PNHP

Single Payer Isn’t Dead: How States Are Keeping the Movement Alive

Single Payer Isn’t Dead: How States Are Keeping the Movement Alive

By Michael Corcoran
truthout | Op-Ed
Monday 02 August 2010

The grassroots single-payer movement in Vermont reflects the growing belief that the fight to make health care a human right must come from the states. But will the passage of federal reform get in the way?

When Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act  in March, many thought the long and tedious stretch of legislative wrangling and endless debates about health care reform had come to an end and the prospects for further meaningful reform would be shelved for years or decades.

But while the country was consumed with the incredibly narrow debate  in DC, dictated largely by drug and insurance lobbyists, anti-abortion politicians and a collection of conservative Democratic senators with close ties to the insurance and drug industries, another significant health care battle was taking place hundreds of miles to the north, in the tiny little state of Vermont, population, 600,000. By the time Obama signed a federal health care bill into law, the Vermont Workers’ Center was almost two years into its “Healthcare is a Human Rights campaign,” which had the unambiguous goal of abolishing for-profit health care in the state and passing a statewide, single-payer health care system that guarantees health care as a right to all Vermonters. In May, the Vermont Legislature, under constant pressure from this growing people’s movement, passed a bill that could possibly lead to Vermont being the first state to pass a single-payer health care system, setting up what could be a crucial phase of the fight for health care justice.

If Vermont is able to break this ground, the implications could reverberate well past the borders of the Green Mountain State. The fight for statewide single-payer here reflects a growing belief among health care activists that the path to a universal public system, will not take place in Washington, DC, where moneyed interests have a death grip on the legislative process, but through state houses across the country. Further, the effort in Vermont may prove to be the first test case of the “state innovation” language in the federal reform bill and could indicate if Obamacare will ultimately serve to enable statewide single-payer systems or if it will kill them. Finally, the movement in Vermont also highlights a fascinating debate over the rhetoric of health care reform. Should advocates point to the significant savings associated with single-payer health care and the unsustainability of the current system? Or should the primary emphasis view the fight for public health care as a matter of basic human rights?

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Federal Reform: A “Distraction” to the Fight for Health Care Justice

For the last year, James Haslam, long-time director of the Vermont Workers’ Center, paid only scant attention to the massive fight in Washington over health care reform. “In many ways the argument in Washington was something of a distraction for us,” he said in an interview with Truthout, from his home in Burlington Vermont. “The debate gave some people the impression that healthcare would be fixed. But to us it was clear that what they did in Washington does not address the crisis, because they preserved the current profit system. We thought it was important to define healthcare as a human right.”

Indeed, the reform that eventually passed in DC is memorable not only for its scale – some $900 billion in federal spending over ten years – but also the fact that it failed to fundamentally change the private, for-profit basis of the United Sates woeful health care system, which leaves more than 46 million without insurance and is the most expensive in the world. Not only did Congress fail to even consider some kind of public, guaranteed, universal system, the likes of which exists in every developed nation on the planet, but progressives could not even muster through Congress a minuscule “public option,” that had been understood as the major consolation prize that would ensure liberal/left support for Obama’s health care reform.

So the Workers’ Center, unlike many progressive organizations, chose not to rally on behalf of federal reform and instead dutifully set out to “get people to think about healthcare as a human right,” as Haslam describes it. The first year of the campaign began ever so cautiously. Rather than narrowly focus on a specific piece of legislation, or even the details of single-payer health care, organizers simply made their way across the state, passing out surveys and listening to stories from those who had been left behind by the health care system. Many of them were from the tens of thousands of uninsured Vermont men, women and children.

The group held hearings in every corner of the state – from St. Albans to Brattleboro – and heard gut-wrenching story after gut-wrenching story: women who stayed in abusive relationships so their children would not lose health insurance; a hobbled logger who continued to work one of the world’s most dangerous jobs on a bad knee with no insurance (“life is scarier when you step out of the woods,” he said); families with insurance still facing bankruptcy, because the coverage did not protect them from financial ruin.

“From talking to people, we came to learn that people in Vermont really did believe that healthcare was something that everyone should have and that it should not be treated as a commodity,” Haslam said, noting that 95 percent of those polled by the Workers’ Center, believed health care to be a human right.

