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Here’s that Medicare-for-all study Bernie Sanders keeps bringing up

Here’s that Medicare-for-all study Bernie Sanders keeps bringing up

A single-payer health-care system would save more than 68,000 lives and $450 billion a year, new research shows

By Christopher Ingraham
Washington Post, February 20, 2020

A new analysis published in the journal Lancet adds some empirical heft to an argument many progressives have been making for years: A national single-payer health-care system would save tens of thousands of lives each year — and hundreds of billions of dollars.

If you watched last night’s Democratic debate in Nevada you might have heard Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) cite “a major study [that] came out from Yale epidemiologist[s] in Lancet, one of the leading medical publications in the world” in support of his Medicare-for-all plan. He was talking about this study, which was just published last week.

The study’s lead author, Alison Galvani, is the director of Yale University’s Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis. The paper discloses that Galvani served as an “informal, unpaid advisor” to Sanders’s Senate office as it developed the Medicare For All Act. None of the other authors disclosed any outside or competing interests.

All told, the study concludes, a single-payer system akin to Sanders’s plan would slash the nation’s health-care expenditures by 13 percent, or more than $450 billion, each year. Not only that, “ensuring health-care access for all Americans would save more than 68,000 lives.”

In their breakdown of the numbers, researchers applied the existing Medicare fee structure across the entire health-care system and found it would save about $100 billion annually. Keep in mind that this basically represents less money going to doctors and hospitals, a major sticking point for medical groups that oppose Medicare-for-all. But those declines would be more than offset by several hundred billions in savings from reduced administrative and billing costs, Galvani and her colleagues estimate. The lack of patient billing under a Medicare-for-all system would also eliminate the roughly $35 billion a year that hospitals now pay to chase down unpaid bills.

The authors estimate an additional $219 billion in savings from reduced “administrative overhead” that the current decentralized system creates, including “the elimination of redundant corporate functions and the truncation of the top-heavy salary architecture of health insurance corporations.” For instance, the plan would replace dozens of health insurance executives, many of whom make well over $20 million a year, with one administrator paid the same salary as the current Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Finally, letting the national Medicare system negotiate pharmaceutical prices would save about $180 billion, according to the analysis.

Add it all up and here’s what you get: a new system that would cost about $3 trillion a year, instead of the $3.5 trillion that is being spent now.

Galvani and her colleagues estimate that to fully fund Medicare-for-all, the federal government would have to bring in an additional $773 billion a year relative to current revenue levels. They estimate this could be paid for, in part, by a 10 percent payroll tax that would bring in $436 billion annually. Given that current employer contributions to health care work out to about 12 percent of payrolls, this would still be about $100 billion less than what employers currently pay.

The remaining funding could be paid via a 5 percent tax on household income, yielding $375 billion a year. Again, with the elimination of employee contributions to existing health insurance premiums, the average household could expect to save well over $2,000 a year — and have no co-pays or deductibles to worry about.

Galvani’s $3 trillion estimate is somewhat lower than the annual spending estimates produced by other observers, including the libertarian Mercatus Center ($3.3 trillion per year) and the more centrist-oriented Urban Institute ($3.4 trillion per year) and RAND Corporation ($3.9 trillion).

All of these estimates — Galvani’s included — are built on various assumptions about how costs and payments and patient behaviors would work in the real world with a Medicare-for-all plan in place: How much would doctors and hospitals actually save on administrative overhead? How many people would increase their use of medical services once they’re paid for? Would a single payer system make it easier to detect medical fraud?

Experts answer those questions differently, which is reflected in their final cost estimates. And though we can’t predict the future, we do have plenty of data on what’s happening in the American health-care system right now. Relative to people in other wealthy nations, Americans are less likely to be in good health and more likely to die of preventable causes. Our babies and mothers are more likely to die after child birth, and our lives are shorter overall.

Lack of a universal health-care system means that regular medical care is unaffordable for many Americans: fully one quarter of us have put off needed care because of cost. More than 8 million Americans have started a crowdfunding campaign to pay for medical care, with approximately 1 in 5 Americans contributing to somebody else’s medical crowdfunding campaign. Ninety percent of those campaigns will fail to raise the necessary funds.

By addressing these and other problems, Galvani and her colleagues estimate that regardless of cost, Medicare-for-all would save about 69,000 lives each year. They end their paper by calling on the medical community to answer “the moral imperative to provide health care as a human right, not dependent on employment or affluence.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com…

What the Doctors Ordered

Once opponents of universal health care, medical professionals may now help win it

By Adam Gaffney, M.D., M.P.H.
The Baffler, February 19, 2020

“Compulsory Health Insurance is an Un-American, Unsafe, Uneconomic, Unscientific, Unfair and Unscrupulous type of Legislation [supported by] Paid Professional Philanthropists, busybody Social Workers, Misguided Clergymen and Hysterical Women.” So affirmed Dr. J. A. O’Reilly to the Kings County Medical Society of New York in the waning days of the nation’s first fight for a European-style health care reform, some hundred years ago. 

If Dr. O’Reilly’s screed—which is quoted in Ronald L. Numbers’s 1978 chronicle of the saga, Almost Persuaded: American Physicians and Compulsory Health Insurance, 1912–1920—strikes modern readers as rather histrionic, it bears some resemblance to the position held by American Medical Association (AMA) ever since. As the title of Numbers’s book suggests, the AMA was at first tempted by arguments for what was then called “compulsory health insurance,” but eventually realized it despised it—and helped to scuttle it. This became part of a pattern: in the late 1940s, the AMA famously fought, and defeated, national health insurance legislation supported by President Harry S. Truman and backed by organized labor. It even opposed Medicare in the 1960s, enlisting Ronald Reagan to record a ridiculous LP wherein the actor and future president described health insurance for the elderly as the death knell of American freedom. “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people,” Reagan sternly warned, “has been by way of medicine.”

