Of course, other nations do provide all of their citizens with health care at a much lower level of national health expenditures (NHE). So what is there in this conceptual rendering (Professor Reinhardt’s formula) that other nations have discovered and applied that we haven’t?

It is mind-boggling to think that 21 percent of our national health expenditures (NHE) are directed to physicians and clinical services, whereas many private insurers are now protesting that they cannot survive on 20 percent of the funds which they control – the insurance premiums that they collect.

Everyone agrees, or should agree, on the need for more comparative effectiveness research. We need more information about which medications provide greater benefit to patients, and which ones provide greater value – lower costs without compromises in therapeutic benefit.

As more employers are moving to high-deductible health plans to take advantage of the lower premiums, private insurers, being the market innovators that they are, were not going to stand by as they watch potential premium dollars move into health savings accounts or other options such as flexible spending accounts or health reimbursement arrangements.

Today’s message is of significance because it demonstrates once again that the single payer message can be carried beyond the party primaries and into the general election. Just as U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has never abandoned the single payer message, so now Vermont State Senator Peter Shumlin is carrying the single payer message forward in his campaign for governor.

Those who oppose government solutions to the health care crisis will likely pass these worsening numbers off as an expected consequence of the sputtering economy and the new age of unemployment. They will pay little heed to the fact that the numbers are still intolerable when the economy is thriving; that isn’t their concern.

During Q&A at some of my speaking engagements, a common question from the audience: “Under a single payer, Medicare for all program, would I have to give up my excellent retired teachers’ health benefit program that we fought so hard for all of these years?”

It is shameful that we have tolerated for so long a health care system that has failed to address the inequities and injustices exemplified by a widening black-white mortality gap in patients with muscular dystrophy – an inherited disorder inflicted on blameless victims.

Will bringing an end to defensive medicine reduce our national health expenditures? According to this and other studies, yes, but not by much.studies

Apparently President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is considering changes to Medicare that would make beneficiaries “smarter shoppers” by adopting innovations that would require them to pay more out of pocket for health care.