By Deborah Thorne, Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless & Katherine Porter
SSRN, August 5, 2018

Abstract

The social safety net for older Americans has been shrinking for the past couple decades. The risks associated with aging, reduced income, and increased healthcare costs, have been off-loaded onto older individuals. At the same time, older Americans are increasingly likely to file consumer bankruptcy, and their representation among those in bankruptcy has never been higher. Using data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, we find more than a two-fold increase in the rate at which older Americans (age 65 and over) file for bankruptcy and an almost five-fold increase in the percentage of older persons in the U.S. bankruptcy system. The magnitude of growth in older Americans in bankruptcy is so large that the broader trend of an aging U.S. population can explain only a small portion of the effect. In our data, older Americans report they are struggling with increased financial risks, namely inadequate income and unmanageable costs of healthcare, as they try to deal with reductions to their social safety net. As a result of these increased financial burdens, the median senior bankruptcy filer enters bankruptcy with negative wealth of $17,390 as compared to more than $250,000 for their non-bankrupt peers. For an increasing number of older Americans, their golden years are fraught with economic risks, the result of which is often bankruptcy.

From the Introduction

The social safety net for older Americans has been shrinking for the past couple decades. The risks associated with aging, reduced income, and increased healthcare costs, have been off-loaded onto older individuals. At the same time, older Americans are increasingly likely to file consumer bankruptcy, and their representation among those in bankruptcy has never been higher. Using data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, we find more than a two-fold increase in the rate at which older Americans (age 65 and over) file for bankruptcy and an almost five-fold increase in the percentage of older persons in the U.S. bankruptcy system. The magnitude of growth in older Americans in bankruptcy is so large that the broader trend of an aging U.S. population can explain only a small portion of the effect. In our data, older Americans report they are struggling with increased financial risks, namely inadequate income and unmanageable costs of healthcare, as they try to deal with reductions to their social safety net. As a result of these increased financial burdens, the median senior bankruptcy filer enters bankruptcy with negative wealth of $17,390 as compared to more than $250,000 for their non-bankrupt peers. For an increasing number of older Americans, their golden years are fraught with economic risks, the result of which is often bankruptcy.

National concern for the well-being of older Americans soon declined, beginning in the early-1980s, especially as the cost of funding their social safety net strained state and federal budgets. This financial tension and emerging ideological shifts promoted an intergenerational war. Conservatives, free market advocates, and media promoted the image of older Americans as “a threat to economic viability,” as thieves of our children’s futures, and as “responsible for the nation’s economic problems.” In just a few decades, norms of privatized citizenship and individual responsibility upstaged the ideal of America’s social welfare system. Financial risks were shunted off onto individuals, regardless of age. Many older Americans suffered greatly because of this movement toward “private responsibility,” with their Social Security, retirement, and healthcare, among other protections, coming under attack.

Since the early-1990s, scholars on the Consumer Bankruptcy Project (CBP) have collected data on the age of bankruptcy filers. These data are used to determine the percent of older Americans within the U.S. population who file bankruptcy, and the percent of older filers within the bankrupt population. Comparing CBP data between 1991 and now shows significant increases in both categories. The changes are so great that the broader trend of an aging U.S. population can explain only a small proportion of what is happening in the bankruptcy courts. Older Americans’ reported reasons for filing strongly suggest that they are experiencing the fallout from our current individualized risk society and the corresponding shrinkage of their social safety net.

From the Results

Within the Bankrupt Population

One in seven bankruptcy filers is of retirement age, 65 years or over. This is nearly a five-fold increase over just two and a half decades. This is a notable demographic shift.

Within the oldest cohort, those age 75 and over, there has been a near ten-fold increase since 1991. In 1991, this group constituted only 0.3 percent of filers, as compared to 3.3 percent now.

The overall trend is clear. Bankruptcy filers in the youngest cohorts (18-24, 25-34, and 35-44) now comprise a much smaller segment of the bankrupt population than they did twenty-five years ago. During that same period, there has been a marked increase in the percent of filers among the older cohorts (55-64, 65-74, and 75 and above), those people who are approaching or are in their retirement years.

Older Americans’ Reasons for Bankruptcy—Evidence of a Risk Shift

Regardless of age, leading data suggest that income problems and medical costs top the list of events that push households into bankruptcy.

Data from the current CBP suggest that financial struggles, namely a decline in income, was a leading reason for older Americans’ bankruptcies—almost seven out of ten respondents (69.1 percent) reported that they “very much” or “somewhat” agreed that this was the reason for their bankruptcy.

Another respondent’s comment describes an additional financial risk that can be especially consequential for retirees—the popular defined-contribution plans, like 401(k)s, that individuals are left to manage on their own.

