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Latest News

Recent Articles of Interest

Make traditional Medicare available to more Americans

Posted August 12, 2022

By Ann Troy, M.D.
Marin (County, Calif.) Independent Journal, August 11, 2022

One of the best things about turning 65 is finally being able to get Medicare. Free, at last, from the yoke of health insurance.

For me, this meant no longer having to pay more than $20,000 a year for insurance, then a $4,000 deductible plus co-pays and co-insurance before getting any help with medical expenses. Usually I got none: Being healthy and fit, I was pure profit.

Individuals and families (and their employers) pay huge amounts in premiums, then have to deal with deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, narrow networks and denials of care.

People without insurance or with high deductibles wait longer to seek help for illnesses and injuries, thus, problems become more deep-rooted and more difficult to treat. Sometimes they die because they wait too long. People stay in jobs they hate rather than going back to school or striking out on their own because they need health insurance. Half of bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to medical debt.

American companies are at a disadvantage compared to companies in other developed nations that are not saddled with the high cost of providing health care. Smaller companies can’t compete with larger ones because they can’t afford to offer health insurance. Unhappiness over health benefits is the leading cause of labor unrest.

The United States is the only developed nation without a national health program. Despite spending double the average per capita spent by other developed nations and almost double the average percent of gross domestic product, we have the worst healthcare statistics in the developed world. On overall measures of health, the World Health Organization ranks us No. 37.

For all of these reasons, I advocate a single payer system or Medicare for all.

Medicare, as originally set up (aka “traditional” Medicare), allows seniors to go to almost any doctor, clinic, lab and hospital in the country. Medicare pays 80% of their contracted rate for outpatient services and the patient is responsible for the remaining 20%.

When first signing up for traditional Medicare, seniors can also opt to purchase “medi-gap” or supplemental insurance that pays the additional 20%. There is a small monthly premium to pay for the peace of mind of knowing that is all you will pay.

The existence of traditional Medicare is being threatened by the health insurance industry with the establishment of Medicare Advantage plans and, more recently, Direct Contracting Entities (DCEs), Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (REACH) plans.

Medicare Advantage plans attract seniors by offering perks such as gym memberships, and some vision, hearing, and dental care (not offered by traditional Medicare) but they come with all the things we hate about insurance: narrow networks, co-pays, deductibles, and denials of care.

What’s worse is that patients with traditional Medicare are being enrolled without their knowledge or consent into DCEs, ACOs and REACH.  The only way out is to find another doctor, one who is not contracted with the entity to which they have been assigned. Again, there is everything we hate about insurance, including denials of care.

These entities are paid a capitated amount per patient in their group. In addition, they are paid more for patients with more complicated diagnoses.  This results in “up-coding” on billing to get even more money from the government.

If patients cost the plans too much, they are encouraged to drop out and apply for traditional Medicare. At this point, they may have trouble getting supplemental insurance as they now have to disclose pre-existing conditions.

Traditional Medicare is efficient and well run with an overhead of only 2%.  Medicare Advantage plans are allowed to keep 15% of what the government pays them and DCEs, ACOs and REACH are allowed to keep up to 40%. This, in addition to providing less care, creates endless hassles for patients and providers, as well as costing the government more per patient.

We need to get the insurance industry out of Medicare and make traditional (and improved) Medicare available to all Americans regardless of age, employment status, or health.

Dr. Ann Troy is a pediatrician who has been in practice for more than 30 years.

https://www.marinij.com…

Medicare for All Explained Podcast: Episode 82

Posted August 1, 2022

This article includes audio

August 1, 2022

Information technology and digital health researcher A Jay Holmgren, Ph.D., talks about the current state of electronic medical records in the U.S. and the problems that arise when different systems can’t “talk to” one another.

“We really need to move beyond siloed data sets and unlock the power of aggregated national-level data,” he says. “There’s a big potential for research, for public health, [and] for policymakers to be maximally informed.”