A Different Approach

At the core of every action and statement made by the Workers’ Center, was its emphasis on human rights. It is noteworthy just how much this approach differed from reform efforts in Washington. While Democrats in DC were obsessing over “bending the cost curve,” cutting the deficit, and other technical (though vitally important) elements of health care reform, in Vermont, the bulk of the rhetoric used avoided that approach. The Workers’ Center often cited the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and held events to correspond with its anniversary.

Anja Rudiger, the Right to Health Program coordinator for the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative, has assisted with health care campaigns in Vermont and elsewhere. She says the language of human rights is being adopted by an increasing number of organizations and individuals as they attempt to build movements.

“A human rights focus puts humans at the center. It is about people’s experiences and about people’s needs and it is a very powerful approach to get people in all kinds of communities involved,” she said in an interview with Truthout.

This approach may seem simple, but it does take discipline. After all, the finances of statewide single payer remain persuasive. According to a study commissioned by the Vermont Legislature in 2006, Vermont would save $51 million a year if it switched to single payer. Still, Haslam insists, the focus should not be on cold economics. “It’s important that the debate over healthcare reform not only be about how to finance a system,” he said.

The difference in rhetoric – and policy goals – is not the only reason why reform in Vermont is so different than in DC. While reform in Washington was largely hammered out in closed-door meetings between politicians and industry officials, in Vermont, the drive for change has come from the bottom up – at rallies, committee hearings and parades. “In Vermont, a few hundred votes can make the difference for a politician,” Haslam said. “The people have a much larger voice on what goes on than in Washington … we had people from our campaign at almost every single related committee meeting, telling their stories.”

Building the System

Even in Vermont – home to a self-identified socialist senator and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream – passing single payer will be no easy task. A bill that could have been a stepping stone to single payer was passed in 2005, only to be vetoed by Gov. Jim Douglas. This led to a private-public compromise, Catamount Health, that has been hampered by state budget issues, ever-rising premiums and low enrollment.

With Governor Douglas not seeking re-election, single-payer activists are no doubt keeping a close eye on the 2010 Vermont gubernatorial race, which is expected to be a battle between Vermont’s conservative Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie and the winner of a hotly contested democratic primary. Organizers express optimism that any of the Democratic front-runners will be favorable to their position. Senate President pro-tempore. Peter Shumlin, who in July received a key endorsement from former president of Physicians for a National Health Program Deb Richter,  may be the most friendly to the cause. In a letter to the Barre Montpelier Times Argus, Richter and other health professionals called Shumlin, “the only candidate who has shown unwavering support for a publicly financed universal health care system in Vermont.” (A similar dynamic exists in California, where the Legislature has passed single-payer bills twice in recent years to have them met with vetoes from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is termed out in 2010).

“Whoever is the governor, we think we can work with them to pass a bill,” Haslam says, confidently. Nonetheless, others have lingering fears that the Legislature will punt by passing another half-measure, or using federal reform as an excuse to hold off on anything dramatic. Others fear Dubie, who polls ahead of all the Democrats, may win the election and simply veto any meaningful reform.

But despite the many political obstacles, the Workers’ Center continued to fight, and at the end of the 2009 legislative session, got behind S.88, which calls for three health care systems – all to be based on human rights principles – to be designed. Among the three systems to be designed will be a single-payer system and organizers’ hope is that S.88 will lead to a new health care system in the near future.

While the grassroots movement may be focused on human rights, designing a system will require a hard look at the economics of dramatic reform. And to handle this task, the Vermont Joint Fiscal Committee (which handles legislative business when the session is out), has assigned Dr. William Hsiao, the creator of the much-praised Taiwanese health care system, which has dramatically lowered costs and increased coverage since it was implemented in 1996.

Single-payer activists have celebrated this selection as a sign that the Legislature is serious about reform. “We are at the door step of history,” noted Walter Carpenter, a volunteer for the Workers’ Center.

For Carpenter, a Montpelier resident who nearly died at the hands of the system when he suffered liver disease, the issue is personal. “In the last of my four operations for liver disease, I had lost my job, was turning yellow again and had to negotiate the price of my own life,” he told Truthout.

Will Obamacare Derail Statewide Single-Payer Efforts?

Perhaps, the worst possible conclusion would be if a movement in Vermont managed to secure a historic health care victory, only to be killed by the very federal health care reform that some overzealous commentators praised as “the greatest social achievement of our time.”