Just over seven out of ten respondents (71.6 percent) either “very much” or “somewhat” agreed that they filed because of the stress of dealing with debt collectors.

Medical expenses also were a catalyst for bankruptcy for more than six out of ten (62.2 percent) respondents.

Additionally, 40 percent of respondents reported that they “very much” or “somewhat” agree that missing work for medical reasons was a reason for their bankruptcies.

Finally, respondents were asked to list the single most important thing that they or their family members were unable to afford in the year before their bankruptcies. Over half of older filers (52 percent) who responded indicated that the single most important thing they had to go forego was related to medical care—surgeries, doctor visits, prescriptions, dental care, and health/supplemental insurance. These responses continue to suggest that their health care coverage is inadequate.

From the Discussion

The most effective solution to older Americans’ increasing financial plight is a social safety net that obviates the need to take out debts that result in financial crises. In prior decades, Americans collectively decided that we have a responsibility to our older citizens to absorb the financial risks they face. But it appears that we have since abandoned that commitment. We can do better. Historically, we have.

At the core, the lessons of prior decades show that aid to older citizens must originate with our government. Community and charitable organizations, while having the best of intentions, are inadequate. Comprehensive policies led by our government will ensure financial stability for all elderly citizens. We appear to be in the midst of an old-fashioned game of tug-of-war. On the one hand, many Americans believe that providing a strong social safety net for our older citizens, a net that reduces their individual financial risks, is part of our collective responsibility. On the other hand, there are those who insist on policies that continue to unravel that safety net, leaving older Americans to fend for themselves.

Conclusion

How we manage the time called retirement, the span between when we stop working and when we die, is a social issue affecting the lives of tens of millions. America has come almost full circle in its attitudes toward its older citizens—from sending them to the poorhouse when they became a financial burden, to ameliorating their economic risks with pensions, a responsive social security program, and healthcare, and now to transferring financial risks to them that can drive them to financial collapse.

Absent significant policy changes that reassume the risks of aging and effectively insure the financial stability of older Americans, our data suggest that the trend of an aging bankruptcy population will continue. In 2015, almost 15 percent of the U.S. population was 65 and over. By 2050, almost a quarter of Americans, 88 million, will be over 65 (U.S. Census 2016). If current bankruptcy trends among seniors continue, our bankruptcy courts will be flooded with financially broken retirees. For older Americans, bankruptcy is too little too late. By the time they file, their wealth has vanished, and they simply do not have the enough years to get back on their feet. Our data expose the severity of the continuing financial decline of older Americans. Now that we can see the magnitude of the coming storm of broke elderly, it is time to renew our commitment to supporting our citizens as they age.

https://papers.ssrn.com…

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

The social safety net for older Americans built up during the last century is now showing alarming trends toward shifting greater financial risk to this population. In the past two and a half decades there has been a five-fold increase in the rate of bankruptcy filings for individuals over 65.

There are multiple factors including the loss of income, the deterioration in retirement plans, and the inability to accumulate wealth before retirement, but the inadequacy of health care coverage also has been a significant factor. The authors state, “respondents were asked to list the single most important thing that they or their family members were unable to afford in the year before their bankruptcies. Over half of older filers (52 percent) who responded indicated that the single most important thing they had to go forego was related to medical care—surgeries, doctor visits, prescriptions, dental care, and health/supplemental insurance.”

The authors conclude, “Absent significant policy changes that reassume the risks of aging and effectively insure the financial stability of older Americans, our data suggest that the trend of an aging bankruptcy population will continue… Now that we can see the magnitude of the coming storm of broke elderly, it is time to renew our commitment to supporting our citizens as they age,” and “At the core, the lessons of prior decades show that aid to older citizens must originate with our government.”

As an aside, one of the co-authors of this report, UC Irvine Professor Katherine Porter, is taking her academic credentials into the political arena by running for Congress in California’s 45th District, hoping to join Senator Elizabeth Warren and others in efforts to counter the attack on our social safety net.

Katherine Porter, Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law:
https://www.law.uci.edu…

Katie Porter for Congress:
https://katieporter.com

PNHP does not endorse candidates for pubic office. This statement on Katie Porter’s candidacy is appropriately included in the Quote of the Day since it shows her bias on the topic of today’s report (for full disclosure, a bias which Quote of the Day editor Don McCanne happens to share).

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

By John Cochrane
The Grumpy Economist, July 29, 2018

A July 30 2018 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, titled “The tax and spend health care solution”:

Why is paying for health care such a mess in America? Why is it so hard to fix? Cross-subsidies are the original sin. The government wants to subsidize health care for poor people, chronically sick people, and people who have money but choose to spend less of it on health care than officials find sufficient. These are worthy goals, easily achieved in a completely free-market system by raising taxes and then subsidizing health care or insurance, at market prices, for people the government wishes to help.