Additional episodes will be uploaded twice monthly. Subscribe in iTunes, or access a complete archive of the podcast, below.

https://medicareforallexplained.podbean.com

Why conservatives should support Medicare for All

Posted July 30, 2022

By Jay Brock, M.D.
The (Fredericksburg, Va.) Free Lance Star, July 30, 2022

Most Americans get it: our dysfunctional health insurance system isn’t working for too many. Thirty million have no insurance. Another 40 million, given skyrocketing out-of-pocket costs, can’t afford to use the insurance they have. Some half-million Americans—most with insurance—undergo a medical bankruptcy each year, and 78% of Virginians worry about affording medical bills.

The system, while benefiting a few lucky Americans, isn’t working for most of us.

You’d think that making sure every American had not just “access” to health care but care they could actually afford would be a nonpartisan, bipartisan endeavor.

Not for most Washington politicians: health care lobbyists spend more than $600 million of our health care dollars each year making sure industry gets its way rather than assuring the rest of us can get affordable care.

Conservatives, apparently indifferent to the success and popularity of Social Security and Medicare, both publicly funded, seem to be especially adept at labeling affordable health care for all as some nefarious un-American plot that would destroy America (“Socialism!” “Government control!”) rather than as something that would allow us to keep up with the world’s other advanced nations.

So let’s look at seven reasons why conservatives of both parties should be keen to support Medicare for All—a popular single-payer health insurance system funded by public contributions, where health care would still be delivered by America’s excellent private providers.

MFA is much cheaper to run, consuming just 2–3% of healthcare dollars rather than the 15–20% it takes to run some private health insurers. Switching to MFA will save 600 billion health care dollars yearly just in administrative costs. That is a lot of money. Better to spend it on patients than on building a bigger medical bureaucracy.

MFA also saves money when it “bends the health care cost-curve”—the Holy Grail of health care economists and conservatives alike—because as a monopsony it will lower costs for goods and services it purchases. We could save $100 billion yearly on pharmaceuticals alone. No, essential creative health care industries won’t disappear—they will thrive just as they do in every other advanced nation with affordable universal coverage.

Everyone contributes, based on income, not an arbitrary premium, so it’s truly affordable. Universal contributions, by the way, is an idea straight from the conservative Heritage Foundation, based on “personal responsibility”—if you can share in its benefits, you should pay into the system. (It was only when Democrats used it that Republican conservatives began to despise such mandates.)

Based on the popularity of other similar government-funded programs, there should be less political interference with MFA than our current system, where politicians frequently put their fingers on the scales of healthcare access. Anyone familiar with the cries of “Keep the government out of my Social Security and Medicare” understands why interfering with these programs is still considered to be the “third rail” of American politics.

There is more competition under MFA, as artificial networks of providers that benefit the health insurance industry at the expense of patients are eliminated. All providers will compete for all patients based not on price (which will continue to be negotiated between the insurer and providers) but on service.

MFA is great for business. It takes the burden of health care costs off employers. Warren Buffett has called our current health care system the tapeworm of American competitiveness. Funding health care with public dollars will improve American competitiveness, globally and locally. It will also be easier to start a business. Or, since health insurance is no longer tied to one’s employment, for employees to change jobs.

Public funding of health care will help many areas, urban and rural, where health care access is sorely lacking. These areas don’t suffer from a lack of patients—they have too many patients who cannot afford medical care and either forgo care or receive care for which providers are not compensated. So hospitals go bust, or physicians aren’t to be found. Don’t believe anyone who says MFA will hurt these areas. When everyone has insurance they can afford, the reality is just the opposite.

Finally, what about the health insurance industry? As a hugely expensive and entirely unnecessary middleman, its days are numbered. Economists call its eventual demise “creative destruction.” (MFA sets aside billions of saved health care dollars to assure industry employees who lose their jobs will have a “soft landing” economically).

Liberal or conservative, these are health care values we should all share.

Most Americans support MFA.

Check with your candidate to see whether or not they agree.

https://fredericksburg.com…

Dr. Jay D. Brock is a retired physician living in Fredericksburg.

Recent Members in the news

Dr. Ana Malinow on “Rising Up With Sonali”

Posted May 25, 2022

This article includes video

PNHP past president Dr. Ana Malinow appeared on “Rising Up With Sonali” on Free Speech TV and Pacifica radio stations on May 25, 2022. Dr. Malinow described the dangers of Medicare Direct Contracting and REACH, which allow third-party (often corporate) middlemen to “mange” the care of Traditional Medicare beneficiaries.

