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A Single-Payer National Health Program The Only Solution for Labor and Business

A Single-Payer National Health Program The Only Solution for Labor and Business. Nicholas Skala Research Associate Physicians for A National Health Program www.pnhp.org |nick@pnhp.org. United States: 48 Million Uninsured.

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A Single-Payer National Health Program The Only Solution for Labor and Business

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  1. A Single-Payer National Health Program The Only Solution for Labor and Business Nicholas Skala Research Associate Physicians for A National Health Program www.pnhp.org |nick@pnhp.org

  2. United States: 48 Million Uninsured But simply covering them with existing policies is not a solution.

  3. Meet Thomas Wilkes • Born in 2003 with Severe Hemophilia A. • Dad: Senior Engineer at a high-tech computer firm with good benefits. • 2004: Develops an inhibitor to his hemophilia treatment. • $750,000 annual claims.

  4. Private Insurance for Thomas • Company faces 40% to 55% increase in premiums. • Only insurer that will cover them requires $10,000 out-of-pocket and a $1 million cap. • Thomas is projected to reach the $1 million benefit cap in summer 2007

  5. Options for Thomas’ Family • Thomas’ father can quit the job he loves and go to work for a mega-firm that will take longer to be affected by high claims. • Thomas’ mother can stop raising the children and go to work for a mega-firm. • Thomas’ father can divorce his mother to leave her and Thomas legally destitute and eligible for public programs.

  6. America’s Underinsured Proportion of Americans Going Without Care due to Costs, 2005 (skipping doctor visit, specialist appointment, treatment or prescription when needed) Source: Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey, 2005

  7. Medical Bankruptcy Illness and Medical Bills Contributed to 1 million Personal Bankruptcies in 2004. (Half of All Illinois Bankruptcies) Insurance Status at Onset of Illness Of those, more than three-quarters had insurance when they got sick. Source: Himmelstein, Health Affairs 2005 (state estimates provided by author)

  8. Rising Costs = Less Benefits = Under/Uninsurance Proportion of Illinoisans Covered by Employer Insurance Source: US Census

  9. What Does This Mean? Lesson #1: Simply Expanding Existing Private Insurance Policies Is Not a Solution. Current Private Insurance Policies Offer Inadequate Protection. Any Gains in Coverage Will Be Quickly Offset as Costs Rise and Employers Shed Benefits. An Example: State Children's’ Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) • Largest Coverage Expansion in a Generation • 5 million children added to S-CHIP / Medicaid rolls since 1997, but the number of uninsured children has decreased by only 2 million. Government can barely keep up with drops in employer coverage. Now 9 million children uninsured. • Even those benefits are probably unsustainable.

  10. What Does This Mean? Lesson #2: Any Real Solution to the Health Crisis Must Do Two Things: 1) Offer Coverage More Comprehensive than that Currently Available on the Private Market. 2) Control Costs so that Benefits are Sustainable.

  11. Life Expectancy, 2003 (Data in Years)

  12. Infant Mortality, 2003 (Deaths in first year of life per 10,000 live births)

  13. International Health Spending U.S. Public Spending is Greater than Other Nations’ Public/Private Spending Combined Per Capita Health Spending, 2004 Source: OECD 2004; Japan and Germany data are from 2003

  14. Growth of Physicians and Administrators 1970-2005 Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics and NCHS

  15. One-Third of Health Spending is Consumed by Administration 31% Potential Savings: $350 billion per year Enough to Provide Comprehensive Coverage to Everyone Source: Woolhandler, et al, New England Journal of Medicine, August 2003 & Int. Jrnl. Of Hlth. Services, 2004

  16. Financing Single-Payer Medicare Single-Payer Health Care Fund $$$ Medicaid Payroll Tax Income Tax Bonus: Negotiated formulary with physicians, global budget for hospitals, increased primary and preventive care, reduction in unnecessary high-tech interventions, bulk purchasing of drugs and medical supplies = long term cost control.

  17. Single-Payer Benefits • Comprehensive Coverage for all medically necessary services (doctor, hospital, long-term care, mental health, vision, dental, drug, etc.) in a single-tier system. • Free Choice of doctor and hospital. • Health Workers Unleashed from corporate dictates over patient care. • Hospitals guaranteed a secure, regular budget.

  18. Only Two Paths to Reform • Preserve Private Insurance Companies and their Waste • Create a National Health Insurance System

  19. “Save the Insurance Companies”A Bipartisan Consensus Private Insurance Tax Credits National Health Program

  20. “Individual Mandate” “Let them buy insurance.”

  21. Criminalizing the Uninsured:A Massachusetts Punitive Index *Note: Original version of House Bill would have suspended individuals’ driving licenses for uninsurance as well.

  22. Subsidy and Individual Mandate Schemes • Substandard Coverage: forces the uninsured to buy defective insurance industry products that are already causing families to face bankruptcy and go without needed care. • Unaffordable: Without the savings achievable with single-payer, taxes must raised or funds diverted from other needy programs. • Micro-coverage, Macro-costs: Preserves wasteful private insurers and adds yet another layer of state administrative waste. Rather than provide care to the uninsured through a relatively efficient program like Medicare, the plan launders tax dollars through wasteful private insurers. • No Realistic Cost Control: Any gains in public coverage will be unsustainable due to rising costs.

  23. “Sounds Great, but it’s not politically feasible” 2/3rds of population want it Many (probably most) physicians want it Business community is now realizing the need for it

  24. Single-Payer: Glen BartonFormer CEO, Caterpillar Inc. (Fortune 100)Past Chairman, Health and Retirement Task Force Business RoundtableRepresents 150 Largest EmployersTotal Assets: $4.0 Trillion “The quickest and simplest solution… is to go to a single-payer system”- Written Testimony to AHCTF, Feb. 1 2006

  25. “If done right, health care in America could be dramatically better with true single-payer coverage.” -Ben Brewer, WSJ, April 18, 2006 “[single-payer] is an idea that's so easy to slam politically yet so sensible for business that only Republicans can sell it! …it may take a Republican President to bless the socialization of health spending we need.” -Matt Miller, Fortune, April 18, 2006 CNBC / MSN Money “Think, as a small business, how you could benefit from a single-payer system: you wouldn’t lose potential employees to larger firms that offer more attractive health benefits; health insurance costs would cease to be a line item in your budget. A serious illness befalling you or an employee wouldn’t be a company-wide financial crisis. You might even save money.” -Joseph Antony, CNBC / MSN Money, Winter 2003

  26. Other “Politically Infeasible” Movements Single-Payer: “Politically Feasible?” Abolition of Human Slavery (1600s) Women’s Suffrage Movement (1840-1920) Civil Rights Act (1964)

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