But lawmakers do not want to be seen taxing and spending, so they hide transfers in cross-subsidies. They require emergency rooms to treat everyone who comes along, and then hospitals must overcharge everybody else. Medicare and Medicaid do not pay the full amount their services cost. Hospitals then overcharge private insurance and the few remaining cash customers.

Overcharging paying customers and providing free care in an emergency room is economically equivalent to a tax on emergency-room services that funds subsidies for others. But the effective tax and expenditure of a forced cross-subsidy do not show up on the federal budget.

Over the long term, cross-subsidies are far more inefficient than forthright taxing and spending. If the hospital is going to overcharge private insurance and paying customers to cross-subsidize the poor, the uninsured, Medicare, Medicaid and, increasingly, victims of limited exchange policies, then the hospital must be protected from competition. If competitors can come in and offer services to the paying customers, the scheme unravels.

No competition means no pressure to innovate for better service and lower costs.

As usual, I (John Cochrane) have to wait 30 days to post the whole thing. It synthesizes some of my earlier blog posts on how cross subsidies are worse than straightforward, on budget, taxing and spending.

Let me here admit to one of the implications of this view. Single payer might not be so bad — it might not be as bad as the current Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, VA, etc. mess.

But before you quote that, let’s be careful to define what we mean by “single payer,” which has become a mantra and litmus test on the left. There is a huge difference between “there is a single payer that everyone can use,” and “there is a single payer that everyone must use.”

Most on the left promise the former and mean the latter. Not only is there some sort of single easy to access health care and insurance scheme for poor or unfortunate people, but you and I are forbidden to escape it, to have private doctors, private hospitals, or private insurance outside the scheme. Doctors are forbidden to have private cash paying customers. That truly is a nightmare, and it will mean the allocation of good medical care by connections and bribes.

But a single provider or payer that anyone in trouble can use, supported by taxes, not cross-subsidized by restrictions on your and my health care — not underpaying in a private system and forcing that system to overcharge others — while allowing a vibrant completely competitive free market in private health care on top of that, is not such a terrible idea, and follows from my Op-Ed. A single bureaucracy that hands out vouchers, pays full market costs, or pays partially but allows doctors to charge whatever they want on top of that would work. A VA like system of public hospitals and clinics would work too.  Like public schools, or public restrooms, you can use them, but you don’t have to; you’re free to spend your money on better options if you like, and people are free to start businesses to serve you. And no cross-subisides.

Whether we restrict provision with income and other tests, and thus introduce another marginal disincentive to work, or give everyone access and count on most working people to choose a better product, I leave for another day. It would always be an inefficient bureaucratic problem, but it might not be the nightmare of anti-competitive inefficiency of the current system.

The free market describes well how your and my health care and insurance should work. It does not offer nearly so clear advice on how the government should manage the finances and bureaucracy that provide subsidies (if we want to provide them). There are always tradeoffs, generosity vs. moral hazard and disincentives. Economics is crucial to understanding those tradeoffs, of course, but the answer will always be a muddy middle of tradeoffs. I have offered that taxing and spending — on budget and appropriated — to provide those subsidies may be better than the current mandated cross subsidies. We already have a “single payer” — the federal government. The argument that a single point of entry, a single payer, or a single provider, may be more rational and cost effective than the current system for the purpose of providing subsidized care is not as crazy as it sounds — if it allows a free market for the majority of Americans who own cars, houses, TVs and cell phones and can pay for better services in that free market.

“Single payer” also usually means “single price-setter.” It means a gargantuan Federal bureaucracy that will somehow produce health care cost savings by simply decreeing that doctors and hospitals be paid less. Good luck with that.

Both left and right forget that “negotiation” means only you pay less and somebody else pays more. We can’t all pay less by negotiation. Price controls mean rationing. Period. This is the heart of current “single payer” proposals, and they are doomed.

My “single payer” is just that, a “payer,” operating in a completely free market.

Still, when a politician endorses “single payer,” ask “does that mean we all can use a single payer? Or does that mean we all must use a single payer?”

John H. Cochrane is a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford, an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, and formerly a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com…

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

The single payer policy community certainly would dispute that there are two types of single payer – one that allows individuals to opt out and one that mandates participation. In a well designed single payer system there is only one payer for everyone. That does not mean that there are not other systems that allow individuals to opt out of the public program, but those multi-payer systems should not be labeled single payer.

Nevertheless, the comments of conservative economist John Cochrane are interesting. He recognizes that there are enough sound economic policies in a single payer system that it “might not be as bad as the current Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, VA, etc. mess.” On that we can agree. However our ideological differences leave us far apart. Cochrane’s insistence that the market must still play a prominent role calls for design features that prevent realization of the single payer goals of true universality, equity, affordability, and universal access.