Dr. Malinow was especially critical of the claim that these programs would do anything to advance equity: “We cannot possibly trust corporations, which created inequality in the first place, to achieve health equity.”

Dr. Adam Gaffney on “The Jacobin Show”

Posted May 18, 2022

This article includes video

PNHP immediate past president Dr. Adam Gaffney appeared on “The Jacobin Show” on May 18, 2022. Dr. Gaffney discussed the recent U.S. Senate hearing, “Medicare for All: Protecting Health, Saving Lives, Saving Money,” where he testified along with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and National Nurses United executive director Bonnie Castillo, and why now is an especially crucial time for a resurgence in single-payer activism.

Dr. Adam Gaffney U.S. Senate Testimony

Posted May 12, 2022

This article includes video

PNHP immediate past president Dr. Adam Gaffney testified before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee on May 12, 2022. The topic of the hearing was “Medicare for All: Protecting Health, Saving Lives, Saving Money,” and it was held on the same day that Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the Medicare for All Act of 2022.

Dr. Gaffney’s opening remarks are excerpted below, and the full committee hearing can be viewed here.

Recent Quote of the Day

John Geyman: The Medical-Industrial Complex…plus exciting changes at qotd

Posted April 28, 2021

“America’s Mighty Medical-Industrial Complex: Negative Impacts and Positive Solutions”

By John Geyman

This book has three goals: (1) to bring an historical perspective to how medicine and health care have evolved over the last 100 years, including the transformation of their original ethic of service with a moral purpose and how that ethic has been compromised by corporate greed; (2) to describe where an engulfing medical-industrial complex has brought us in terms of decreasing access to affordable health care, unacceptable quality of care, profiteering and fraud; and (3) to consider whether and how our unsustainable health care system can be brought into line against this deepening crisis in serving the needs of our people.

Copernicus Healthcare: http://www.copernicus-healthcare.org

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com…


Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Most of us want a health care system that has a mission to maintain and improve our health, yet we have a system that has lost its way in that its mission places a priority on advancing the interests of the medical-industrial complex at the cost of compromising our health care. John Geyman explains how we got there and how detrimental the impact has been. Although the political barriers to reform seem almost insurmountable, he does show us that there is a path to the essential reform that we need to bring health care justice to all. By understanding the source and nature of the dysfunctions, we can find our way out.


Exciting changes at qotd

As some of you may have heard, the interruption in the Quote of the Day messages was due to a TIA/stroke suffered by the author. Fortunately, the recovery has been dramatic, though incomplete. As a result, after two decades of daily commentaries in his retirement years, it is time for a change.

Future messages will be from noted health policy experts within and outside of PNHP. We will be receiving the latest from the best. With this change in format, we will also be changing the name to “Health Justice Monitor.” Launch is planned for next week.

I hope that you are as excited as I am as I become a consumer rather than a producer of the latest in health policy science. The more we understand, the sooner we will have health care justice for all.

Peace,
Don McCanne

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

Quote of the Day interlude

Posted April 12, 2021

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Quote of the Day will take a brief interlude. We are refining our approach to communicating information to educate and advocate for single payer and health care justice for all.

See you soon.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

More trouble: Drug industry consolidation

Posted April 8, 2021

Over 30 years, dramatic consolidation has meant higher prices, fewer treatment options and less incentive to innovate

By Robin Feldman
The Washington Post, April 6, 2021

In the past few decades, three waves of mergers have substantially increased concentration in the pharmaceutical industry.

All told, between 1995 and 2015, the 60 leading pharmaceutical companies merged to only 10.

As a result, now only a handful of manufacturers are responsible for sourcing the vast majority of prescription drugs: Just four companies, for example, produced more than 50 percent of all generic drugs in 2017.

Drug companies were drawn to merging because of the lure of increased market power, improved synergies, larger economies of scale and more diverse product portfolios.

In the period following merger waves one and two, the industry generated fewer new molecular entities each year compared to pre-merger levels. Merged drug companies also spent proportionally less on research than their non-merged competitors.

Consolidation also enabled drugmakers to directly quell competition through what were known as “killer acquisitions,” in which they acquired innovative peers solely to stop potential competition.