But it was not just fear of the Reds or Hysterical Women. National health insurance was, some physicians felt, a threat to their livelihood as well as their autonomy—and to the sacrosanct doctor-patient relationship. “State medicine . . . means death of individualism, of humanitarianism, and of scientific practice,” Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the AMA’s medical journal and a leading opponent of national health insurance, contended in 1928. Yet though the AMA succeeded in its fight against national health insurance, it failed to protect the independence of physicians. Instead of “state medicine,” we have witnessed the “rise of corporate enterprise in health services,” as sociologist Paul Starr described it in his 1982 classic, The Social Transformation of American Medicine. This new corporate medical landscape seems to be making just about everyone miserable. So miserable, perhaps, that today doctors are coming to see national health insurance, now popularly referred to as “Medicare for All,” as less an existential threat and more a solution, both for their patients and their profession.

The shift is becoming obvious in the highest echelons of organized medicine. In January, the nation’s largest medical specialty society—the American College of Physicians (ACP), which represents internal medicine doctors—swung out in support of universal health care reform, explicitly endorsing single-payer Medicare for All alongside a universal “public choice” model. The announcement in the pages of the ACP’s official journal was followed a day later by an open letter, published as a full-page ad in the New York Times, signed by over two thousand physicians (including such prominent doctors as Partners-in-Health co-cofounder Paul Farmer and the developer of the defibrillator, Bernard Lown) “prescribing” Medicare for All to the nation—an effort organized by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), for which I serve as president.

These widely reported events came on the heels of some remarkable developments within the AMA, in large part driven by medical student activism. In June, members of PNHP’s student wing organized a demonstration outside the AMA’s national convention in Chicago to protest the organization’s opposition to Medicare for All—and its support of the anti-single-payer, deep-pocketed, dark-money lobbying group, the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (which you may know from its goofy multimillion dollar ad campaign attacking what it calls “one-size-fits-all” health care). Student members inside the AMA conference subsequently introduced a motion in its House of Delegates to end the group’s opposition to single-payer and were—startlingly—only narrowly defeated, by 47 percent to 53 percent. Then, in August, the AMA withdrew from the insurer- and pharmaceutical-led Partnership: a remarkable retreat.

These developments represent a dramatic, if incomplete, shift in the profession, although they are not without precedent. As Danielle Carr recently described in The Nation, a “rebellion” of more than four hundred well-known doctors endorsed national health care reform in the face of AMA opposition in 1937, an event that was covered on the front page of the New York Times. In subsequent decades, various physician groups—the radical Physicians Forum of the post-war decades, the Medical Committee for Human Rights in the civil rights era, and PNHP today—have helped keep the flame of the universal health care ideal alive in the face of institutional (and corporate) intransigence. Something new, however, is unfolding in the mainstream of the profession today.

Perhaps this is unsurprising, considering the hardship that physicians regularly see inflicted on their patients. As an intensive care unit physician, for instance, I have treated patients with “hypertensive emergencies”—high spiking blood pressure that can lead to swelling in the brain or a suffocating buildup of fluid in the lungs—because they were uninsured and went for years without care and medicine. Studies have found that patients in the throes of heart attacks are delaying coming to the hospital out of financial fears, and that women with breast cancer and high-deductible health care plans put off biopsies and even the initiation of chemotherapy due to costs.

There is more to it than being witness to suffering, however. The medical landscape of Dr. O’Reilly’s day—of black-bag toting independent practitioners beholden, they might contend, to nobody but their patients and professional creed—has ceased to exist. Consolidation and corporatization have led to a brave new world of giant insurance conglomerates and sprawling hospital systems. For doctors, this has been a mixed bag. On the one hand, physicians are still well remunerated—some particularly so, like those who join private-equity owned staffing organizations infamous for using “surprise billing” as a business tactic. On the other hand, physicians are unmistakably moving from the ranks of small businesspeople to those of employees. In 2016, Modern Healthcare reported that for the first time, less than half of physicians were owners of their medical practices. The new owners, increasingly, sit at the commanding heights of the American economy. A 2018 article in Bloomberg, for instance, described how the insurance giant UnitedHealth has built “an army of tens of thousands of physicians to fend off invaders” in the health care space. Dr. O’Reilly wouldn’t recognize this corporate-dominated medical landscape—and might not have liked it much more than “compulsory health insurance.”

Consider that this landscape is upending the work life of physicians with ever increasing requirements to bill, code, and document—and to sit on the phone and fight insurers for authorizations of care for their patients. One study found that nearly half of a physician’s working day now consists of time spent on the computer or doing desk work, double the proportion spent face-to-face with patients. Another study found that primary care doctors spend some four-and-a-half hours each workday glued to their computers—plus about another hour-and-a-half after they get home at night. Such a large administrative burden appears to be contributing to a rampant epidemic of physician burnout. In a 2019 Medscape poll of some 15,000 physicians, 44 percent reported experiencing burnout—and by far the leading contributing factor cited was “too many bureaucratic tasks (e.g. charting, paperwork).” Even putting professional satisfaction aside, it’s clear that our financing system generates enormous waste: in 2011, one study estimated that in the United States, we spend more than $80,000 on each physician annually merely to cover their costs of wrangling with insurers—nearly four-fold higher than in Canada. These costs are ultimately passed on to patients, but they can drain the joy out of medical practice, too.

Over the last century, our failure to achieve national health insurance—and the resultant rise of a corporate medical behemoth—has meant, far too often, the neglect of patients. Yet it also seems to be leading to a growing sense of alienation within the profession. And so, while previous generations of physicians felt they had much to lose from national health insurance, today physicians increasingly feel that they, like their patients, have much to gain from a universal system. As the political tides shift, Medicare for All will once again be within reach. This time around, rather than standing in its path, physicians may help to win it.