Many of his comments warrant a response which we won’t bother with now, except one that stands out and that is his statement that a single payer system that does not allow other options is one in which, “you and I are forbidden to escape it, to have private doctors, private hospitals, or private insurance outside the scheme.” Of course, the single payer system supported by Physicians for a National Health Program does allow free choice of private doctors and hospitals. Following is the comment that I submitted in response to his blog:

Under a single payer that everyone must use you are forbidden to have private doctors and private hospitals? But look at the traditional Medicare program. Patients have free choice of their physicians and hospitals. They also can elect to enroll in the private Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, but then they lose their their health care choices by being restricted to provider networks. Not only that, but “MA insurer revenues are 30 percent higher than their healthcare spending,” demonstrating the surplus that the private insurers are receiving from the taxpayers (NBER No. 23090) – a cross subsidy of sorts, but benefiting the insurer rather than the patients.

Of course, single payer advocates also support tax and spend, but we want our tax funds to be used wisely. Providing excess public funding to private insurers while they take away health care choices from patients is not a wise use of our tax dollars. It would be far better to improve the traditional Medicare program and then cover everyone with it, and then let the health care delivery system compete on the basis of service, access, and quality.

***

A Libertarian’s Case Against Free Markets in Health Care

By Roman Zamishka
The Health Care Blog, August 2, 2018

This presumably arbitrary nature of prices should be the first thing about the US healthcare market that catches the attention of any student of economics. Prices for the same procedure vary greatly between hospitals on opposite sides of the street and even then appear to have no basis in reality. Further investigation reveals many other features of the healthcare market that economics teaches us will increase transaction costs and the misallocation of resources. The prices we discussed are generally not paid by the patient, but by a third party insurer. Often the patient isn’t even able to select the insurer but is assigned one by his or her employer. What the patient thinks of the insurer’s ability as a steward of his or her premiums is irrelevant. Further, contracts between providers or pharmacies and the insurer completely hide the true price from the patient’s view. In addition, anti-competitive certificate of need laws limit competition between providers and expensive regulations compel providers to merge to compete in a nuclear arms race with the insurers, although the real victim is the patient’s wallet over which the providers and insurers fight their proxy wars. The best way to explain the US healthcare system is if you took every economic best practice and then did the opposite.

Academics and physicians from places like Boston and San Francisco often argue that this situation is proof that free market healthcare has failed in America and that the only solution is to implement a nationalized single-payer model.

(Zamishka here provides a discussion of Kenneth Arrow’s “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care,“ and then discusses how markets do not work in the various institutions and disciplines of medicine.)

The broader problem that I see is that much of the health insurance market is already nationalized through Medicaid, Medicare and the VA. The reality is that it is politically impossible to reverse from this position. If we then add to this list emergency medicine, perinatal healthcare, child healthcare, genetic diseases, mental health and chronic disease management, all of which I earnestly believe have a legitimate case to be nationalized, then what are we left with for free market shopping? Surgeries and generic drugs? At that point, you might as well nationalize the rest just to simplify things and remove any regulatory asymmetries. I hate to say it, but it’s not clear to me as a conservative that single payer (or at least universal coverage + optional private supplemental insurance) isn’t the right solution.

Roman Zamishka is a healthcare policy student at NYU focused on comparative analysis of healthcare systems.

http://thehealthcareblog.com…

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

These articles express the views of two libertarians who recognize the benefits of the single payer model of health care financing, though both would maintain a role for private insurance.

The Cochrane article is reproduced in its entirety. The Zamishka article is quite long and so only brief excerpts are provided. However it might be worth wile to save the link for reading the full article this weekend. He presents a case that we should consider using when discussing single payer with libertarians or conservatives who truly do care and would like to see our health care financing system function better for all of us.

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By David U. Himmelstein, M.D., and Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.
Physicians for a National Health Program, August 2, 2018

The Mercatus Center’s estimate of the cost of implementing Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All Act (M4A) projects outlandish increases in the utilization of medical care, ignores vast savings under single-payer reform, and fails to even mention the extensive and well-documented evidence on single-payer systems in other nations – which all spend far less per person on health care than we do. But despite adopting a raft of faulty assumptions that inflate the estimated cost of implementing single payer, the Mercatus Center’s report concludes that universal first dollar coverage under Sen. Sanders’ bill would actually decrease the nation’s total health expenditures, saving the average American about $6,000 over ten years.

We outline below some of the most glaring errors in the Mercatus Center analysis of Medicare for All, which was led by Charles Blahous.