In short, consumers were the losers from the two waves of drug company mergers. They confronted higher prices and fewer choices — and saw companies exploring fewer paths that might produce breakthroughs. To make matters worse, around 2010, another wave of mergers began.

As with the earlier waves, giant drug companies have merged. But in a new twist, in recent years, most consolidation has featured bigger players acquiring smaller start-ups. The difference reflects a dramatic shift in the structure of the pharmaceutical industry. Faced with stagnating research productivity, large drugmakers now rely on outsourcing their new drug research to start-ups and other small pharmaceutical firms.

Increasingly, these smaller players specialize in high-risk research and early drug development, with larger firms then gobbling them up and navigating the FDA’s regulatory process. For example, 63 percent of all new molecular entities in 2018 came from smaller biopharma firms, compared with just 31 percent in 2009.

The end result of now three waves of pharmaceutical consolidation is decreased or diverted new drug innovation, fewer treatment options and higher prices. Consumers have lost as firms fuse together to bolster the bottom line.

Robin Feldman is director of the UC Hastings Center for Innovation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com…


Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Yesterday we discussed consolidation of UnitedHealth/Optum and how it has become a mega-corporation of the medical-industrial complex. Today’s selection discusses consolidation within the pharmaceutical industry. The article describes how we can expect decreased or diverted drug innovation, fewer treatment options, and above all, higher prices. Works for the industry, but not so well for the people.

We’re just trying to introduce single payer Medicare for All. How much impact can that have on these mega-corporations? Where is our government in all of this? Aren’t they supposed to protect us? Maybe we’re aiming too low by advocating for a social insurance program. Maybe we should be taking over the industry so that we can gear it up to better serve us, the people. International comparisons do rate national health services very high in performance. Maybe if we talk about it a little more we can convince them that Medicare for All is a compromise that they can live with. We think we can too.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

Recent State Single Payer News

N.Y. Assembly passes universal health care bill

Posted May 28, 2017

By Dan Goldberg
Capital New York, May 27, 2015

The state Assembly on Wednesday voted for a single-payer health bill, the first time in more than two decades the chamber has taken up the measure.

The vote was 89-47, an overwhelming but largely symbolic step toward universal health insurance. The bill now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate where it is not expected to pass.

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, chair of the health committee, gave an impassioned speech on the floor in support of the New York Health Act, arguing that it was long past time for New Yorkers to rid themselves of the intrusive insurance companies whose goal is to deny claims rather than provide care.

“You do not have to be an Einstein to understand New York Health is the right choice for New York,” Gottfried said.

Gottfried, a Democrat from Manhattan, spent the legislative session barnstorming the state, trying to gain support for his bill, which would be funded through a progressive income tax and payroll assessments. There would be a net savings of $45 billion in health spending by 2019, Gottfried said, based on an analysis from Dr. Gerald Friedman, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, though that figure was attacked by Republicans.

The bill, Gottfried said, would lower costs by getting rid of insurance companies. It would lower administrative costs and allow doctors to focus their time on treating patients instead of fighting for reimbursements.

“What will bring down health care costs is taking out of the equation the more than 20 percent we now spend on administrators whose job it is to fight with insurance companies,” he said.

The plan’s benefits, Gottfried said, would be more generous than any plan on the current market, and there would be no co-pays or deductibles. The bill would also require a care coordinator for every member, though that coordinator is not empowered to choose the type of care a patient receives.

For some Republicans, it was all too good to be true.

“This bill promises remarkable things for New York State residents,” said Assemblyman Andy Goodell, a Republican from Chautauqua. “It says providers, ‘you’ll be paid a lot more money,’ and it says to the employees ‘you’ll contribute a lot less money,’ and it says to the patients ‘you’ll have much broader access,’ and to the employers ‘you’ll pay $45 billion less.’ My background is in math and economics and I haven’t been able to figure out how this all works. … There is no free lunch, there is no free health care.”

Leslie Moran, spokeswoman for the New York Health Plan Association, which represents insurers, said the bill “represents an unrealistic, utopian view of a universal health care system where everyone would be covered, everything would be covered and the system would magically pay for it all.”

