* Cross-country comparisons of health outcomes
Before proceeding with the Committee’s agenda in more detail, however, I would like to provide the Committee with a summary of my main points:
1. If equity and social solidarity in access to health care and financing health care were fundamental goals of a health care system, the single payer system provides an ideal platform for achieving these goals.
2. Single-payer systems typically are financed by general- or payroll taxes in a way that tailors the individual’s or family’s contribution to health-care financing to their ability to pay, rather than to their health status, which until this year has long been the practice in the individual health insurance market in the U.S.
3. These systems protect individual households from financial ruin due to medical bills.
4. Single-payer health systems typically afford patients free choice of health-care provider, albeit at the expense of not having a freedom of choice among different health insurers. Remarkably, in the U.S. households have some freedom of choice of health insurers – to the extent their employer offers them choice – but most Americans are confined to networks of providers for their insurance policy. In other words, Americans appear to have traded freedom of choice among providers for the sake of choice among insurers.
5. In single-payer systems “money follows the patient.” Therefore providers of health care must and do compete for patients on the basis of quality and patient satisfaction, but not price.
6. In a single payer health insurance system, health insurance is fully portable from job to job and into unemployment status and retirement. The “job-lock” phenomenon prevalent in the US is unknown in those systems, contributing to labor-market efficiency.
7. Because all funds to providers of health care in a single-payer system flow from one payer, it is relatively easy to control total health spending in such systems. Indeed, total national health spending as a percent of GDP in countries with single-payer systems is lower than it tends to be in non-single-payer health systems. This does not mean providers are left without a voice. Provider inputs are part of the formal negotiations over health-care budgets.
8. For the most part, single-payer systems achieve their cost control by virtue of the monopsonistic market power they enjoy vis a vis providers of health care. It is a countervailing power that the highly fragmented U.S. health-insurance system lacks vis a vis providers.
9. As part of their effort to control total health spending, however, and to avoid the waste of excess capacity that easily develops in health care, some single-payer systems (the UK and Canada) put constraints on the physical capacity of their health system (number of inpatients beds, MRI scanners, etc). That approach can lead to rationing by the queue. The alternative to rationing by such administrative devices, of course, is rationing by price and ability to pay, an approach used by design or by default in the United States. Rationing by price or by non-price mechanism are just alternative forms of rationing.
10. A single-payer system is an ideal platform for a uniform electronic health information system of the sort, for example, used by our Veterans Administration health system (a single-payer system in its own right). There is a common nomenclature which enables 100% electronic billing and claims processing, thus yielding significant savings in administrative costs.
11. Because they conveniently capture information on all health-care transactions, single-payer systems provide a data base that can be used for quality measurement, monitoring and improvement, and also for more basic research on what drives health spending and what clinical treatments works and does not work in health care. It enables evidence based medicine and the tracking of efficacy and safety of new drugs and devices once they are introduced after approval by government based on results of clinical trials.
Statement of Tsung-Mei Cheng (28 pages):
http://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Cheng.pdf
Video of the hearing and links to statements of all participants:
http://www.help.senate.gov//hearings/hearing/?id=8acab996-5056-a032-522e-e39ca45fcfbe
Comment by Don McCanne of PHNP: Sen. Bernie Sanders chaired a Senate committee hearing on what the health care system in the United States can learn from other countries. Tsung-Mei Cheng provided an excellent overview of single payer and of the sharp contrasts between the United States and other nations. Her 28 page statement is well worth downloading to use as an information resource in educating others about single payer.
Other informative presentations included those of Victor Rodwin on France, Ching-Chuan Yeh on Taiwan, Danielle Martin on Canada, and Jakob Kjellberg on Denmark. Even the presentations from the other side by Sally Pipes and David Hogberg were helpful in that they showed how silly (sadly) their views were when contrasted with a group of experts who understand well how systems based on solidarity work. If you can find the time, viewing the entire video (1 hour & 46 minutes) and reading the statements would be well worth the effort (link above).
Sanders Subcommittee Hearing - Access and Cost: What the US Health Care System Can Learn--
--from Other Countries
Statement by
Tsung-Mei Cheng, LL.B., M.A.