But this is entirely plausible. One major element of planning a new system is dealing with the federal government. The final version of federal reform includes “state innovation” language that address the ability of states to create their own health care systems. These systems, according to a memo by the Center for Policy Analysis, “could delay implementation of state single-payer plans.” Igor Volsky, writing for Think Progress, says the federal reform might be “a major set back for single-payer advocates”:

“States that still chose to pursue their own plan, will have to reconcile their programs with the federal requirements for Medicare, Medicaid, FEHBP, Indian Health Service and, most importantly ERISA – a 1974 law that, among other things, preempts states from enacting legislation that is “related to” employee benefit plans … States will have to go to Congress if their reform affects the health insurance offered by large employers.”

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) had pushed hard to include an ERISA waiver, but it was dropped from the final bill – yet another painful example of progressive impotence in this legislative process. More trouble for statewide single-payer advocates occurred when the date for when states could opt out and make their own systems was pushed back from 2014 to 2017 – three years after statewide exchanges will go into effect.

This, according to Michael Briggs, communications director for Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-Vermont), was an unfortunate and inexplicable tweak to the final bill. “Bernie (Sanders) has encouraged statewide single-payer for years. He was the one who pushed for and implemented provisions that would allow states to experiment. But, for complicated reasons I don’t fully understand, the date that these states could start experimenting was pushed back until 2017,” he said in an interview with Truthout.

This could mean that even if Vermont is able to pass through a single-payer bill in one of the next legislative sessions, it may require an act of Congress – a place notorious for not even giving single payer a passing glance – to allow such a transformation to take place. It is hard to grasp what a cruel irony it would be if Obama’s health care legislation became the death nail for statewide single-payer movements across the country.

But not all are so pessimistic. Dr. Hsiao, in an interview with Truthout, said he felt the new federal legislation, “left quite a bit of room for state innovations,” and was confident the state could secure the needed waivers should Vermont push legislation through.

Senator Sanders, too, has encouraged Vermonters to push through a bill. “As a long-time advocate of single-payer I’m glad the state is going to have a study,” Senator Sanders told The Nation. “I think the result of it will show that the most cost-effective way to provide universal, comprehensive health care to every Vermonter is through a single-payer approach. What the Vermont legislature has done is very important, very positive and I strongly support their efforts.”

Sanders added that he “will be going right into the President’s office and making the fight on the floor of the Senate that Vermont should be able to become a laboratory and go forward with a single-payer program. And I think if it works in Vermont many other states will want to do the same thing.”

Could Vermont Lead the Way?

Sanders has a point. Washington has proven to be entirely unwilling, or incapable, of truly standing up to entrenched special interests. Indeed, the Canadian single-payer health care system was created in much the same way as Sanders envisions for the United States, with one province taking the lead and others following in turn as the positive impacts became obvious. “Vermont, being a smaller state could be a demonstration site. And it can show states across the country how we can bend the cost curve,” said Hsaio.

“The battle for healthcare as a human right in Vermont is also really a battle for healthcare for people all over the country,” Haslam said.

This is precisely why the battle for single-payer health care in Vermont ought to be seen as a national struggle. The reform talks in Vermont may not involve close to a trillion dollars, but the type of change that could come out could represent a fundamental change in the way a state delivers and finances health care. And if it works, it could spread.

In fact, formidable statewide single-payer movements are forming all over the country and making the case that health care should be a human right – in Montana, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Minnesota, Maryland, California,  and elsewhere. It is clear that private, for-profit health care is unsustainable and that Washington, DC, is not capable of addressing the issue. So, the responsibility to end this crisis now falls on grassroots movements across the states. Will Vermont be the first domino to fall?

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Threat of destabilization of the private insurance market

Covering New Ground in Health System Shift

By Robert Pear
The New York Times
August 2, 2010
Administration officials are eager to demonstrate and deliver what they see as the benefits of the new law (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). But they face a delicate task: they do not want to destabilize or disrupt the existing market in a way that makes insurance less available or more expensive to consumers.
For the moment, President Obama has the upper hand. Congress gave him sweeping power to regulate the industry for the benefit of consumers. Administration officials said they would be tough on the industry, but, for the law to succeed, they need large numbers of insurance companies to compete in the new regulated marketplace.
Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at the Health Policy Institute of Georgetown University, said: “In 2014, we can say good riddance to bottom-feeder insurance plans, which have built a business around selling policies to healthy young people. They often provide inadequate coverage when people get sick. But if these plans pull out of the market before 2014, we want to be sure that viable alternatives are available.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/health/policy/03insurance.html?hp

