By Samuel Metz
The Oregonian, March 29, 2011
Am I crazy, a physician embracing legislative efforts to create a single-payer health care system in Oregon? You be the judge.
It would create thousands of jobs. It would provide health care to people whether they work full time, part time or are retired, disabled, sick or unemployed. It would stimulate Oregon business. It would reduce our state deficit. And it would provide comprehensive care to every Oregonian without spending more than we do now.
Where would the money come from? Oregon businesses and families already spend this money. But Oregon wastes $4 billion annually in private insurance administration. That’s premium money that never goes toward health care. Half is the insurance company overhead. The rest is what hospitals and providers like me waste collecting payments from insurance companies. Princeton economics professor Uwe Reinhardt, speaking recently before the Senate Finance Committee, said of Duke University’s 900-bed hospital: “We have 900 billing clerks at Duke. I’m not sure we have a nurse per bed, but we have a billing clerk per bed. It’s obscene.”
For physicians, it’s no easier. A Chicago doctor faces as many as 17,000 different sets of benefits for her patients. Your physician in Oregon might deal with only 300. But that’s still a lot of paperwork that doesn’t provide health care.
Single payer would eliminate these administrative losses. Diverting $4 billion to real health care is more than enough to enable comprehensive, no-deductible, no-co-pay, all-medications-included health care to every Oregonian, young and old.
So why doesn’t everybody embrace single-payer financing? It’s a stark answer: The money is re-labeled as “taxes.” And unfortunately many voters who unknowingly pay thousands of dollars in premiums and out-of-pocket payments refuse to pay a penny of it as a tax, even when this tax would buy them more health care at less cost and protect their families from medical bankruptcy.
Other objections are mere distractions. Single payer will destroy jobs? No evidence. Single-payer studies in 14 other states suggest 35,000 new jobs in Oregon. That’s 12,000 more than the entire Oregon insurance industry. And because these new jobs are highly paid medical personnel, they generate $500 million in new tax revenues.
Will businesses flee Oregon? Single payer would eliminate labor disputes over health care benefits. It would halve the cost of human resource departments (no health benefit management). Entrepreneurs would be free to create new businesses without fear of losing health care. Business would flourish.
Worried about our state deficit? Single payer would reduce government costs to provide comprehensive benefits to state employees. Couple this with increased tax revenue and the budget deficit would go down.
A new single-payer health care bill — House Bill 3510 and Senate Billl 888 — would be a win for all Oregon. Families finally would get the health care they need. Workers would enjoy thousands of new jobs. Employer costs would go down. And so would our state government’s deficit.
Single-payer health care: It’s not crazy. It’s good for Oregon, good for you and good for your legislators. Tell them now.
Samuel Metz is a Portland physician.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/03/a_single-payer_health_care_sys.html