 | David Himmelstein, MD,
co-founder
Physicians for a
National Health Program |
- Incremental health care reforms in the United States have been ineffective and have yielded a steady increase in the number of Americans without health insurance. In addition to the 47 million Americans without insurance, millions more are underinsured. Virtually all other industrialized nations insure their entire populations. According to a recent study conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, 75 million adults—42 percent of the under-65 population—had either no insurance or inadequate insurance in 2007, up from 35 percent in 2003 (Click here for the study)
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Our lack of universal health insurance is costly – both financially ($7,129 annually per capita) and socially (22,000 unnecessary deaths each year due to uninsurance). Despite higher spending than any other nation (overall, per capita, and as a percentage of GDP), the U.S. is ranked 37th in health system performance among the 191 Member States of the World Health Organization.
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- Single payer health insurance is a system by which the health care expenditures of an entire population are paid for through one source – the Federal government or a subcontracting entity – using tax revenue from individuals and employers.
- Distinctly different from socialized medicine, whereby the government owns and operates health care facilities, a “single payer system” is simply a financing mechanism. The government collects and allocates money for health care but has little to no involvement in the actual delivery of services. Care is provided privately at hospitals and clinics but paid for publicly.
- Individuals are allowed to choose their providers, and physicians are either compensated on a fee-for-service basis or paid salaries by hospitals that receive an annual global budget or by nonprofit health maintenance organizations.
- All medically necessary services are covered by the insurance, including primary care and prevention, prescription drugs, long term care, mental health, substance abuse treatment, dental services, and vision care.
- Services are delivered based on need rather than on ability to pay. Coverage is uninterrupted and equal for everyone, thus ending the dependency of health care access upon employment status.
- Single payer health insurance would save money by vastly reducing administration and paperwork and by giving the Federal government bargaining power to procure medications in bulk. Even more significant than the savings that a single payer system achieves are the universal coverage and comprehensive benefits it provides, thereby realizing the right of every person to quality health care.
- Single payer health insurance has proven itself to be successful in Canada, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Taiwan, and the model exists here in the United States as well in the Medicare program – which holds administrative overhead to 3-4%.
- The expansion of Medicare, as proposed in House Resolution 676, is the smoothest road toward universal coverage
and the only way to achieve sustainable,
cost-effective coverage for every American.
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