Volenik says single-payer plan feasible
By: Stephen Betts
December 06, 2002
The chairman of a state panel looking at designing a state-run, single-payer health care system said a consultant's report leaves him convinced such a system is doable.
������Paul Volenik, who represented Vinalhaven and North Haven in House District 129 for eight years until Wednesday, said the committee will make a formal presentation to the state Legislature next month.
������He said Thursday he is hopeful a single-payer system can be approved, whether it is this year or another year.
������The report by Mathematica Policy Research of Washi-ngton, D.C., finds that a single-payer system compared to the current system would either cost the same or cost 5 percent more, depending on the benefits provided under a single-payer system.
������Mathematica is projecting $8.3 billion will be spent on health care in Maine in 2004 and that will jump to $10.6 billion by 2008 under the current system.
������But Volenik noted that with the current system, 150,000 Mainers have no health insurance. He said even if a single-payer system costs 5 percent more than the current one, it would be worth it insure everybody.
������The consultants were conservative when calculating the administrative savings a single-payer system would reap, he noted. Eventually, there will be more savings as people with insurance become healthier and costs are lessened.
������The current way of financing health care, through taxes for Medicaid and privately financed insurance through businesses and individuals, would be replaced with a payroll tax, Volenik said.
������The tax could be 12 to 16 percent, he said, with one model calling for the employer to pay 8 percent and the worker 4 percent. This system would ensure that the people most able to pay would pay the most.
������He said businesses that do not contribute anything for their employees' health insurance would incur greater costs. However, some businesses would pay less, as would employees, many of whom already pay a high price for coverage.
������For instance, a person earning $20,000 annually would have to pay $800 if the employee portion of the payroll tax was 4 percent. That $800 is less than what most people pay for their share of insurance premiums, he noted.
������Volenik was a major proponent of a single-payer system during his years in the Legislature. He convinced the state to form the 19-member Health Security Board, which has been meeting frequently and hired the consultant to work on a model for a single-payer system.
�Courier Gazette�2002