“…bottom-feeder insurance plans, which have built a business around selling policies to healthy young people (and which) often provide inadequate coverage when people get sick…” That quotation describes the products being sold in the individual insurance market by WellPoint, the largest insurer in the nation.
Imagine WellPoint improving those plans so that they do provide adequate benefits, with a choice of physicians and hospitals, without excessive cost sharing, and that they would include everyone regardless of preexisting conditions. Imagine the premiums that they would have to charge. Then imagine many companies developing similar quality insurance products to create a robust market of plan choices within the insurance exchanges.
Keep imagining because these products will have to exist only in our minds since the private insurance industry will never again be able to make them a reality if they are going to cover everyone with premiums we can afford.
For those who have employer-sponsored plans that seem to be working, keep in mind that these plans have cherry picked the large but highly select group of the inexpensive healthy workforce and their young healthy families. Also keep in mind that the employee cost of these plans is not only the payroll deduction, but also the forgone wage increases that pay for the employer contribution, and now to be added are the taxes that will be paid to support the subsidies for those who purchase their plans through the exchanges. Nobody is getting off cheap.
If the Obama administration is going to “regulate the industry for the benefit of consumers,” then they can’t help but “destabilize or disrupt the existing market in a way that makes insurance less available or more expensive to consumers.”
Why should we worry about a destabilized market of private plans, when our real concern is how are we going to pay for the health care that any of us might need? The obvious solution would be to replace the private plans with a single payer national health program – an improved Medicare for all. The fate of the private insurers should be the least of our concerns.

Sen. Sanders to introduce bill for single payer waiver

Sanders promises to seek health care waiver from Obama for Vermont

By Susan Smallheer
Rutland Herald
August 1, 2010

U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., pledged to personally take Vermont’s case for a statewide single-payer health care system to President Obama if the Legislature authorizes it next year.

Sanders, speaking at a health care rally at the Hetty Green Park in downtown Bellows Falls on Saturday afternoon, said that he and other members of Congress would also introduce legislation that would roll back to 2014 the current 2017 restriction for states to apply for a waiver in order to implement their own systems. He said Democratic Reps. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and John Conyers of Michigan would be co-sponsoring the legislation with him.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100801/NEWS02/708019832/1003/NEWS02

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

Although the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would allow states to apply for waivers to implement their own systems, they cannot do so until 2017, three years after they are required to implement the private insurance exchanges. Many have asked if Sen. Sanders still intends to introduce legislation to move that date up so that states would not have to set up the exchanges only to replace them soon thereafter with a single payer system. The answer is yes.

Strengthen Medicare and expand it to everyone

By Dr. Carol Paris
South Maryland Newspapers
Friday, July 30, 2010

Today, July 30, marks the 45th birthday of the Medicare program. Since the passage of this landmark legislation in 1965, Medicare has substantially lowered poverty among the elderly in our country, reducing the dilemma of having to choose between buying needed health care or buying groceries. While the cost of health care keeps rising, the cost is rising more slowly for those on Medicare than for those with private health insurance.

Overall, our nation’s health care costs are rising 2.5 percent faster than our gross domestic product and are a leading cause of our financial deficit. The recent legislation, misleadingly titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, lacks proven cost controls and was predicted in April by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to cause U.S. health care costs to rise faster than if there had been no reform at all.

Yes, millions more Americans will leave the ranks of the uninsured, but only to join the ranks of the underinsured. In other words, they will be mandated to purchase health insurance products that are barely affordable and far from comprehensive. This, of course, protects the profits of the private health insurance industry.

Has anyone reading this letter had their health insurance premium go up this year? Their co-pays? Their deductibles?

Make no mistake, the private health insurance industry wrote the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, they spent millions lobbying Congress to get it passed according to their specifications, and now they even have an insider hired by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to write the regulations.

A recent physician survey by MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society, revealed that nearly 77 percent of respondents considered moving their practice to another state, closing their practice, retiring early or converting to a fee-for-service only, in order to eliminate the costly and infuriating hassle of dealing with multiple insurance company protocols that get in the way of providing necessary medical care for their patients.

Patients aren’t satisfied. Providers aren’t satisfied. Insurance companies are very satisfied. And politicians’ campaign coffers are growing with their cut of the insurance companies’ profits.

When we, as a nation, decide to improve and strengthen our Medicare program and expand it to everyone living in the United States, we will achieve universal coverage, we will reduce the national debt, and we will improve the health and well-being of patients and providers alike. Happy birthday, Medicare.