Dr. Adam Gaffney is a pulmonary and critical care physician and public health researcher at Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Health Alliance, and serves as president of Physicians for a National Health Program. He writes about issues of health policy and politics and is the author of “To Heal Humankind: The Right to Health in History,” published by Routledge in 2017.

https://thebaffler.com…

Publicly traded health insurers have taken over

Publicly traded health insurers' revenue nears $1 trillion mark

By Shelby Livingston
Modern Healthcare, February 18, 2020

The largest publicly traded health insurers grew profits by a combined 66% in 2019, driven by the massive mergers and acquisitions several of them completed the year before.

Those deals boosted the group of seven companies’ collective net income to $35.6 billion, according to Modern Healthcare’s analysis of company earnings reports. Combined revenue increased 31% over 2018 to $913 billion.

The combined growth of the companies’ top and bottom lines was propelled by deals with businesses other than insurance, including pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers. These deals, which have escalated in recent years as insurers have sought to exert more control over healthcare spending, have made it harder to categorize the companies as insurers. Their operations are becoming much more varied.

“There are so many places where costs come from—the PBM, the hospital, the doctor’s office—and everything is separate from each other. The vertical integration is an attempt to control more pieces of the cost while also growing scale,” said Deep Banerjee, an insurance industry analyst with S&P Global.

Even insurers are reluctant to label themselves as such as they branch out into new businesses. Cigna Corp. CEO David Cordani has said he prefers the organization to be known as a “health service company.” Cigna acquired pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts at the end of 2018.

The analysis of financial results included Anthem, Centene Corp., Cigna, CVS Health, Humana, Molina Healthcare and UnitedHealth Group.

The seven companies’ combined medical membership grew 1.7% to $165.4 million.

https://www.modernhealthcare.com…

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Those of us who have been working hard to try to make our very expensive health care system work well for everyone should take a breather and step back and look at what has been happening to the business structure of our health care delivery system.

Seven investor-owned publicly traded health insurers now control almost a trillion dollars of our health care spending. They are expanding beyond the role of insurance and becoming “health service companies.” In the last year their revenue increased by 31% whereas their profits increased at double that rate: 66%! Their combined membership is 165 million – half of the U.S. population. Seven Wall Street companies!

Buried in our agenda for improving the health financing system to make it work well for all of us is the removal of passive investors – shareholders – from the health care financing equation since the primary obligation of publicly traded corporations is to maximize profits for the shareholders even if doing do is not in the interests of patients.

Fantasize that we elect a president and a Congress that finally has an epiphany recognizing that we must enact a single payer model of an improved Medicare for All. Okay, now turn around and implement it, starting with taking control of the financing of the medical-industrial complex now controlled largely by Wall Street corporations. How on earth are we going to drain that swamp?

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

Locked out of trading in your Medicare Advantage plan for a Medigap plan

Medicare Advantage Enrollees Discover Dirty Little Secret: Getting out is a lot harder than getting in

By Cheryl Clark
MedPage Today, December 3, 2019

Like many of the 22 million seniors now enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, Tom Mills belatedly discovered its dirty little secret.

Also called Part C, these plans can cover a broad array of health services at low cost — that is, until one gets sick, at which point out-of-pocket costs can soar. But once in an MA plan, getting out can be even less affordable.

After Mills underwent a mitral valve repair and suffered a mild stroke with no lasting effects, the San Diego resident’s plan now charges him hundreds of dollars in monthly copays for drugs and other medical services. He had to pay $295 a night for his hospital stay.

But there was a much bigger shock. Mills, 71, learned that switching out of his MA plan will incur exorbitantly higher costs the next time he needs a serious medical intervention. If he moves to traditional Medicare and a prescription plan, he still needs a supplemental Medigap plan to pick up his 20% copays and deductibles.

Though the retired environmental geologist is training for his 57th half marathon, he now has a pre-existing condition. Medigap plans in all but four states (CT, MA, ME, NY) can and do reject people like him or require prohibitively higher premiums. Diabetes, heart disease, or even a knee replacement can be criteria for exclusion.

A health insurance broker told him no supplemental plan would cover him, and he’d be wasting his time if he applied.

No one told him about this side of MA when he enrolled at age 65. “You hear the pros, but nobody lists the cons.”

‘Confusing’ Tools

Medicare.gov websites aren’t always clear about the process of transferring out of MA to traditional Medicare with a Medigap plan, but the general bottom line is that getting accepted by a Medigap plan is guaranteed only within the first 12 months after enrolling in Medicare at age 65.

MA plans, which are managed by private insurers, can be very complex, with the potential for substantial out-of-pocket costs when beneficiaries get sick played down. Medigap policies, which pay for many expenses not covered in basic Medicare, may cost more in monthly premiums up front, but once one is enrolled, premiums are set solely through “community rating” and beneficiaries’ age. New-onset health issues do not lead to premium increases.

The catch is that if one initially enrolls in an MA plan and then decides to switch out more than a year later, Medigap insurers will take into account the individual’s pre-existing conditions, and may decline coverage or demand high premiums.

The newly revised Medicare Plan Finder tool does not explain this possibility. Nor does another CMS website, “Join, switch, or drop a Medicare Advantage plan.”

A third Medicare.gov website, “When can I buy Medigap?” is more specific, explaining in the third section that “there’s no guarantee that an insurance company will sell you a Medigap policy if you don’t meet the medical underwriting requirements,” meaning the Medigap issuer’s stance on pre-existing conditions.

Yet another Medicare publication does explain that if beneficiaries enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan at age 65 and want to get out, they must do so within 1 year, and then they have another 63 days from the disenrollment date to buy a Medigap plan without risk of coverage denial or being subject to underwriting.

But many of these documents are full of terms unfamiliar to ordinary laypeople, (Consultant Bonnie) Burns pointed out. “Networks and copayments and formularies and uncovered costs and appeals and who knows about that stuff? That doesn’t happen until you get sick. No one understands their insurance coverage until they have to use it.”

Besides MA’s lack of transparency on costs, critics also cite problems with insurers’ provider networks.

AMA spokesman Robert Mills referenced a Kaiser Family Foundation report that found 35% of plans studied were served by a “narrow” physician network, meaning that fewer than 30% of the physicians in that county were contracted.