One problem, pointed out by Republicans, is that the offering, while generous, is the opposite of what public health officials are pushing, including those in the Cuomo administration, who have professed that insurance systems, and high deductibles and co-pays help ensure people use the health system judiciously instead of opting for more, often unnecessary, care.

“There is a role for insurance companies,” state health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said Wednesday before the debate.

The last time a universal health care bill was on the Assembly floor was 1992. It passed but the debate was sidelined because of federal efforts to reform health care, which ultimately failed under the Clinton administration.

The passing of the Affordable Care Act, which subsidizes private insurance for people below a certain income level, was a valid effort, Gottfried said, but ultimately served to highlight why the system needs to be entirely scrapped.

“I think the A.C.A. has made it clear to people … there are profound problems in our health care system that cannot be addressed by incremental change in that system,” Gottfried said.

Wiping out an industry — even the insurance industry — was not seen as popular by many Republicans who worried about the loss of jobs and what might happen should this plan fail.

Goodell asked why the state should go down this road when when Medicaid — a government run insurance program for lower-income residents — is expensive, burdensome and not well liked.

“Why would we want to expand that type of approach,” he asked.

Gottfried responded that his bill would improve Medicaid by putting everyone into one pot. He would, he said, eliminate the two-tiered system. There’d be no greater risk of fraud under this law than in the current Medicaid program.

Republicans also pointed out how much was left to be done. The income tax rates have yet to be decided, but would likely cost the highest earners more than they currently pay for health insurance, while subsidizing lower income residents.

The analysis provided by Gottfried estimates no income tax on the first $25,000, an income tax of 9 percent on income between $25,0001 and $50,000, graduating to 16 percent tax for income over $200,000.

The legislation is also not specific on how to deal with residents of New York State who retire to another state.

That would have to be resolved at a later date, Gottfried said.

“Though we have numerous pages on this legislation, we have numerous holes also,” said Al Graf, a Republican from Holbrook. “There is no way I can go back to my constituents and tell them you may have coverage in the future. … This is an exercise in insanity.”

Moran said there is no certainty that providers would accept government set reimbursement, though Gottfried said almost all would receive more for their services than they are currently being paid.

The bill also “completely disregards the economic contribution of health plans — both to the state and to local communities,” Moran said.

Joseph Borelli, a Republican from Staten Island, cited Vermont, which tried and failed to enact a single-payer health system.

Vermont’s collapse has been a cautionary tale for even the most enthusiastic supporters of government sponsored health insurance, but Gottfried was having none of it.

“New York … bears no resemblance to Vermont,” Gottfried said. “The bill bears very little resemblance to Vermont. Their financing system is different. The two have absolutely nothing to do with one another, nothing! Why don’t you ask me whether New York will flood Just like Texas flooded if we enact this plan. The weather in Texas has as much to do with this as Vermont does.”

Read the bill here: http://bit.ly/1JVUg1I

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/05/8568890/assembly-pa…


N.Y. Assembly votes for universal health coverage

By Michael Virtanen, Associated Press
Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), May 27, 2015

ALBANY – The New York Assembly voted 89-47 on Wednesday for legislation to establish publicly funded universal health coverage in a so-called single payer system.

All New Yorkers could enroll. Backers said it would extend coverage to the uninsured and reduce rising costs by taking insurance companies and their costs out of the mix.

With no patient premiums, deductibles or co-payments for hospital and doctor visits, testing, drugs or other care, New York Health would pay providers through collectively negotiated rates. It would be funded through a progressive payroll tax paid 80 percent by employers and 20 percent by employees.

Also, waivers would be sought so federal funds now received for New Yorkers in Medicare, Medicaid and Child Health Plus would apply.

“Employers are shifting more and more health care costs to workers or are dropping it entirely,” said Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, chief sponsor. “The only ones who benefit are the insurance companies.”

The Manhattan Democrat estimated universal care would save New Yorkers more than $45 billion annually, cutting the statewide total cost for health care to about $255 billion in 2019.

Assembly Republicans doubted Gottfried’s estimate and questioned what would happen to everyone now employed by insurance companies.

“All I can say right now I think this is the last think New York state needs as far as an additional cost,” said Assemblywoman Jane Corwin, an Erie County Republican. She said they’re still trying to grapple now with the cost of the federal Affordable Care Act. That extended health care coverage to about 1 million New Yorkers, more than half in Medicaid and the others in private insurance with possible tax subsidies to offset costs.