1. Administrative savings, Part 1: Blahous assumes that insurance overhead would be reduced to 6 percent of total health spending from the current level of 13 percent in private insurance. Although overhead in Canada’s single payer system is only 1.8%, Blahous justifies his 6 percent estimate by citing Medicare’s current overhead, which includes the extraordinarily high overhead costs of private Medicare HMOs run by UnitedHealthcare and other insurance firms. However, Sen. Sanders’ proposal would exclude these for-profit insurers, and instead build on the traditional Medicare program, whose overhead is less than 3 percent. Moreover, by simplifying hospital payments by funding them through global budgets (similar to the way fire departments are paid), rather than the current patient-by-patient payments, a well-designed single-payer program could fully reduce overhead to Canada’s level of about 1.8 percent. Cutting insurance overhead to less than 2 percent (rather than the 6 percent that Blahous projects) would save approximately $2.9 trillion more than Blahous estimates over a 10 year period.

2. Administrative savings, Part 2: Blahous seems unaware of the extensive literature documenting the huge administrative burden – and resulting costs – borne by U.S. doctors and hospitals, and the savings that would be realized under a streamlined single-payer system. Every serious analyst of single-payer reform has acknowledged these savings, including the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office, the Lewin Group (a consulting firm owned by UnitedHealth Group), and Prof. Kenneth Thorpe.

These provider savings on paperwork would, in fact, be much larger than the savings on insurance overhead. At present, U.S. hospitals spend one-quarter of their total budgets on billing and administration, more than twice as much as hospitals spend in single payer systems like Canada’s or Scotland’s. Similarly, U.S. physicians, who must bill hundreds of different insurance plans with varying payment and coverage rules, spend two to three times as much as our Canadian colleagues on billing.

Overall, these administrative savings for doctors and hospitals would amount to about $3.4 trillion over 10 years. Additional savings of almost $2.0 trillion from streamlined billing and administration would accrue to nursing homes, home care agencies, ambulance companies, drug stores, and other health care providers.

In total, the Blahous analysis underestimates administrative savings by about $8.3 trillion over 10 years.

3. Drug costs: Blahous projects that the only drug savings achievable through a single-payer plan would come from switching patients from brand name drugs to generics. He assumes that the prices of drugs – both generics and brand name drugs – could not be lowered through the price negotiations called for in Sen. Sander’s bill. Blahous claims that the savings achievable through negotiations cannot be estimated, ignoring the price reductions of about 40-50% that have been achieved by the VA and by many other nations that use the methods called for in the Sanders legislation.

Reducing drug prices to the levels currently paid by European nations would save at least $1.7 trillion more than Blahous posits over 10 years.

4. Utilization of care: Blahous projects a massive increase in acute care utilization, but does not provide detailed breakdowns of how big an increase he foresees for specific services like doctor visits or hospital care. However, it is clear that the medical care system does not have the capacity to provide the huge surge in care that he posits.

For instance Blahous’ figures for the increase in acute care suggest that Sanders’ plan would result in more than 100 million additional doctor visits and several million more hospitalizations each year. But there just aren’t enough doctors and hospital beds to deliver that much care. Doctors are already working 53 hours per week, and experience from past reforms tells us that they won’t increase their hours, nor will they see many more patients per hour.

Instead of a huge surge in utilization, more realistic projections would assume that doctors and hospitals would reduce the amount of unnecessary care they’re now delivering in order to deliver needed care to those who are currently not getting what they need. That’s what happened in Canada. Doctors and hospitals can adjust care to meet increasing demand, as happens every year during flu season.

Moreover, no surge materialized when Medicare was implemented and millions of previously uninsured seniors got coverage. Between 1964 (before Medicare) and 1966 (the year when Medicare was fully functioning) there was absolutely no increase in the total number of doctor visit in the U.S.; Americans averaged 4.3 visits per person in 1964 and 4.3 visits per person in 1966. Instead, the number of visits by poor seniors went up, while the number of visits by healthy and wealthy patients went down slightly. The same thing happened in hospitals. There were no waiting lists, just a reduction in the utilization of unneeded elective care by wealthier patients, and the delivery of more care to sick people who needed it.

Bizarrely, despite projecting a $2.213 trillion increase in total payments to providers over 10 years, Blahous claims that the program would lead to massive financial losses for doctors and hospitals (top of page 19).

5. Long Term Care: The original version of Blahous’ report estimated that the Sanders bill would increase expenditures for long term care by $1.849 trillion over 10 years. He was apparently unaware that the Sanders bill would not immediately implement major changes in the long term care financing system. When informed of this error he deleted this section of the report, and recalculated his figures.

In summary, Blahous grossly underestimates the administrative savings under single payer; projects increases in the number of doctor visits and hospitalizations that far exceed the capacity of doctors and hospitals to provide this added care; and posits that our country would continue to pay much more for drugs and medical equipment than people in every other nation with national health insurance. He thus overestimates national health expenditures by about $10 trillion over 10 years.