“Plans may purposefully understaff specialties to avoid attracting enrollees with expensive pre-existing conditions like cancer and mental illness,” he said.

David Lipschutz, an attorney with the Center for Medicare Advocacy in Washington, D.C., also hears about limitations. “It’s a common scenario,” he said. “Often you have to jump through certain hoops or over certain barriers to access care, or it’s subject to prior authorization.”

AARP spokesman Gregory Phillips responded: “AARP supports increasing access through guaranteed issue to Medigap coverage, in addition to eliminating medical underwriting and age rating, to ensure that older Americans will get the coverage they need when they need it most.”

And he agreed that many beneficiaries may not be aware that plans “may terminate their relationship with Medicare in any given year; change the premiums, cost-sharing charges, or benefits from year to year (including drug coverage); and drop physicians from their networks during the year.”

“Beneficiaries may also not be aware that if they want to voluntarily leave an MA plan and return to traditional fee-for-service Medicare, they may be subject to medical underwriting for a Medicare supplement (Medigap) policy. This underwriting may result in their being refused a policy or being required to pay higher rates.”

https://www.medpagetoday.com…

When can I buy Medigap?

Medicare.gov

Buy a policy when you’re first eligible

The best time to buy a Medigap policy is during your 6-month Medigap open enrollment period. During that time you can buy any Medigap policy sold in your state, even if you have health problems. This period automatically starts the month you’re 65 and enrolled in Medicare Part B (Medical Insurance). After this enrollment period, you may not be able to buy a Medigap policy. If you’re able to buy one, it may cost more.

During open enrollment

Medigap insurance companies are generally allowed to use medical underwriting to decide whether to accept your application and how much to charge you for the Medigap policy. However, even if you have health problems, during your Medigap open enrollment period you can buy any policy the company sells for the same price as people with good health.

Outside open enrollment

If you apply for Medigap coverage after your open enrollment period, there’s no guarantee that an insurance company will sell you a Medigap policy if you don’t meet the medical underwriting requirements, unless you’re eligible due to one of the situations below (use link).

https://www.medicare.gov…

2019 Choosing a Medigap Policy

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

What if I decide to drop my entire Medigap policy (not just the Medigap prescription drug coverage) and join a Medicare Advantage Plan that offers prescription drug coverage?

In general, you can only join a Medicare Prescription Drug Plan or Medicare Advantage Plan (like an HMO or PPO) during the Medicare Open Enrollment Period between October 15 –December 7. If you join during Medicare Open Enrollment Period, your coverage will begin on January 1. In most cases, if you drop your Medigap policy to join a Medicare Advantage Plan, you won’t be able to get it back so pay careful attention to the timing.

This 52 page booklet has much more information about Medigap plans:
https://assets.documentcloud.org…

Medicare and You, 2020

Section 5 discusses Medigap:
https://www.medicare.gov…

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

The traditional Medicare program – Part A for hospital inpatient and Part B for physician and outpatient services – has significant cost sharing and gaps in benefits, and, most importantly, there is no limit on beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket spending for services. Four-fifths of Medicare beneficiaries in the traditional program have some sort of supplemental coverage to avoid these potentially catastrophic losses. Supplemental coverage includes employer-sponsored insurance, Medigap plans and Medicaid. Others may leave the traditional program and enroll in private Medicare Advantage plans instead.

Those who still have employer-sponsored coverage when becoming eligible for Medicare may well have satisfactory coverage, but the rules that apply when leaving an employer-sponsored plan are quite detailed and if not followed carefully, can leave the individual exposed to potentially catastrophic losses. This will not be discussed further here, but the references at the links can be helpful.

Those who end up having to spend down their assets may be eligible for supplemental coverage through Medicaid, but it may be difficult to find physicians who are willing to accept patients on Medicaid.

For most individuals who do not have an employer-sponsored plan at the time of enrolling in Medicare, either a private Medigap plan or enrolling in private Medicare Advantage are options to establish a limit on out-of-pocket costs. Medigap plans are private insurance plans that cover much of the out-of-pocket expenses under traditional Medicare, and they do place a limit on catastrophic losses. Medicare Advantage plans are completely separate private insurance plans that replace traditional Medicare coverage, but also include limits on catastrophic losses within the network, though out-of-network exposure can be a problem.

People who want to choose their own physicians and hospitals and don’t want to be burdened with managed care intrusions such as prior authorization will likely want to enroll in traditional Medicare with a Medigap supplement plus a Part D supplement for drugs. If that is the preference then that decision must be made within the initial enrollment period or risk never being able to enroll in a Medigap plan, especially if there are pre-existing conditions.

The marketing of private Medicare Advantage plans has made them attractive and thus they have grown in popularity. However, it is common that when individuals develop serious conditions they find that the plans fall far short of the care they expected and thus they want to return to the traditional Medicare program with a Medigap supplement. In such circumstances, individuals will likely find that they are unable to enroll in a Medigap plan and thus they will be subject to potentially catastrophic losses. It can be humiliating when they find that they must spend down their assets in order to enroll in Medicaid – a welfare program.

Since Medicare benefits are inadequate, rather than adding the administrative burden and extra expenses through Medigap plans and Medicare Advantage plans, it would be much better to roll the additional benefits into the traditional Medicare program. It would be less expensive while allowing patients to retain their choices of health care professionals and institutions. Besides establishing an improved Medicare we should expand it to include everyone; it would be cheaper and better for all of us. Of course that’s the single payer model of an improved Medicare for All. That’s so much better than establishing a Medigap plan and then telling people they can’t enroll in it because they didn’t follow the rules that they didn’t know about.

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

Dr. Ed Weisbart on “Single Payer and its Alternatives”

PNHP-MO chair Dr. Ed Weisbart participated in a panel, “The Future of Health Care: Single Payer and its Alternatives,” on February 18, 2020 at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center. Dr. Weisbart debated the merits of improved Medicare for All with Thomas P. Miller of the American Enterprise Institute. He argued that Medicare was an effective, efficient, and beloved program, and that it would provide an ideal foundation for a single-payer national health program.