If you would like to help accomplish this goal, please go to www.healthcare-now.org and join. We need your time, your donations and your votes.

The writer is a member of the Maryland Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program.

http://www.somdnews.com/stories/07302010/entelet163234_32300.shtml

Despite health-care reform, system remains broken

By Joseph Birnbaum
Times Herald-Record (Middletown, N.Y.), Aug. 1, 2010

I was impressed with Dr. Teitelbaum’s expressed concerns (“CEO wants fix for health-care system,” TH-R, July 26) regarding the new health reform law being touted by Rep. Hall and the current administration.

Teitelbaum has created and manages a large, uniquely organized, equipped and housed group of health-care providers. He, better than most, understands that while this legislation was the first stumbling step in the right direction, it cannot and does not address the crumbling and chaotic health-care system we alone, among all the industrialized nations of the world, must live with.

Teitelbaum notes quite correctly that the attempt to provide cost-effective, accessible, quality health care for 32 million more Americans (while leaving millions more under- or uninsured) can’t be paid for as predicated by the administration.

Despite the valuable controls being put in place to prevent the insurance companies from denying and limiting needed care, the fact remains that Big Insurance and Big Pharma (the medical/industrial complex) are still in firm control of our health-care system and will still be able to spend 25-35 percent (or more) of your health-care dollars on management, marketing and huge administrative salaries.

The insurance industry is attempting to develop loopholes in the badly worded new legislation mandating that they spend 80 percent of your premium dollar on providing health care. They seek to include their insurance brokerage fees and a host of non-medical care expenses as part of that 80 percent mandate.

Those of us who are providers of health care and who have been urging an improved Medicare for all (PNHP.org), which would eliminate multiple third-party payers and would spend only 6-8 percent of your health-care dollar on managing the delivery of care, were let down when this legislation was passed.

We agreed with President Obama and many of the legislators who initially recognized that single-payer universal health care for all was the best and most workable solution. We watched in despair as the president and many in his party abandoned this concept in order to pass the current watered-down health-care reform bill. This legislation keeps us in thrall to the bottom lines of the insurance and drug industries and does not honestly address the broken elements in our current delivery system.

The 17,000 members of Physicians for a National Health Plan will continue to press for an improved Medicare for all, and now that we have health reform legislation that can be repaired and redirected to achieve this end, our mission might be nearer fruition.

Joseph Birnbaum, O.D., lives in Monroe, N.Y.

Sen. Sanders to introduce bill for single payer waiver

Sanders promises to seek health care waiver from Obama for Vermont

By Susan Smallheer
Rutland Herald
August 1, 2010

U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., pledged to personally take Vermont’s case for a statewide single-payer health care system to President Obama if the Legislature authorizes it next year.
Sanders, speaking at a health care rally at the Hetty Green Park in downtown Bellows Falls on Saturday afternoon, said that he and other members of Congress would also introduce legislation that would roll back to 2014 the current 2017 restriction for states to apply for a waiver in order to implement their own systems. He said Democratic Reps. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and John Conyers of Michigan would be co-sponsoring the legislation with him.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100801/NEWS02/708019832/1003/NEWS02

Although the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would allow states to apply for waivers to implement their own systems, they cannot do so until 2017, three years after they are required to implement the private insurance exchanges. Many have asked if Sen. Sanders still intends to introduce legislation to move that date up so that states would not have to set up the exchanges only to replace them soon thereafter with a single payer system. The answer is yes.

Happy birthday, Medicare

By Susanne L. King
The Berkshire (Mass.) Eagle
Friday July 30, 2010

Say “Happy Birthday” to Medicare, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson 45 years ago, on July 30, 1965.

This national program provides health insurance coverage for everyone 65 years and older, regardless of income or health status, as well as covering people with disabilities. Our senior citizens love Medicare, which, along with Social Security, has substantially lowered poverty among the elderly, providing a secure safety net for our most vulnerable citizens.

Medicare is an example of a “single payer” health insurance program, in which health care dollars are administered by only one payer, the federal government. Medicare patients love the program for a number of reasons. Their premiums, deductibles and co-payments are reasonably priced. No one 65 and older can be denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Patients have their choice of doctors and hospitals, and are able to make decisions with their doctors about the care they need.

This safety net is now being threatened. President Obama has appointed a committee, the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform,” to make recommendations to Congress for reducing our federal deficit. Unfortunately, some members of this commission are already considering cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits. Other solutions for reducing the deficit, like cutting the military budget, taxing the rich, negotiating drug costs, and eliminating the waste of the private health insurance industry by enacting a single-payer health insurance program, are not being considered. The commission is expected to make its recommendations to the House of Representatives after the fall elections, with a vote anticipated in December during a lame duck period of Congress.