Blahous also neglects to mention that massive savings would accrue to businesses, households, and state and local governments that would no longer be saddled with health insurance premiums or out-of-pocket costs. These savings would more than compensate for the increased federal government expenditures. The Sanders bill would, in reality, shift spending from private to public sources, and from state and local governments to the federal government. Over 10 years, our nation would surely pay less overall under Sen. Sanders bill than under current arrangements.

Moreover, despite overestimating new costs and underestimating savings Blahous admits that Sanders’ program would cover all of the uninsured, and upgrade coverage for the vast majority of Americans who currently have private insurance or Medicare, while decreasing total health expenditures by $2 trillion over ten years.

Blahous’ biased, anti-single payer estimate inadvertently bolsters the evidence that a single payer reform would greatly increase the efficiency and fairness of the U.S. health care system.

Drs. Himmelstein and Woolhandler are distinguished professors of health policy at the City University of New York at Hunter College and lecturers in medicine at Harvard Medical School. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those institutions’.

https://www.pnhp.org…

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Res ipsa loquitur.

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Distributed as Quote of the Day on August 1, 2018

This morning the RAND study on the single payer New York Health Act was sent out primarily to demonstrate another study showing that the single payer model is effective for ensuring that everyone is covered while containing health care costs. However, a critique of the RAND analysis was not distributed, even though there are some significant deficiencies in the study.

One of the most important policies that characterizes a well designed single payer system is the recovery of a tremendous amount of administrative waste. Many of the studies minimize the amount of waste that exists and that can be recovered, in spite of the abundance of evidence published in the academic policy literature. This is crucial because that concept is often omitted from reports in the lay literature, and so the public is not well informed on this exceedingly important feature of the single payer model. In your single payer advocacy, always be sure that the magnitude of the recoverable administrative waste is not omitted from the discussions.

David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, distinguished professors of health policy at the City University of New York at Hunter College and co-founders of PNHP, have provided the following brief critique of the RAND study. In it they show that the benefit of single payer is far greater that that reported by the RAND authors, especially regarding the administrative savings.

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Comments on the Rand Estimates of the Costs of the New York Health Act

By David U. Himmelstein, M.D. and Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.

1) The projected net changes in utilization given supply constraints are in the ballpark, although the portrayal of the supply constraints as implying waits is unduly negative. Supply constraints limited utilization increases with the implementation of Medicare and the ACA, yet there was no perceptible increase in waits for care. Rather, there was probably a reduction in unnecessary care for the previously well insured.

2) The estimate of reductions in drug prices is too low given the experience in other nations. In particular, the assumption that prices of drugs delivered in physicians’ offices would be reduced by a smaller percentage than other drug prices seems unjustified.

3) The estimates of administrative savings are absurdly low.

a) The assumption that health plan administrative overhead would only be reduced to 6% is completely unjustified. FFS Medicare’s administrative overhead is under 3%, while Canada’s single payer programs averaged overhead of 1.6% in 2017 – a total of $2.7 billion (Canadian). (Canada’s overhead costs are lower, at least in part, because it pays hospitals global budgets rather than FFS, as Medicare does. It seems likely that the NYH act would also globally budget hospitals, and hence achieve savings comparable to those in Canada). As the Rand authors note, the overhead rates for Medicare as a whole (7%), and for Medicaid (7%) are inflated because they include the extremely high overhead of managed care plans in those programs.

Rand claims that health plan administrative costs would be driven up by the need to verify residency, deal with out-of-state services, and track Medicaid and Medicare eligibility in order to draw down federal matching funds. The Canadian provincial programs perform the first two of these functions. Tracking Medicaid eligibility should take trivial resources – essentially just verifying income, which can largely be gleaned from income tax and Social Security records. The Social Security Administration should be able to provide information on Medicare eligibility at virtually no cost to the state.

In sum, there is no justification for the claim that it would cost $16.6 billion to administer coverage for 20 million New Yorkers – $830 per person, more than 8-fold higher than Canada’s cost. A more reasonable estimate would be 2%, or at most 3%.

b) It is hard to decipher exactly how the Rand authors estimated provider administrative savings. In Table 4.1 they indicate that at present, administrative costs account for 13% of physician and clinical service expenditures, 12% of hospital expenditures in New York and 10% of other service expenditures. They then estimate that provider administrative spending could be reduced by 13%, i.e. equivalent to a savings of less than 2% of total revenues.