An identical bill hasn’t advanced in the state Senate and isn’t expected to before the legislative session ends in June. Senate Health Committee Chairman Kemp Hannon said Wednesday that Gottfried’s bill faces two major hurdles, resistance from senior citizens to giving up Medicare for a new state program and obtaining federal waivers to apply Medicaid and Medicare funding to support it.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/2015/05/27/assembly…

Single-Payer Health-Care Bill to be Introduced in Pa.

Posted October 27, 2016

Berks Community Television (Reading, Pa.), Oct. 25, 2015

HARRISBURG, Pa. – A bill to create a single-payer health-care system in Pennsylvania will be introduced in the state Legislature by the end of the month.

The legislation is being introduced by Representative Pamela DeLissio of Philadelphia and was crafted with the assistance of HealthCare 4 ALL PA, a not-for-profit advocacy group. David Steil, past president of that organization, says the bill is simply called the Pennsylvania Health Care Plan.

“What it does is create a health-care system that includes every resident of Pennsylvania, that is publicly funded and privately delivered,” says Steil.

The cost of the program would be covered by increased taxes, which Steil acknowledges may present a significant obstacle to passage by the state Legislature.

The plan would increase the state personal income tax by an additional three percent, substantially less than most pay for private insurance. It would also add a 10 percent payroll tax on businesses which, as Steil points out, is much less than what businesses spend on health insurance now.

“The average cost for health care benefits for companies that provide health care is about 17 percent of payroll,” he says. “So at 10 percent of payroll, the saving is significant.”

Similar legislation has been introduced in each legislative session since 2007.

Most recently it was introduced as Senate Bill S-400. None of the earlier versions have not gotten very far. Raising taxes is a hard sell, especially to conservative lawmakers. But Steil insists they’re asking the wrong question.

“The question each one has to ask is not just ‘look at the taxes’ because there are taxes to it, it’s not free,” he says. “The question is, ‘How much less than you’re currently paying is this plan to you?'”

Steil says the bill would also eliminate health-insurance costs on pension plans and vehicle insurance, making the potential savings even larger.

http://www.bctv.org/special_reports/health/pa-legislature-introduces-sin…

Single-Payer Health-Care Bill to be Introduced in Pa.

Posted October 27, 2015

Berks Community Television (Reading, Pa.), Oct. 25, 2015

HARRISBURG, Pa. – A bill to create a single-payer health-care system in Pennsylvania will be introduced in the state Legislature by the end of the month.

The legislation is being introduced by Representative Pamela DeLissio of Philadelphia and was crafted with the assistance of HealthCare 4 ALL PA, a not-for-profit advocacy group. David Steil, past president of that organization, says the bill is simply called the Pennsylvania Health Care Plan.

“What it does is create a health-care system that includes every resident of Pennsylvania, that is publicly funded and privately delivered,” says Steil.

The cost of the program would be covered by increased taxes, which Steil acknowledges may present a significant obstacle to passage by the state Legislature.

The plan would increase the state personal income tax by an additional three percent, substantially less than most pay for private insurance. It would also add a 10 percent payroll tax on businesses which, as Steil points out, is much less than what businesses spend on health insurance now.

“The average cost for health care benefits for companies that provide health care is about 17 percent of payroll,” he says. “So at 10 percent of payroll, the saving is significant.”

Similar legislation has been introduced in each legislative session since 2007.

Most recently it was introduced as Senate Bill S-400. None of the earlier versions have not gotten very far. Raising taxes is a hard sell, especially to conservative lawmakers. But Steil insists they’re asking the wrong question.

“The question each one has to ask is not just ‘look at the taxes’ because there are taxes to it, it’s not free,” he says. “The question is, ‘How much less than you’re currently paying is this plan to you?'”

Steil says the bill would also eliminate health-insurance costs on pension plans and vehicle insurance, making the potential savings even larger.

http://www.bctv.org/special_reports/health/pa-legislature-introduces-single-payer-health-care-bill/article_a41a6da0-7996-11e5-b8a4-2ba3ba19b536.html

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