Instead of cutting Medicare benefits, a better solution is to eliminate the failed and very costly for-profit “multiple payer” model, that includes hundreds of private health insurance companies with their high administrative costs and exorbitant CEO salaries, as well as their intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship. A much more cost-effective insurance approach would be to improve and expand Medicare to include everyone. At a time when our nation faces high unemployment, and fiscal crises, an expanded Medicare program would be a boon for individuals, small businesses, towns and states.

How would such a program produce savings and control health care costs? First, with Medicare, administrative costs are much lower than for private insurance companies. Administrative savings would be about $400 billion/year, enough money to provide coverage for everyone. Second, prescription drug prices would be negotiated, and drug costs could be lowered by 40 percent, bringing U.S prices in line with other developed countries. Third, an expanded Medicare system could establish global budgets for health care facilities.

The majority of Americans support Medicare and an expansion of this program to provide single-payer health insurance for everyone. Last week this was demonstrated again when participants in town meetings sponsored by “America Speaks” demanded single-payer as the option to solve the health care crisis, and 71 percent voted to not cut Medicare and Medicaid.

Our public and private dollars are flowing into the coffers of the private health insurance industry. These insurance companies continue to squeeze patients and health care providers financially, while paying their executives enormous salaries and bonuses. In 2009, the United Health Group, one of the biggest health insurance companies, paid CEO Stephen Helmsley a compensation package of over $107. 5 million. A recent conference of health economists in Chicago concluded that increasing consolidation in the health insurance industry has led to higher premiums, fewer jobs for health care workers, and reduced physician earnings.

Obama’s commission should not recommend cutting Medicare benefits. Write to your senators and representatives, and let them know how you feel about preserving, and expanding Medicare. Ask them to improve and strengthen Medicare by making it available to everyone, so that in coming years we will all be able to enjoy and celebrate the birthday of this life-saving health insurance program.

Susanne L. King, M. D., is a Lenox-based practitioner.

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/columnists/ci_15636458

Celebrate Medicare's 45th by fixing it for future

Letters To The Editor
Palm Beach Post
Friday, July 30, 2010

Americans should celebrate this 45th anniversary of Medicare.

During just nine months in 1965, without the aid of computers, every elderly American got the option to enroll in Medicare. Most did. Medicare lifted elderly citizens out of poverty while lowering levels of sickness and death. Today, Medicare subsidizes most profits of the private insurance industry, indirectly and directly, by removing the oldest, sickest and most disabled Americans from the risk pool, paying private insurers more to cover some Medicare-eligible Americans and by providing taxpayer money to private companies to offer rationed drug formularies to some Medicare patients. Medicare also subsidizes large private businesses by removing the burden of health care legacy costs of retired employees.

The health care delivery practices of doctors, hospitals, clinics and therapists have progressed in the last five decades. Medicare has remained entrenched in its 1960s structure. Medicare remains the only insurer in the world forbidden by law to bid competitively on a medicine formulary. Americans therefore pay the highest prices for medicines in the world. With no funding available, Medicare cannot develop and integrate a single electronic records and billing system for its contracted physicians, hospitals, therapists, pharmacies and clinics. Without this, real-time tracking of fraud is impossible.

Congress can ensure a healthy, solvent future for Medicare by broadening its risk and premium pool to include young and healthier Americans, allowing Medicare to bid on a drug formulary, ending redundant Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage subsidies and financing development of an electronic system to track medical outcomes and billing fraud and therefore allow competition among doctors, hospitals and drug companies based on quality of care.

HOWARD A. GREEN, MD
West Palm Beach

Editor’s note: Dr. Howard A. Green is a member of Physicians for a National Health Plan.

Celebrate Medicare’s 45th by fixing it for future

Letters To The Editor
Palm Beach Post
Friday, July 30, 2010

Americans should celebrate this 45th anniversary of Medicare.

During just nine months in 1965, without the aid of computers, every elderly American got the option to enroll in Medicare. Most did. Medicare lifted elderly citizens out of poverty while lowering levels of sickness and death. Today, Medicare subsidizes most profits of the private insurance industry, indirectly and directly, by removing the oldest, sickest and most disabled Americans from the risk pool, paying private insurers more to cover some Medicare-eligible Americans and by providing taxpayer money to private companies to offer rationed drug formularies to some Medicare patients. Medicare also subsidizes large private businesses by removing the burden of health care legacy costs of retired employees.