Of course you want to give up your current healthcare plan

By George Bohmfalk, M.D.
Denton (Texas) Record-Chronicle, February 17, 2020

Contrary to Congressman Burgess’ claim in a recent congressional hearing, people should want to give up their private insurance plans.

In the Dec. 12 House Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing on Proposals to Achieve Universal Health Care Coverage, Congressman Burgess paraphrased a 2018 Gallup poll finding to say that “more than 70% of Americans like their employer-provided health insurance plans.”

Such a statement doesn’t mean much and probably isn’t true.

Employer-provided health insurance has become so expensive that people quit their jobs to qualify for Medicaid. Around a million Americans dropped their coverage as premiums rose in 2017. Women with breast cancer delay care because of high deductibles. A young diabetic is “alive today not because of insurance companies but despite them.” A college basketball coach waited in pain for two months before his insurer approved tests that diagnosed his cancer, during which time he became paralyzed.

We hear, over and over, that most Americans love their current health insurance plans and do not want to give them up for a government-financed program. That is insurance industry propaganda, and it’s not true.

Everyone cares about having their choice of doctors and hospitals. No one really cares who writes their health insurance policy. People are fond of their doctors, not Blue Cross, Anthem, WellPoint or Cigna. We all need dependable healthcare coverage at an affordable price. That is rapidly disappearing in the private marketplace.

In an August Business Insider poll, 59% of respondents said they would switch their employer-based health insurance to Medicare for All as long as it meant no change in coverage. Finally, the question was properly asked.

An even better question would be whether they would switch if they would get substantially better coverage, including prescription drugs, dental, vision and hearing care, with no deductibles or copays. And that they could keep their doctors and go to any hospital. And that they and their employer would pay less for this than they currently do.

This is the guarantee of Medicare for All. So why isn’t everyone demanding it?

First, they simply don’t know about it. Poll after poll after poll reveal that many Americans have either never heard of Medicare for All or don’t know enough to form an opinion. Others recoil from the mere idea of a government-financed program, although as they approach 65, most are eager to get on Medicare. Others fear that these promises are just too good to be true and would rather stick with a familiar, if worsening, private insurance plan.

These promises are true. Every other modern country offers universal health care for their citizens for about half of what we spend per capita. They don’t wait in long lines or have rationed care. Their health outcomes, including life expectancy, are better than ours. If you want a familiar plan, look at Medicare. It’s highly popular and efficient, with a 50-year track record. Medicare for All will be a dramatic improvement in that program, while eliminating the profound administrative waste and rationing that are part and parcel of the private insurance industry. This one-size-fits-all plan is ideal precisely because it does fit all the needs of all people.

What’s the downside? None, unless you are a highly-paid insurance company executive. We waste billions each year on a uniquely inefficient system that no serious businessperson can defend. We truly can have comprehensive, permanent, privately delivered healthcare coverage at lower cost with Medicare for All. It will benefit families and businesses. There’s not a single valid reason not to do it.

So of course you want to give up your employer-provided healthcare plan. It’s failing you, your employer, and your family. It’s failing the country. It’s rapidly becoming unaffordable. It’s restricting your choice of doctors and hospitals. It’s benefiting insurance executives and shareholders at the expense of your health, wages and pocketbook. Tell Congressman Burgess and other representatives that you want to give it up soon, for truly protective and efficient Medicare for All.

Dr. George Bohmfalk practiced neurosurgery in Texarkana and is a member of PNHP, Physicians for a National Health Program. He may be contacted at improvedmcare4all@gmail.com.

https://dentonrc.com…

13% reduction in health care costs projected for Sanders Medicare-for-All Act

Improving the prognosis of health care in the USA

By Alison Galvani, Alyssa Parpia, Eric Foster, Burton Singer, and Meagan Fitzpatrick
Lancet, February 15, 2020

Abstract

… Efforts are ongoing to repeal the Affordable Care Act which would exacerbate health-care inequities. By contrast, a universal system, such as that proposed in the Medicare for All Act, has the potential to transform the availability and efficiency of American health-care services.

Taking into account both the costs of coverage expansion and the savings that would be achieved through the Medicare for All Act, we calculate that a single-payer, universal health-care system is likely to lead to a 13% savings in national health-care expenditure, equivalent to more than US$450 billion annually. The entire system could be funded with less financial outlay than is incurred by employers and households paying for health-care premiums combined with existing government allocations.

This shift to single payer health care would provide the greatest relief to lower-income households. Furthermore, we estimate that ensuring health-care access for all Americans would save more than 68 000 lives and 1·73 million life-years every year compared with the status quo.

Time to act

As public support for health-care reform mounts in the USA, legislators are poised to transform the healthcare system and save thousands of lives every year. Single-payer universal health care has the potential to improve the quality, cost-effectiveness, and accessibility of medical services.

Our projections indicate that implementing the Medicare for All Act specifically would generate net savings across a wide range of possible expenditure and financing options. Objections to the Medicare for All Act based on the expectation of rising costs are mistaken.

Some Americans express concern about the federal government controlling this large sector of the economy, or about violating capitalist principles. However, the health-care sector is already highly regulated in many aspects, and deviates from capitalist ideals through opaque and often monopolistic pricing.

Strong opposition should be expected from powerful vested interests, including the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Counterbalancing these concerns is the moral imperative to provide health care as a human right, not dependent on employment or affluence.

The medical community should seize this opportunity to promote wellbeing, enhance prosperity, and establish a more equitable health-care system for all Americans.

The paywall has been removed and the full article is now available:
HTML: https://www.thelancet.com…
PDF: https://www.thelancet.com…

Comment:

By James G. Kahn, M.D., M.P.H., Emeritus Professor, Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California San Francisco

This important economic study of the Medicare for All Act (MAA, Sanders), in the prominent journal Lancet, is the first cost analysis of single payer in the medical literature since 1991, and the most extensive ever.

