Public Plan Choice is the Only Way to Control Costs
Posted on December 17th, 2008 by Levana Layendecker in Congress Watch, From Our Partners, Solutions that Work
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The Institute for America’s Future and renowned health care and economics expert, Jacob Hacker, released a report today called: “The Case for Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform.” The report explains how the public plan option levels the playing field to allow for access and affordability by reducing costs, without reducing the innovation that can come from the private market. The Key Findings (pdf) of the report state:
A health care system that contains costs and drives value must include a good public plan if the broad goals of reform—universal insurance and improved value—are to be achieved. Private insurance and public insurance have distinct strengths and weaknesses, and thus should be encouraged to compete side by side to attract enrollees on a level playing field that rewards plans that deliver better value and health to their enrollees. Public insurance has a better track record at reining in costs, while preserving access; it has pioneered key quality and payment innovations that have often set the standard for private plans; it is essential to set a standard against which private plans must compete to drive value and can be a source of stability for people. Private plans are a source of new benefit options, and continuing pressure for innovation in benefit design and care management strategies.
HCAN Campaign Director, Richard Kirsch, voiced his support for the report’s conclusion: “Creating a high quality, affordable public plan alternative to private insurance is absolutely essential to achieving comprehensive health care reform solutions that will work for all of us in 2009.” Rep. Pete Stark stated his strong support for the choice of a public plan and HCAN agrees that a health care solution that does not include a public plan would be a non-starter. President-elect Obama also talks about the choice of a public option as a critical part of his plan, saying again and again in his speeches that every American should have a choice of a public plan similar to the health care that every Member of Congress gets.
However, we have seen signs that there will be debate on this issue. Advocates of real health care reform need to make sure that this critical part of the solution is not bargained away in a misguided attempt to placate those who see health care reform as a business opportunity, not a matter of the health of our families and our neighbors. This would be a tragic mistake.
Many of you who have been following Congressional politics for some time now will remember that in recent years, “Mr. Hastert was an advocate of governing the House by a ‘majority of the majority’ – a standard he thought best served the interests of his Republican members and, by extension, the nation.” By that standard on the list of Congressional supporters for the HCAN Statement of Common Purpose, we have a ‘majority of the majority’ supporting the public plan choice. We hope this will allay the fears of anyone who believes that real change can’t happen, because, in fact, this train is already pulling out the station.
Facts that are believed to exist regarding the present U.S. Health Care System- This may be why about 80 percent of U.S. citizens understandably want our health care system overhauled:
The U.S. is ranked number 42 related to life expectancy and infant mortality, which is rather low.
However, the U.S. is ranked number one in the world for spending the most for health care- as well as being number one for those with chronic diseases. About 125 million people have such diseases. This is about 70 percent of the Medicare budget that is spent treating these terrible illnesses. Health Care cost presently is over 2 trillion dollars of our gross domestic product. One third of that amount is nothing more than administrative toxic waste that does not involve the restoration of the health of others. This illustrates how absurd the U.S. Health Care System is presently. Nearly 7000 dollars is spent on every citizen for health care every year, and that, too, is more than anyone else in the world.
We have around 50 million citizens without any health insurance, which may cause about 20 thousand deaths per year. This includes millions of children without health care, which is added to the planned or implemented cuts in the government SCHIP program for children, which alone covers about 7 million kids.
Our children
Nearly half of the states in the U.S. are planning on or have made cuts to Medicaid, which covers about 60 million people, and those on Medicaid are in need of this coverage is largely due to unemployment. With these Medicaid cuts, over a million people will lose their health care coverage and benefits to a damaging degree.
About 70 percent of citizens have some form of health insurance, and the premiums for their insurance have increased nearly 90 percent in the past 8 years. About 45 percent of health care is provided by our government- which is predicted to experience a severe financial crisis in the near future with some government health care programs, it has been reported. Most doctors want a single payer health care system, which would save about 400 billion dollars a year- about 20 percent less than what we are paying now. The American College of Physicians, second in size only to the American Medical Association, supports a single payer health care system. The AMA, historically opposed to a single payer health care system, has close to half of its members in favor of this system. Less than a third of all physicians are members of the AMA, according to others.
Our health care we offer citizens is the present system is sort of a hybrid of a national and private health care system that has obviously mutated to a degree that is incapable of being fully functional due to perhaps copious amounts and levels of individual and legal entities.
Half of all patients do not receive proper treatment to restore their health, it has been stated. Medical errors desperately need to be reduced as well, it has been reported, which should be addressed as well.
It is estimated that the U.S. needs about 60 thousand more primary care physicians to satisfy the medical necessities of the public health in the United States. And it is apparent that we have some greedy corporations that take advantage of our health care system. Over a billion dollars was recovered for Medicare and Medicaid fraud last year through settlements paid to the department of Justice because some organizations who deliberately ripped off taxpayers. These are the taxpayers in the U.S. who have a fragmented health care system with substantial components and different levels of government- composed of several legal entities and individuals, which has resulted in medical anarchy, so it seems.
Health 2.0, a new healthcare social networking innovation, is informing patients about their symptoms and potential if not possessing various disease states- largely based on the testimonies of other people on various websites. This may be an example of how so many others rely now on health concerns from those who likely are not medical specialists, instead of becoming a participant, if not victim, of the U.S. Health Care System.
Thanks to various corporations infecting our Health Care System in the United States, the following variables sum up this system as it exists today, which is why the United States National Health Insurance Act (H.R. 676) is the best solution to meet our health care needs as citizens, it appears. We would finally have, as with most other countries, a Universal Health Care system that will allow free choice of doctors and hospitals, potentially. It should be and likely will be funded by a combination of payroll taxes and general tax revenue:
Access- citizens do not have the right or ability to make use of this system as we should.
Efficiency- this system strives on creating much waste and expense as it possibly can.
Quality- the standard of excellence we deserve as citizens with our health care is missing in action.
Sustainability- We as citizens cannot continue to keep our health care system in as it is designed presently , or tolerate it as it exists today any longer.
http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/US_healthcare/index.asp
Dan Abshear