The health care delivery practices of doctors, hospitals, clinics and therapists have progressed in the last five decades. Medicare has remained entrenched in its 1960s structure. Medicare remains the only insurer in the world forbidden by law to bid competitively on a medicine formulary. Americans therefore pay the highest prices for medicines in the world. With no funding available, Medicare cannot develop and integrate a single electronic records and billing system for its contracted physicians, hospitals, therapists, pharmacies and clinics. Without this, real-time tracking of fraud is impossible.

Congress can ensure a healthy, solvent future for Medicare by broadening its risk and premium pool to include young and healthier Americans, allowing Medicare to bid on a drug formulary, ending redundant Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage subsidies and financing development of an electronic system to track medical outcomes and billing fraud and therefore allow competition among doctors, hospitals and drug companies based on quality of care.

HOWARD A. GREEN, MD
West Palm Beach

Editor’s note: Dr. Howard A. Green is a member of Physicians for a National Health Plan.

QOTD: Lawmakers vow to continue fight for Medicare for All

The following text is an open letter to the single-payer community from Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. It was released on the eve of Medicare’s 45th anniversary.

Congress of the United States
July 29, 2010

Dear friends of health care for all,

Now that a new health care bill has been signed into law, it has never been more important to have a strong movement behind Medicare for All.

Many health care experts have expressed concern that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does not adequately contain costs for American families and businesses. If they are correct, and we believe they are, additional legislative cost containment measures will be necessary in the future.

When it is time for Congress to try to control health care costs again, the demand for Medicare for All must be undeniable. There is substantial support for a federal Medicare for All solution, embodied by H.R. 676, the National Health Care Act, and S. 703, the American Health Security Act, in the Congress and around the country. We believe that this support can and will continue to grow.

The truth is not enough. We already know that such a health care system has repeatedly proven to control costs more effectively, cover everyone or almost everyone, and deliver care of significantly higher quality than health care systems that tolerate the presence of private health insurance companies. Now we must make it so that the truth can no longer be ignored.

During the health care debate, the movement created significant momentum on which to build. Its voice was heard in multiple Congressional hearings – it won historic victories in a House vote to grant an ERISA waiver to a state that passes a Medicare for All-like plan and in a Senate provision allowing a waiver from the Exchanges for states to innovate with health coverage such as a state-based Medicare for All-like system that was included in the new law.

The latter victory created a new opening. Though the effective date for the Exchange waiver was pushed back to 2017 by the Congressional Budget Office to avoid driving up the estimated cost of the bill, the waiver’s presence sent a clear message: if a state thinks it can do better, Congress wants to see it.

We are encouraged by the progress already garnered in multiple states toward guaranteed health care and we will continue to work hard in Congress to clear any obstacles in the way. The 2017 date can be changed at the same time Congress considers all of the other waivers from federal laws that will be required for the state to move forward. That can happen either before or after a state passes a Medicare for All-like bill.

Regardless of the legislative path, we vow to continue to fight alongside you for health care justice at the both the federal and state levels. We believe that Medicare for All is inevitable in the United States. It is up to all of us to determine when the inevitable becomes the reality.

Sincerely,

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich

Rep. John Conyers Jr.

Sen. Bernie Sanders

https://pnhp.org/news/2010/july/lawmakers-vow-to-continue-fight-for-medicare-for-all

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

On the 45th anniversary of Medicare it is reassuring to know that the vision of President Lyndon Johnson and the 89th Congress for an America that ensures health care for everyone, through a comprehensive Medicare for all, not only still lives, but is an inevitability.

Lawmakers vow to continue fight for Medicare for All

The following text is an open letter to the single-payer community from Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. It was released on the eve of Medicare’s 45th anniversary.

Congress of the United States
July 29, 2010

Dear friends of health care for all,

Now that a new health care bill has been signed into law, it has never been more important to have a strong movement behind Medicare for All.

Many health care experts have expressed concern that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does not adequately contain costs for American families and businesses. If they are correct, and we believe they are, additional legislative cost containment measures will be necessary in the future.

When it is time for Congress to try to control health care costs again, the demand for Medicare for All must be undeniable. There is substantial support for a federal Medicare for All solution, embodied by H.R. 676, the National Health Care Act, and S. 703, the American Health Security Act, in the Congress and around the country. We believe that this support can and will continue to grow.