It’s notable and valuable for four reasons:

First, it projects that single payer – as crafted for the MAA – will save money, likely lots of money – 13% of current health care spending. This level of savings is more than current out-of-pocket costs. Therefore, new revenue just needs to cover current premium payments, and that’s relatively easy with a combination of payroll, income, and wealth taxes.

Second, the findings are consistent with cost estimates from 1990-2018, which we reviewed recently in PLoS Medicine: 19 of 22 analyses projected savings in the first year of single payer. This concurrence of rigorously peer-reviewed studies is very encouraging.

Third, the authors provide an online calculator, so that skeptics and quant geeks can explore the effects of different input values. This is standard fare for decision and cost-effectiveness models in medicine, but rarely done for economic models of single payer costs. It’s a very important resource.

Finally, the authors review the real reason we want single payer: improved health. They estimate tens of thousands of deaths averted per year, important synergies between health and prosperity (including less opioid use), and an improved care experience with free choice of doctors and continuity of care – no more insurance changes requiring a new provider network.

There’s a broadness of scope and richness of detail in this article. Single payer opponents will no doubt pick some details to dispute, but ignore that diversion.

Read and enjoy the article, and check out the online calculator.

Tell your friends: single payer saves money and lives. It defies the economic dictum, “there is no free lunch” – we can both have universal health care, and pay less for the privilege.

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

Medicare for All Explained Podcast: Episode 28

Interview with Dr. Susan Rogers

February 15, 2020

Dr. Susan Rogers, president-elect of PNHP, outlines the history of racism and segregation in the U.S. and connects that history to ongoing racial health inequities. She says guaranteed coverage is a necessary first step in addressing these inequities. Hosted by Joseph Sparks. Additional episodes will be uploaded twice monthly. Subscribe in iTunes, or access a complete archive of the podcast, below.

https://medicareforallexplained.podbean.com

Americans agree on reforming health care but undecided on how

Taking the Pulse: Where Americans Agree on Improving Health Care

Public Agenda, February 5, 2020

The main findings from this research are:

1. Americans across political affiliations are calling for substantial changes to the health care system, including those who are satisfied with their current insurance.

2. Americans across the political spectrum share many of the same goals for health care, beginning with making it more affordable for ordinary people — perhaps because half of Americans have experienced serious financial difficulties due to health care or know someone who has. Other important shared goals include covering pre-existing conditions and covering long-term care.

3. The survey asked people to consider four approaches to health care reform. Of those, a public option-type plan is supported by a majority of Democrats while Republicans are split on it. A Medicare for All-type plan is also popular with Democrats but opposed by most Republicans. A market-based approach appeals to about half of Republicans and a plurality of Democrats. Giving states more responsibility for health care garners the least support overall.

4. As people grapple with the four approaches, common ground on protecting people with pre-existing conditions emerges strongly. Democrats are more comfortable with using tax increases to fund health care and with a larger role for the federal government than Republicans are, while Republicans particularly value consumer choice.

The data also suggest that the opinions of many Americans on health care are not set in stone. A quarter of Americans say they do not yet know enough to have an opinion about the various plans tested in this survey. Furthermore, we found that people themselves say that their support for various health care reform plans may change as they consider the implications of those plans. This signals substantial room for people’s views to evolve as they learn and deliberate, suggesting a crucial role for the news media in bringing forth the best evidence on what works to achieve America’s shared health care goals.

Questionnaire

As you may know, there are several proposals to make changes to the nation’s health care system. In general, which of the following comes closest to your opinion about the country’s current health care system overall?

Make major changes or redesign it completely
60 – Republican
64 – Democrat
65 – Independent

In order to improve health care in the United States, how important are the following to you?

Lowering the cost of prescription drugs
91 – Republican
98 – Democrat
96 – Independent

Improving the quality of health care
83 – Republican
95 – Democrat
90 – Independent

Making sure all Americans have health insurance coverage
72 – Republican
95 – Democrat
83 – Independent

Making sure all communities have access to enough doctors and hospitals
89 – Republican
97 – Democrat
93 – Independent

Covering treatment for mental health and addiction services
82 – Republican
98 – Democrat
88 – Independent

Covering long-term care for the elderly and disabled
91 – Republican
98 – Democrat
94 – Independent

Making sure people with pre-existing medical conditions can get affordable health insurance
90 – Republican
98 – Democrat
95 – Independent

Making health care more affordable for ordinary Americans
92 – Republican
98 – Democrat
97 – Independent

Making sure that lower-income people have about the same quality of basic care as higher-income people
84 – Republican
97 – Democrat
87 – Independent

One idea would create a new federal health insurance program that gives people a new option beyond what’s currently available in the private insurance marketplace. Any adult could buy into the program on a sliding scale (those with less money pay less, those with more money pay more).
Which of the following comes closest to how you feel about this idea?

I would support it or probably support it
37 – Republican
61 – Democrat
46 – Independent

Another idea would create a single federal health insurance program that automatically covers all Americans, replacing all private and employer-provided insurance. This program would be completely free for individuals and families; instead, it would be paid for through taxes.

I would support it or probably support it
22 – Republican
65 – Democrat
38 – Independent

Another idea would use tax incentives to encourage people to save money for their health needs. It would also require doctors and hospitals to post prices clearly so people can shop for the best deal, and it would deregulate insurance companies to spur development of new, low-cost options like short-term, minimal-coverage, or high deductible policies.

I would support it or probably support it
55 – Republican
41 – Democrat
51 – Independent

Another idea would shift more responsibility, resources and authority for health care reform from the federal government to the states. State policymakers could then decide on the reforms that would make the most sense for their residents.