While they list several references to support this estimate (and provide some further description in footnote 16 on page 33), it is unclear how they arrived at these figures, which are at odds with the actual findings of several of the references they cite. For instance, the Blanchfield paper they cite estimated that “excess” administrative costs in physician practices accounted for 11.9% of total net revenues, or about $50,250 per physician. The Himmelstein, Campbell and Woolhandler paper that they cite, found that administrative costs consumed about 26.9% of physicians’ revenues and  24.3% of hospital revenues, while these costs were 16.1% and 12.9% respectively in Canada. (Himmelstein et al’s more recent analysis of hospital administrative costs in 8 nations, which appeared in Health Affairs in 2014 reached virtually identical conclusions regarding hospital administrative costs and savings.) Both the Jiwani study and the Pozen and Cutler papers reached virtually identical conclusions as the Himmelstein, Campbell, Woolhandler study regarding administrative savings under single payer. The Mora et al study they cite concluded that physicians’ administrative costs totaled about $83,000 per physician in the US vs. about $27,000 per doctor in Canada, far larger savings than Rand assumes.

They reference Rand hospital data, which apparently relies on the same data source as the Himmelstein analyses of hospital administrative costs (which have undergone extensive peer review), but provide no information on how they derived administrative cost estimates from these data, and as far as we can tell their methods have neither been published nor peer reviewed. They cite their analysis of hospital administrative costs in Maryland’s all-payer system, which is irrelevant to an analysis of single payer, then use this paper as a “low estimate” in order to justify excluding a high estimate from a study that is clearly relevant.

In sum, according to the documentation in the report, it appears that the Rand authors  have made an error in interpreting previous studies’ figures for administrative costs and savings for providers under single payer. These studies generally estimate that administrative SAVINGS under single payer would amount to 12%-13% of providers’ TOTAL REVENUES. The Rand authors appear to have mistakenly concluded that these figures are estimates of the total costs of administration (rather than potential savings), and have then assumed that 12% of administrative costs (rather than 12% of total revenues) would be saved. As a result they estimate that providers’ would achieve administrative savings of about 1% of total revenues, rather than about 12% – a very large difference.

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Richard N. Gottfried, New York Assembly District 75
Chair, Assembly Health Committee

Gustavo Rivera, New York Senate District 33
Ranking Member, Senate Health Committee

August 1, 2018

State Senator Gustavo Rivera and Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard Gottfried, sponsors of the New York Health Act in the New York State Legislature, welcomed the findings of a study of the bill by the highly-regarded, independent, non-profit RAND Corporation. The study confirms that New York Health would reduce total health care costs, while increasing spending on actual care rather than administration and insurance company profit; provide full health coverage to every New Yorker; save substantial money for almost all New Yorkers; and generate a net increase in employment due to increases in disposable income. 

In December 2017, the New York State Health Foundation commissioned the RAND Corporation to assess the savings, costs, and feasibility of the New York Health Act. Using conservative estimates, the RAND study establishes that New Yorkers would use more health care services under the new single-payer plan than under the current system, even as total health care spending would be slightly lower in 2022 growing to a savings of $15 billion annually by 2031 due to administrative efficiencies. 

The study highlights that the majority of New Yorkers would pay less under the New York Health Plan – New Yorkers in the bottom 90% of household incomes would save an average of $2,800 per person annually – thanks to an equitable distribution of taxation based on the ability to pay. In addition, premiums, deductibles, copays, out-of-pocket payments, and out-of-network charges would be eliminated.

“This is an important validation of the New York Health Act by one of the most prestigious analytical firms in the country,” said Assembly Health Committee Chair Gottfried.  “RAND shows we can make sure every New Yorker gets the care they need and does not suffer financially to get it; save billions of dollars a year by cutting administrative costs, insurance company profit, and outrageous drug prices; and pay for it all more fairly.  Even though RAND thinks the net savings back in the pockets of New Yorkers will be less than I think we’d actually get, this is still a terrific deal for New York.  The study also shows it’s feasible to include long term care – home health care and nursing homes – in the bill.

“The RAND study makes it clear that the New York Health Act is not only feasible, but the most fiscally responsible option for our State”, said State Senator Gustavo Rivera, Ranking Member of State Senate Health Committee. “While we estimate that the benefits to New York State will be greater than those outlined in the study, we all agree that the implementation of the New York Health Act translates into more savings and jobs, while expanding critical health care coverage and access for all New Yorkers regardless of their wealth. I will continue to work with Assembly Member Gottfried and the many advocate organizations that support the bill as we stand up for what is right and work to implement an efficient and universal healthcare system in New York State.”

http://nyassembly.gov…

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Estimating the Effects of a Single-Payer Proposal in New York State

By Jodi L. Liu, Chapin White, Sarah A. Nowak, Asa Wilks, Jamie Ryan, Christine Eibner
RAND, Research Brief, August 1, 2018

Key Findings

1. The New York Health Act could expand insurance coverage in New York without increasing overall health spending, if administrative costs are reduced and growth in provider payment rates is restrained.