The truth is not enough. We already know that such a health care system has repeatedly proven to control costs more effectively, cover everyone or almost everyone, and deliver care of significantly higher quality than health care systems that tolerate the presence of private health insurance companies. Now we must make it so that the truth can no longer be ignored.

During the health care debate, the movement created significant momentum on which to build. Its voice was heard in multiple Congressional hearings – it won historic victories in a House vote to grant an ERISA waiver to a state that passes a Medicare for All-like plan and in a Senate provision allowing a waiver from the Exchanges for states to innovate with health coverage such as a state-based Medicare for All-like system that was included in the new law.

The latter victory created a new opening. Though the effective date for the Exchange waiver was pushed back to 2017 by the Congressional Budget Office to avoid driving up the estimated cost of the bill, the waiver’s presence sent a clear message: if a state thinks it can do better, Congress wants to see it.

We are encouraged by the progress already garnered in multiple states toward guaranteed health care and we will continue to work hard in Congress to clear any obstacles in the way. The 2017 date can be changed at the same time Congress considers all of the other waivers from federal laws that will be required for the state to move forward. That can happen either before or after a state passes a Medicare for All-like bill.

Regardless of the legislative path, we vow to continue to fight alongside you for health care justice at the both the federal and state levels. We believe that Medicare for All is inevitable in the United States. It is up to all of us to determine when the inevitable becomes the reality.

Sincerely,


Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich


Rep. John Conyers Jr.


Sen. Bernie Sanders

After 45 years, Medicare needs support

By CHRISTINE ADAMS
Houston Chronicle, July 29, 2010

Today marks the 45th birthday of Medicare, the public insurance program that guarantees basic medical coverage to all seniors and people with severe disabilities regardless of their income, health status or where they live.

In Texas, Medicare covers just under 3 million Americans. The breakdown by race is 60.7 percent white, 24.9 percent Hispanic, 11.7 percent black and 2.6 percent “other.” Of those Texans covered, 84.2 percent are seniors and 15.3 percent are disabled.

Medicare enjoys popular support despite the initial bitter resistance to passing it. Before its enactment, the elderly were at high risk for falling into poverty because most people had health insurance through their employer. Upon retirement, many had difficulties paying for medical care.

Over the years, the program has expanded. You are probably unaware that the Medicare program also pays for much of the durable equipment for many hospitals. It also funds the vast majority of residency training in the United States, including resident physician salaries and benefits, and gives subsidies to teaching hospitals in exchange for training resident physicians.

The president’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is considering cuts to the Medicare program. We are told that the purpose of the cuts in Medicare (and to Social Security as well) would be to reduce the national deficit and protect the nation’s financial health. One has to ask: Are health care and insurance against poverty for seniors and the disabled no longer priorities for our society? And if Medicare is cut, where would the money come from to educate our future physicians and other health professionals?

Rather than cut Medicare, if we want to dramatically reduce health care costs and thus lower our national debt, we need to build on what works and expand to a “Medicare for All” national health insurance program. Every other industrialized nation has some form of national health insurance. They pay half as much per person, cover everyone and have as good or better overall medical outcomes than we do. According to both the World Health Organization and the Commonwealth Fund, our overall rankings are still at the bottom or near bottom when compared to other industrialized nations despite that fact that we spend twice as much.

How can these democratic nations spend so much less yet have such high-quality care? It’s because none have for-profit private health plans that play central roles in financing health care. They are able to put a higher percentage of their health care dollars to actual health care because they are not paying for the waste and profiteering associated with the “middleman” private health insurance industry.

Medicare operates as a single-payer health care system with administrative costs of just 4 percent to 6 percent compared with for-profit health insurance administrative costs of between 16 percent and 26.5 percent. In a “Medicare for All” program, administrative savings would amount to about $400 billion each year by eliminating unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy. That’s enough to provide high-quality health care for every American and end co-pays and deductibles. Americans could go to any provider they wished to see. And, as with Medicare, the majority of health providers and hospitals would remain private and could receive fair reimbursements for their services.

So celebrate the birthday of Medicare (and Social Security on Aug. 14) and reflect on their lessons for today: that we have a social contract to care for our fellow citizens and we can save money if we fulfill it with a national health program. Tell the debt commission, “No cuts to Medicare. Expand it to all of us.”

Adams is a licensed psychologist and statewide secretary for Health Care for All Texas.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7131223.html