Health Policy Research Analyst
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Today’s hearing is focused on “international single payer health system models that provide universal coverage of health care.” I will tailor my remarks according to the three sub-themes the Committee wishes to explore, namely:
* Primary care access in single payer systems
* Health care costs in single payer systems, and
* Cross-country comparisons of health outcomes
Before proceeding with the Committee’s agenda in more detail, however, I would like to provide the Committee with a summary of my main points:
1. If equity and social solidarity in access to health care and financing health care were fundamental goals of a health care system, the single payer system provides an ideal platform for achieving these goals.
2. Single-payer systems typically are financed by general- or payroll taxes in a way that tailors the individual’s or family’s contribution to health-care financing to their ability to pay, rather than to their health status, which until this year has long been the practice in the individual health insurance market in the U.S.
3. These systems protect individual households from financial ruin due to medical bills.
4. Single-payer health systems typically afford patients free choice of health-care provider, albeit at the expense of not having a freedom of choice among different health insurers. Remarkably, in the U.S. households have some freedom of choice of health insurers – to the extent their employer offers them choice – but most Americans are confined to networks of providers for their insurance policy. In other words, Americans appear to have traded freedom of choice among providers for the sake of choice among insurers.
5. In single-payer systems “money follows the patient.” Therefore providers of health care must and do compete for patients on the basis of quality and patient satisfaction, but not price.
6. In a single payer health insurance system, health insurance is fully portable from job to job and into unemployment status and retirement. The “job-lock” phenomenon prevalent in the US is unknown in those systems, contributing to labor-market efficiency.
7. Because all funds to providers of health care in a single-payer system flow from one payer, it is relatively easy to control total health spending in such systems. Indeed, total national health spending as a percent of GDP in countries with single-payer systems is lower than it tends to be in non-single-payer health systems. This does not mean providers are left without a voice. Provider inputs are part of the formal negotiations over health-care budgets.
8. For the most part, single-payer systems achieve their cost control by virtue of the monopsonistic market power they enjoy vis a vis providers of health care. It is a countervailing power that the highly fragmented U.S. health-insurance system lacks vis a vis providers.
9. As part of their effort to control total health spending, however, and to avoid the waste of excess capacity that easily develops in health care, some single-payer systems (the UK and Canada) put constraints on the physical capacity of their health system (number of inpatients beds, MRI scanners, etc). That approach can lead to rationing by the queue. The alternative to rationing by such administrative devices, of course, is rationing by price and ability to pay, an approach used by design or by default in the United States. Rationing by price or by non-price mechanism are just alternative forms of rationing.
10. A single-payer system is an ideal platform for a uniform electronic health information system of the sort, for example, used by our Veterans Administration health system (a single-payer system in its own right). There is a common nomenclature which enables 100% electronic billing and claims processing, thus yielding significant savings in administrative costs.
11. Because they conveniently capture information on all health-care transactions, single-payer systems provide a data base that can be used for quality measurement, monitoring and improvement, and also for more basic research on what drives health spending and what clinical treatments works and does not work in health care. It enables evidence based medicine and the tracking of efficacy and safety of new drugs and devices once they are introduced after approval by government based on results of clinical trials.
Statement of Tsung-Mei Cheng (28 pages):
http://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Cheng.pdf
Video of the hearing and links to statements of all participants:
http://www.help.senate.gov//hearings/hearing/?id=8acab996-5056-a032-522e-e39ca45fcfbe
Comment by Don McCanne of PHNP: Sen. Bernie Sanders chaired a Senate committee hearing on what the health care system in the United States can learn from other countries. Tsung-Mei Cheng provided an excellent overview of single payer and of the sharp contrasts between the United States and other nations. Her 28 page statement is well worth downloading to use as an information resource in educating others about single payer.
Other informative presentations included those of Victor Rodwin on France, Ching-Chuan Yeh on Taiwan, Danielle Martin on Canada, and Jakob Kjellberg on Denmark. Even the presentations from the other side by Sally Pipes and David Hogberg were helpful in that they showed how silly (sadly) their views were when contrasted with a group of experts who understand well how systems based on solidarity work. If you can find the time, viewing the entire video (1 hour & 46 minutes) and reading the statements would be well worth the effort (link above).
