As MA Slashes Health Insurance Coverage Doctors Offer Alternative: National Single Payer Program
Somerville, MA - Saying that Americans already are paying more in taxes (and private insurance premiums) for medical care than any other country in the world but having worse “health outcomes” than citizens of other western industrialized nations, Dr. Rachel Nardin, President of the MA chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, explained Monday why her organization thinks a “single payer, universal coverage” type plan must be adopted as soon as possible.
Citing administrative costs - compared to Canada, health care in the U.S. cost 40% more, she said - Nardin called for a plan that virtually wipes out the private insurance industry.
Unlike corporate driven health care management, which can deny money for health care services based on market forces, Dr. Nardin, a neurologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said a program under which the federal government reimburses doctors and other care providers would result in a system where “…payment would never be denied” for an “expansive” set of treatments.
“Some decisions will have to be made. It’s not that everything can be reimbursed. But you will have a system within which everything that is allowed; and that the view of what is allowed will be expansive; I mean Americans are not going to stand for having care that’s not of good quality. But we’ve seen in these other countries that are already spending less than us, they give people everything they need. And their health outcomes are better.
“So I don’t think we need to worry that we won’t be getting enough. And within that rubric, everything will be covered; all that fighting [to convince insurance companies to pay for treatments] is done away with.”
In contrast to the single payer concept, the health care reform plan envisioned by President Obama uses the Commonwealth Connector system established in Massachusetts three years ago as a model. That system uses a mix of public funds and private insurance coverage to reach towards a stated goal of universal health care.
But costs for the Massachusetts program are rising rapidly. A Physicians for a National Health Program sponsored report released in February of this year found the “Massachusetts plan has also failed to make health care sufficiently affordable or to control costs…”
Facing diminished revenues and large numbers of unemployed people seeking coverage, Connector officials this week announced a $115 Million slash in subsidies.
According to a front page story in the Boston Globe, “an estimated 18,000 poor residents who qualify for full subsidies, but who forgot to designate a health plan, will no longer be automatically assigned a plan and enrolled and thus could face delays in getting care."
Connector officials eliminated dental coverage for more than 90,000 people enrolled in Commonwealth Care, for an estimated savings of $10 Million. Twenty eight thousand legal immigrants also face the loss of their state subsidized medical insurance as a result of being dropped from the budget recently approved by the legislature.
[Please see MIRA Coalition Executive Director Eva Millona’s response to the state budget here]
Physicians for a National Health Program doctors have urged Senator Ted Kennedy, a long time advocate for health care reform, to “reject his home state’s approach and, instead, introduce Senate legislation crafted after the House’s United States National Health Care Act, H.R. 676, which would implement single-payer financing of health care while maintaining the private delivery system,” according to a February 20, 2009 press release.
“PNHP’s study of the Massachusetts model found that the state’s 2006 reforms, instead of reducing costs, have been more expensive than expected. The budget overruns have forced the state to siphon about $150 million from safety-net providers such as public hospitals and community clinics.
“Many low-income residents, who used to receive completely free care, now face co-payments, premiums and deductibles under the new system - financial burdens that prevent many of them from receiving necessary medical treatment. Since the state’s reforms passed, premiums under the state insurance program have increased 9.4 percent. The study found that if a middle-income person on the cheapest available state plan got sick, he or she could end up paying $9,872 in premiums, deductibles and co-insurance for the year.”
Opponents of state and federal attempts to enact “incremental” change say having health insurance is not the same as having health care.
OMB Audio: Dr. Rachel Nardin, recorded 6/22/09 at the Somerville (MA) Public Library. Her talk was sponsored by Somerville/Medford United for Justice with Peace. [Note: Dr. Nardin used slides and sometimes points to them during her presentation]
Web Resources:
http://www.justicewithpeace.org/taxonomy/term/57
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/february/massachusetts_is_no_.php
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR200906...
http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/06/24/state_cuts_its_hea...
http://www.mahealthconnector.org/portal/site/connector/