I would support it or probably support it
46 – Republican
37 – Democrat
34 – Independent

Report:
https://www.publicagenda.org…

Topline:
https://www.publicagenda.org…

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

This survey provides very convincing evidence that Americans across the political spectrum are in strong agreement that our health care system needs changes. They agree especially on making care more affordable, making sure all Americans have health insurance coverage, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, ensuring access to doctors and hospitals, covering mental health and addiction services, covering long-term care, guaranteeing coverage for pre-existing disorders, and making sure that lower-income people have the same quality of basic care as higher-income people.

In contrast, of four basic models of reform – public option, national single payer, private consumer-driven health care, and state-based reform – there is no uniform support across the political spectrum. The strongest support is that 65 percent of Democrats support national single payer. Also, 61 percent of Democrats support a public option, while 55 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of Independents support consumer-driven health care.

There is a problem with these numbers. Though there is a division on which model of reform should be supported, there is only one model that would achieve the specific reform on which there is very strong agreement. That model, of course, is single payer. Single payer could also be established at the state level with enabling federal legislation, but state solutions have the weakest support.

About one-fourth of respondents indicated that they did not have enough information to make a decision on these models (Topline link above). Many indicated that they could change their mind based on various potential policy impacts. Also there is the perennial problem that people may know what they know, but they frequently do not know what they don’t know, and that is especially true when considering the complexities of health policy.

The public does need to be better informed on policies that would actually work to bring us the high performance health care system that they desire. Our task is made more difficult in this day in which obfuscation and deception have seemed to become the norm for the opponents of health care justice for all. We need a fact-based national dialogue on reform, and we need it now. Otherwise we’re in for more of the same.

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

Nevada’s Culinary Union opposes Medicare for All to the detriment of their members

Culinary Union says Bernie Sanders would end its health care

By Kate Sullivan
CNN, February 12, 2020

The influential Culinary Union distributed a flier that says Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders would “End Culinary Healthcare” if elected president of the United States.

The flier, obtained by CNN on Tuesday, outlines where the leading 2020 Democratic candidates stand on health care, immigration and “Good Jobs.” It singles out Sanders as the candidate who will end the union’s health care among the top six Democratic candidates, pointing to his “Medicare for All” plan.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and businessman Tom Steyer are expected to “Protect Culinary Healthcare,” according to the flier.

https://www.cnn.com…

Statement by Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer Geoconda Arguello-Kline

Culinary Workers Union Local 226, Press Release, February 12, 2020

The Culinary Union is Nevada’s union and largest immigrant organization with members who come from 178 countries and speak over 40 different languages. Our union is comprised of majority women, and we are proud to have changed the lives of over 800,000 hospitality workers in 85 years through rank-and-file organizing and mass actions.

Culinary Union members are empowered to engage in democracy – whether at the bargaining table, while canvassing in neighborhoods, or on the streets in the desert heat – we fight for workers across Nevada, union and non-union alike.

We have welcomed Senator Bernie Sanders into our union for a town hall with Culinary Union members, and we hosted tours of the Culinary Health Center and the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas with Senator Sanders, to show what we have fought for and won.

Our union believes that everyone has the right to good healthcare and that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. We have already enacted a vision for what working people need – and it exists now. Workers should have the right to choose to keep the healthcare Culinary Union members have built, sacrificed for, and went on strike for 6 years, 4 months, and 10 days to protect.

It’s disappointing that Senator Sanders’ supporters have viciously attacked the Culinary Union and working families in Nevada simply because our union has provided facts on what certain healthcare proposals might do to take away the system of care we have built over 8 decades.

We have always stood up for what we believe in and will continue to do so. The Culinary Union has faced some of the toughest companies who wanted to break our union, and even the President of the United States Donald Trump – and won.

Together, we will figure out the best way to fix healthcare in America, and the Culinary Union is committed to fighting until we win for everyone.

https://www.culinaryunion226.org…

Culinary Health Fund: Las Vegas Plan Unit 150

Weʼre the Culinary Health Fund. The Fund provides healthcare benefits (insurance) to culinary workers in Las Vegas. We provide medical, dental, pharmacy and eye care benefits. The Culinary Health Fund is a multi-employer Taft-Hartley Fund. We were established in 1981. We’re funded by collective bargaining agreements that are negotiated by unions and funded by employers.

The Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC) document shows you how you and the plan would share the cost for covered health care services.

Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC)

(Edited excerpts from a seven page document. Parenthetical comments are by Don McCanne and are based on PNHP’s Physicians’ Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform, sometimes referred to as single payer Medicare for All which is very similar to the legislative proposals of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal.)

• The plan type is a PPO (Preferred Provider Organization). It is a form of managed care that uses a provider network.

(Single payer Medicare for All – M4A – is not a managed care entity. It includes all physicians, hospitals and other health care facilities such as laboratories and radiology services.)

• This plan uses a provider network. You will pay less if you use a provider in the plan’s PPO network. You will pay the most if you use a Non-PPO provider, and you might receive a bill from a Non-PPO provider for the difference between the Non-PPO provider’s charge and what your plan pays (balance billing). Be aware, your PPO network provider might use a Non-PPO provider for some services (such as lab work). Check with your provider before you get services.

(M4A does not use a PPO network. It pays in full the publicly administered prices for all covered services. The patient pays nothing.)

• No deductible is required for covered services. This does not apply to non-PPO providers.

(Under M4A, there are no deductibles and since there are no networks there are never any deductibles.)

• There are copayments required for primary care visits ($15), specialist visits ($30), X-rays ($20 to $45), blood work ($0 to $15), CT/MRI ($125), PET scan ($175 to $225), drugs ($10 to $35 and 25% coinsurance for Tier 4 drugs), outpatient surgery ($150 to $250), emergency room care ($350), emergency medical transportation (25% coinsurance for ground, $500 copay for air), urgent care ($40), hospital admission ($250), mental health/substance abuse (outpatient $0 to $15; partial admission $150; inpatient $250), childbirth facility ($250), home health care ($0), Rehabilitation ($250 inpatient; $20 to $40 outpatient), skilled nursing care ($250), durable medical equipment (10% coinsurance), hospice ($0), and children’s eye exam ($20). Non-PPO providers are not covered for any of these services except for a $2000 copay and 40% coinsurance of allowed charges for hospital facility fee, inpatient mental health services, and childbirth facility fee.