March 11, 2014
Comment by Don McCanne of PNHPOur fragmented, dysfunctional system of paying medical bills is having a major impact on personal credit ratings. Half of all accounts reported by collection agencies now come from medical bills. The credit record of one-fifth of Americans is affected, and many of us are unaware of it. Are people so broke that they can’t pay their medical bills, or is something else going on here?
There are two major factors at play here. One is that with flat wages and increasing household costs, many people do have problems paying all of their essential bills, and medical bills are moved to the bottom of the stack. When payment of medical bills is postponed, or perhaps not paid at all, they are commonly sent to collection agencies, eventually appearing on the debtor’s credit report. Now that high deductibles are being used more to shift costs from payers (employers or government) to patients, this phenomenon is much more common.
The other factor is how people with good incomes who are meticulous with management of their personal finances end up with dinged credit reports because of medical bills. It is often due to the administrative complexity of the system we have of paying medical bills through private insurers who make payments based on whether the providers are in or out of network, on whether or not the products or services being billed are even covered by the plans, and on how much the deductible and coinsurance are and what charges can be credited against the deductible.
Typically the individual receives an explanation of benefits which is difficult to decipher often because some of these questions still remain unanswered. Billings may start to come in from various health care providers but without adequate explanation. When the patient inquires as to why the amount was not applied to the deductible, or why the amount seems to be for out-of-network providers when this provider is in-network, or for whatever reason, the patient is often given a temporizing response. When more statements are received that failed to address concerns such as the deductible, further efforts to correct the problem are often met with reassurance. When nothing further is heard, the patient assumes the matter was cleared up. Only later when a collection agency begins to harass them or when they find their credit report includes unpaid medical bills do they discover that the matter never was resolved.
Add in further complexities such as when a person has primary coverage perhaps through Medicare and secondary coverage through a Medigap plan, or a person had a change in coverage coinciding with the medical services provided, straightening out who is responsible for which portions of the charges can be a monumental task.
These highly responsible individuals with previously excellent credit records are understandably angry. They tend to look elsewhere for blame - the physician’s office or billing service, the hospital’s billing department, the insurer’s claim processors, the credit agency’s disregard of registered protests, or perhaps the employer who provided such a screwed up health plan.
Single payer advocates know where most of the blame really lies. It is with our political leaders who insist on perpetuating this highly inefficient, fragmented system of financing health care instead of enacting a single payer national health program. This botched up system of medical billing is only one manifestation of the profound administrative excesses that permeate our system. Ironically, all of this extra administrative detail in handling medical billings doesn’t even work well. You would think that if we are going to be paying much more in administrative costs so that the insurers could do a “better” job than a single government payer in handling our claims, we would be demanding much better performance from them. But no, keep the government out and blame everyone else.
In typical D.C. fashion, our legislators continue to look for solutions that would increase regulatory oversight to prevent unfair damage to the credit ratings of conscientious individuals, though the legislators are receiving expected push back from the credit industry. What we do not need is more administrative oversight piled on top of an administrative boondoggle. Instead we need to replace it with an efficient improved Medicare, with first dollar coverage, that covers everyone. Credit scores dinged by medical bills then would become a quaint historical oddity.
When Health Costs Harm Your Credit
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/sunday-review/when-health-costs-harm-your-credit.html
Mounting evidence shows that chaos in medical billing is not just affecting our health care but dinging the financial reputation of many Americans: While the bills themselves frequently take months to sort out, medical debts can be reported rapidly to credit agencies, and often without notification. And even small unpaid bills can severely damage credit ratings.
A mortgage initiator in Texas, Rodney Anderson of Supreme Lending, recently looked at the credit records of 5,000 applicants and found that 40 percent had medical debt in collection, with the average around $400; even worse, most applicants were unaware of their debt. Richard Cordray, director of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has noted that half of all accounts reported by collection agencies now come from medical bills, and the credit record of one in five Americans is affected.
The problem is accelerating for several reasons. Charges are rising. Insurance policies are requiring more patient outlays in the form of higher deductibles and co-payments. More important, perhaps, is that while doctors’ practices traditionally worked out deals for patients who had trouble paying, today many doctors work for large professionally managed groups and hospital systems whose bills are generated far away, by computer.