2. Health care would be financed by taxes rather than by premiums and patient out-of-pocket payments. Substantial new taxes would be required.

3. Depending on how progressive new tax rates are, health care payments would decrease among most residents and would increase among the highest-income residents.

RAND Research Brief (6 pages):
https://www.rand.org…

RAND Full Research Report (125 pages):
https://www.rand.org…

RAND News Release:
https://www.rand.org…

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

This RAND study provides us with yet one more credible analysis that shows that single payer is a valid concept demonstrating that we can expand coverage to include everyone while controlling health care spending. This report should be particularly useful for health care reform advocates since it not only discusses single payer issues in general, but it also discusses the single payer concept as applied to one state, in this case New York.

Temporary political hurdles for New York include a Democrat in the state Senate who has shifted control to the Republicans by caucusing with them, and a CMS administrator in the Trump administration who has indicated that she will not cooperate with the waiver processes that would enable implementation of a single payer system at the state level.

Politics can change. It will be interesting to watch how New York does. But we must not let up on our efforts to enact a national single payer improved Medicare for all since our goal must remain one of achieving health care justice for all. If New York can get there first, then great for them. But let’s try to get the job done nationally as soon as possible so the states won’t have to act individually.

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By Karen E. Joynt Maddox, M.D., M.P.H., E. John Orav, Ph.D., Jie Zheng, Ph.D., and Arnold M. By Epstein, M.D.
The New England Journal of Medicine, July 19, 2018

Abstract:

Background

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) launched the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) initiative in 2013. A subsequent study showed that the initiative was associated with reductions in Medicare payments for total joint replacement, but little is known about the effect of BPCI on medical conditions.

Methods

We used Medicare claims from 2013 through 2015 to identify admissions for the five most commonly selected medical conditions in BPCI: congestive heart failure (CHF), pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), sepsis, and acute myocardial infarction (AMI). We used difference-in-differences analyses to assess changes in standardized Medicare payments per episode of care (defined as the hospitalization plus 90 days after discharge) for these conditions at BPCI hospitals and matched control hospitals.

Results

A total of 125 hospitals participated in BPCI for CHF, 105 hospitals for pneumonia, 101 hospitals for COPD, 88 hospitals for sepsis, and 73 hospitals for AMI. At baseline, the average Medicare payment per episode of care across the five conditions at BPCI hospitals was $24,280, which decreased to $23,993 during the intervention period (difference, −$286; P=0.41). Control hospitals had an average payment for all episodes of $23,901, which decreased to $23,503 during the intervention period (difference, −$398; P=0.08; difference in differences, $112; P=0.79). Changes from baseline to the intervention period in clinical complexity, length of stay, emergency department use or readmission within 30 or 90 days after hospital discharge, or death within 30 or 90 days after admission did not differ significantly between the intervention and control hospitals.

Conclusions

Hospital participation in five common medical bundles under BPCI was not associated with significant changes in Medicare payments, clinical complexity, length of stay, emergency department use, hospital readmission, or mortality. (Funded by the Commonwealth Fund.)

From the Discussion

In summary, hospital participation in five common medical bundles under BPCI, as compared with nonparticipation, was not associated with changes from baseline in total Medicare payments per episode, case complexity, length of stay, emergency department use, hospital readmission, or mortality. Bundling of services to encourage more efficient care has great face validity and enjoys bipartisan support. For such bundling to work for medical conditions, however, more time, new care strategies and partnerships, or additional incentives may be required.

https://www.nejm.org…

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

In discussions of the disappointing results of experiments with alternative payment models, especially accountable care organizations, frequently advocates of these models recommend continuing to tweak them and study them further, but, at the same time, they also express enthusiasm for bundled payments as a promising cost saving and quality improvement tool.

Some surgical interventions, such as joint replacement, bundle into a neat package, and initial results suggest that these bundles can save money (although it remains unclear as to how much cost shifting takes place in the background of an institution offering a great variety of services of varying complexity – how do you allocate the multitude of other operational costs of the institution?).

For bundling to have a significant impact on costs, it would be important to include common major medical disorders since they account for a considerable portion of hospital admissions. This study of five five such disorders showed that bundling “was not associated with changes from baseline in total Medicare payments per episode, case complexity, length of stay, emergency department use, hospital readmission, or mortality.”

As with other reports of failures in innovative payment models the authors suggest “more time, new care strategies and partnerships, or additional incentives” i.e., more tweaking, and study the responses.

All of this is simply resulting in further delay in implementing a model that would actually accomplish the goals of efficiency and cost containment with the additional benefits of true universality, equity, and accessibility – a well designed, single payer, improved Medicare for all. Just think of the difference it would have made if we did this a quarter of a century ago when we began our advocacy. How much longer do we have to diddle around before we finally make our move?

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