(Under M4A, there are no copayments nor coinsurance fees, and there is no out-of-network care since all professionals and facilities are covered. The patient pays nothing to access these services and products.)

• The out-of-pocket limit that the patient must pay is $6,350 individual / $12,700 family. Premiums, balance billing, and out-of-network care do not apply to the out-of-pocket limit, and thus the financial exposure to the patient could be much greater.

(Under M4A, there are no premiums, deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, out-of-network care, surprise bills or balance billing and thus there is no need to establish an out-of-pocket limit. The only payment made is a tax contribution based on ability to pay – a progressive tax – which may be as little as $0. Thus health care is affordable for everyone.)

• Services that are not covered include bariatric surgery, cosmetic surgery, infertility treatment, long term care, non-emergency care when traveling outside of the U.S., private duty nursing, and weight loss programs.

(Under M4A, with the exception of vanity cosmetic surgery, most of these services are covered when they are legitimately indicated. Long term care, management of obesity, bariatric surgery, and infertility treatment are particularly important services that should be covered, and they are under M4A.)

• You do not need a referral to see a specialist, but you might receive a bill from a Non-PPO provider for the difference between the Non-PPO provider’s charge and what your plan pays (balance billing). Be aware, your PPO network provider might use a Non-PPO provider for some services (such as lab work). Check with your provider before you get services.

(Under M4A, there is no balance billing and no surprise medical bills.)

• Employees must work 240 hours every two months to maintain health benefits. For those who work fewer hours, it may be possible to continue the benefits through self-pay, but that can be a problem at a time that income is reduced.

(Under M4A, coverage is automatic, forever, even for those who have no income. Health benefits should be totally de-linked from employment, especially since this is an unstable source of coverage as over 60 million people leave their jobs each year.)

https://www.culinaryhealthfund.org…

PNHP’s Physicians’ Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform:
https://pnhp.org…

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

The Culinary Union is opposed to single payer Medicare for All because they went on a strike for six years to protect the coverage they have? Well, that’s a non sequitur. Rather they should be comparing their current coverage with the single payer model of Medicare for All and decide their support on that basis.

They would find that the single payer benefits are significantly better; financial barriers to care are eliminated; they would have free choice of physicians and hospitals rather than being limited to a network; the coverage would be stable – for life, and the costs would be significantly less for the beneficiaries because the system would be funded through progressive taxes making it less expensive for those with modest incomes, plus single payer efficiencies would recover profound administrative waste currently estimated to be about $600 billion of our annual national health expenditures.

Perhaps the most important reason that they should reconsider their position on single payer Medicare for All is that, as a strong and effective union, they should be able to negotiate with the employers a deal that will cost the employers no more than what they are already paying, but a deal that will greatly benefit the employees. The employers should agree to give their employees a pay raise equivalent to the current insurance premium that they will no longer be paying, minus any health care tax that they would be required to pay under a single payer system. The employers will be paying the same whereas the employees will receive a much better health plan plus a net pay increase equivalent to the total pay raise negotiated with the employers minus the health tax paid by the employee which would be quite modest because it would be based on their modest incomes. Much better insurance plus a significant pay raise – how can you beat that?

In their release they state, “we will figure out the best way to fix healthcare in America, and the Culinary Union is committed to fighting until we win for everyone.” Even though their plan is quite good by today’s standards for private plans, it is still deficient compared to what they could have. And fighting to protect their existing plan will do nothing to provide “a win for everyone.”

We really want our sisters and brothers in the Culinary Union to have the best in health care plus a pay raise, but they are going to have to use their negotiating strength to achieve that, convincing the employers that they have nothing to lose, but they actually gain by being relieved of their obligation to provide health care benefits as part of the employees’ compensation packages. If the union members read this brief analysis of their current plan and the potential of single payer Medicare for All, maybe they’ll decide to do the right thing for themselves, which will then benefit all of us – that “win for everyone” they support.

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

Medicare for All could also provide pay increases for workers

The Seventh Annual Global Health Economics Colloquium: Medicare-for-All: How to Do It Right

Financing Medicare for All

By Gabriel Zucman
January 24, 2020

  • Full private funding of health care is impossible because of its high costs
  • Premiums for employer-sponsored plans are a privatized poll tax
  • A tax because it’s mandatory (over 50 employees) and reduces wages
  • A poll tax because all pay the same regardless of income
  • A privatized tax because it is managed by employers
  • For the middle class, health insurance is the biggest tax they pay
  • Solution: replace insurance premiums (poll tax) by taxes based on ability to pay
  • Convert current premiums to additional employee wages
  • Broad-base flat tax on all income. 6% rate enough to replace all private premiums.
  • Can be supplemented with progressive taxes
  • Biggest take-home pay increase in a generation for working families

22 minute video, with PPT:
https://ucsf.app.box.com…

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Gabriel Zucman, along with his colleagues Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, have demonstrated the injustices of income and wealth inequality and have suggested ways to remedy these injustices. The profound inequities of health care financing in the United States provide an opportunity to use tax policies to painlessly move in the direction of improving equity in both income and in health care. Here Gabriel Zucman provides one example of how that could be done.

If employers converted their current health insurance premiums to employee pay increases, there would be no net cost to the employers. Zucman estimates that a six percent tax on income would be enough to pay for the additional costs of single payer Medicare for All. That six percent tax would be considerably less than the premiums currently paid by payroll deductions and forgone wage increases. Thus the net result would be the biggest take-home pay increase in a generation for working families, helping to favorably reset the current inequities in income.

This is only one example of how tax policy can be used to make health care affordable for each and everyone of us. Most importantly we can refute those who say that we cannot afford single payer Medicare for All. On the contrary, we cannot afford not to enact and implement it.

There is a message here for those union executives who are fighting single-payer Medicare for All. You can help by seeing that this message is delivered to them.

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