Mounting evidence shows that chaos in medical billing is not just affecting our health care but dinging the financial reputation of many Americans: While the bills themselves frequently take months to sort out, medical debts can be reported rapidly to credit agencies, and often without notification. And even small unpaid bills can severely damage credit ratings.
A mortgage initiator in Texas, Rodney Anderson of Supreme Lending, recently looked at the credit records of 5,000 applicants and found that 40 percent had medical debt in collection, with the average around $400; even worse, most applicants were unaware of their debt. Richard Cordray, director of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has noted that half of all accounts reported by collection agencies now come from medical bills, and the credit record of one in five Americans is affected.
The problem is accelerating for several reasons. Charges are rising. Insurance policies are requiring more patient outlays in the form of higher deductibles and co-payments. More important, perhaps, is that while doctors’ practices traditionally worked out deals for patients who had trouble paying, today many doctors work for large professionally managed groups and hospital systems whose bills are generated far away, by computer.
Comment by Don McCanne of PNHPOur fragmented, dysfunctional system of paying medical bills is having a major impact on personal credit ratings. Half of all accounts reported by collection agencies now come from medical bills. The credit record of one-fifth of Americans is affected, and many of us are unaware of it. Are people so broke that they can’t pay their medical bills, or is something else going on here?
There are two major factors at play here. One is that with flat wages and increasing household costs, many people do have problems paying all of their essential bills, and medical bills are moved to the bottom of the stack. When payment of medical bills is postponed, or perhaps not paid at all, they are commonly sent to collection agencies, eventually appearing on the debtor’s credit report. Now that high deductibles are being used more to shift costs from payers (employers or government) to patients, this phenomenon is much more common.
The other factor is how people with good incomes who are meticulous with management of their personal finances end up with dinged credit reports because of medical bills. It is often due to the administrative complexity of the system we have of paying medical bills through private insurers who make payments based on whether the providers are in or out of network, on whether or not the products or services being billed are even covered by the plans, and on how much the deductible and coinsurance are and what charges can be credited against the deductible.
Typically the individual receives an explanation of benefits which is difficult to decipher often because some of these questions still remain unanswered. Billings may start to come in from various health care providers but without adequate explanation. When the patient inquires as to why the amount was not applied to the deductible, or why the amount seems to be for out-of-network providers when this provider is in-network, or for whatever reason, the patient is often given a temporizing response. When more statements are received that failed to address concerns such as the deductible, further efforts to correct the problem are often met with reassurance. When nothing further is heard, the patient assumes the matter was cleared up. Only later when a collection agency begins to harass them or when they find their credit report includes unpaid medical bills do they discover that the matter never was resolved.
Add in further complexities such as when a person has primary coverage perhaps through Medicare and secondary coverage through a Medigap plan, or a person had a change in coverage coinciding with the medical services provided, straightening out who is responsible for which portions of the charges can be a monumental task.
These highly responsible individuals with previously excellent credit records are understandably angry. They tend to look elsewhere for blame - the physician’s office or billing service, the hospital’s billing department, the insurer’s claim processors, the credit agency’s disregard of registered protests, or perhaps the employer who provided such a screwed up health plan.
Single payer advocates know where most of the blame really lies. It is with our political leaders who insist on perpetuating this highly inefficient, fragmented system of financing health care instead of enacting a single payer national health program. This botched up system of medical billing is only one manifestation of the profound administrative excesses that permeate our system. Ironically, all of this extra administrative detail in handling medical billings doesn’t even work well. You would think that if we are going to be paying much more in administrative costs so that the insurers could do a “better” job than a single government payer in handling our claims, we would be demanding much better performance from them. But no, keep the government out and blame everyone else.
In typical D.C. fashion, our legislators continue to look for solutions that would increase regulatory oversight to prevent unfair damage to the credit ratings of conscientious individuals, though the legislators are receiving expected push back from the credit industry. What we do not need is more administrative oversight piled on top of an administrative boondoggle. Instead we need to replace it with an efficient improved Medicare, with first dollar coverage, that covers everyone. Credit scores dinged by medical bills then would become a quaint historical oddity.
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