The New England Journal of Medicine
August 5, 2010

To the Editor:

On October 31, 2009, Massachusetts involuntarily transferred about 30,000 legal immigrants (mostly “green card” holders) from Commonwealth Care, the state-subsidized insurance program, to a new private insurance plan. CeltiCare, a subsidiary of the out-of-state, for-profit insurer Centene, agreed to take over their care for only $1,300 per person, one third of the state’s previous cost and well below the average cost of adequate care nationally. CeltiCare excluded several hospitals (and their affiliated community health centers) that have traditionally provided safety-net care for immigrants, including Boston Medical Center and Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), where we work.

We used internal hospital data to determine the characteristics of patients who were transferred to CeltiCare and who had formerly received their primary care at CHA. A total of 1325 patients who had visited a primary care provider at CHA during the past year were moved to CeltiCare. Of these patients, 73% speak a primary language other than English, including Portuguese (24%), Spanish (20%), and Haitian Creole (9%); 19% have hypertension, and 10% have diabetes mellitus. A psychiatric disorder has been diagnosed in at least 9%.

We then evaluated the adequacy of the provider network for these patients. During the second and third months after the switch to CeltiCare, we searched CeltiCare’s Web site for primary care providers within 5 miles of CHA’s ZIP Code. The search returned 326 providers, of whom 217 were nonduplicate adult generalists. Of these providers, 25% could not be reached at the telephone number provided. Of those available by telephone, only 37% were actually accepting new CeltiCare patients, and the average wait for an appointment was 33 days. In all, only 60 providers were accepting new CeltiCare patients, and only 38 could provide service for even one of the three major linguistic minorities.

Given these findings, we believe that patients who were switched from Commonwealth Care to CeltiCare had inadequate access to primary care 3 months into this new program. We fear that such “rationing by inconvenience” shuts patients out of care to the detriment of their health but to the benefit of CeltiCare’s bottom line. Policymakers, in Massachusetts and nationally, should reassess the role of profit-driven insurers in the provision of safety-net care.

Ruth Hertzman-Miller M.D., M.P.H.
Malgorzata Dawiskiba M.D.
Cassie Frank M.D.
Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1005451

NEJM 1989: Health Care Rationing through Inconvenience, by Gerald W. Grumet, M.D.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM198908313210909

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

Of all of the industrialized nations, the United States has the greatest amount of health care rationing, and we do that through a unique mechanism. We ration based on ability to pay. As this NEJM report shows, our flawed financing system also results in rationing by inconvenience. This is a unique tool used by the private insurance industry – a tool that serves the interests of the insurers, at the cost of the patients.

The 1989 NEJM article by Grumet describes some of the rationing-by-inconvenience mechanisms used during the managed care revolution. Not much has changed. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act calls for greater regulation of the private insurance industry, but it contains only a paucity of meager safeguards against policies of inconvenience. Therefore, it will be relatively ineffective in protecting us from this unscrupulous form of rationing.

Why do we leave the private insurance industry in charge?

Immigrants’ Experience with Publicly Funded Private Health Insurance

The New England Journal of Medicine
August 5, 2010
To the Editor:
On October 31, 2009, Massachusetts involuntarily transferred about 30,000 legal immigrants (mostly “green card” holders) from Commonwealth Care, the state-subsidized insurance program, to a new private insurance plan. CeltiCare, a subsidiary of the out-of-state, for-profit insurer Centene, agreed to take over their care for only $1,300 per person, one third of the state’s previous cost and well below the average cost of adequate care nationally. CeltiCare excluded several hospitals (and their affiliated community health centers) that have traditionally provided safety-net care for immigrants, including Boston Medical Center and Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), where we work.
We used internal hospital data to determine the characteristics of patients who were transferred to CeltiCare and who had formerly received their primary care at CHA. A total of 1325 patients who had visited a primary care provider at CHA during the past year were moved to CeltiCare. Of these patients, 73% speak a primary language other than English, including Portuguese (24%), Spanish (20%), and Haitian Creole (9%); 19% have hypertension, and 10% have diabetes mellitus. A psychiatric disorder has been diagnosed in at least 9%.
We then evaluated the adequacy of the provider network for these patients. During the second and third months after the switch to CeltiCare, we searched CeltiCare’s Web site for primary care providers within 5 miles of CHA’s ZIP Code. The search returned 326 providers, of whom 217 were nonduplicate adult generalists. Of these providers, 25% could not be reached at the telephone number provided. Of those available by telephone, only 37% were actually accepting new CeltiCare patients, and the average wait for an appointment was 33 days. In all, only 60 providers were accepting new CeltiCare patients, and only 38 could provide service for even one of the three major linguistic minorities.
Given these findings, we believe that patients who were switched from Commonwealth Care to CeltiCare had inadequate access to primary care 3 months into this new program. We fear that such “rationing by inconvenience” shuts patients out of care to the detriment of their health but to the benefit of CeltiCare’s bottom line. Policymakers, in Massachusetts and nationally, should reassess the role of profit-driven insurers in the provision of safety-net care.
Ruth Hertzman-Miller M.D., M.P.H.
Malgorzata Dawiskiba M.D.
Cassie Frank M.D.
Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1005451
NEJM 1989: Health Care Rationing through Inconvenience, by Gerald W. Grumet, M.D.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM198908313210909

Of all of the industrialized nations, the United States has the greatest amount of health care rationing, and we do that through a unique mechanism. We ration based on ability to pay. As this NEJM report shows, our flawed financing system also results in rationing by inconvenience. This is a unique tool used by the private insurance industry – a tool that serves the interests of the insurers, at the cost of the patients.
The 1989 NEJM article by Grumet describes some of the rationing-by-inconvenience mechanisms used during the managed care revolution. Not much has changed. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act calls for greater regulation of the private insurance industry, but it contains only a paucity of meager safeguards against policies of inconvenience. Therefore, it will be relatively ineffective in protecting us from this unscrupulous form of rationing.
Why do we leave the private insurance industry in charge?

Excerpts from Pro and Con op-eds on Medicare for all

Chicago Tribune
August 4, 2010

Pro: Rx for Medicare’s birthday: Expand it

By Quentin Young

I was in active medical practice on July 30, 1965, when Medicare was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Its impact on older Americans and their families was swift and spectacular. I saw the results with my own eyes.

Almost overnight, millions of Americans age 65 and older had the doors to health care opened to them that had hitherto been closed. They streamed into our doctors’ offices seeking long-deferred and sometimes urgently needed medical attention.

Simultaneously, the specter of crushing medical debt was lifted from the shoulders of tens of millions of America’s seniors and their children. You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief.

In fact, Medicare stands like a rock in a troubled sea of waste, inefficiency and disarray in the rest of our health care system, dominated as it is by big, corporate insurers whose paramount goal is to maximize profits, often by enrolling the healthy, avoiding the sick, raising premiums and denying claims.

Medicare is not without its problems, of course. Its benefits package could be richer. It lacks authority to negotiate lower prices with drug companies. The reimbursement rate to physicians could be enhanced and stabilized, instead of depending on an annual cat-and-mouse game with Congress (the “doc fix”) over a flawed accounting formula that only erodes physician confidence in the program.

But the best way to remedy these problems — and to bring down skyrocketing health care costs at the same time — is to improve the program and, most important, to expand it to cover every person in the United States.

That’s right: Extend Medicare to everyone. By replacing our crazy-quilt, inefficient system of private health insurers with a streamlined, publicly financed single-payer program, we would reap enormous savings.

First, we would save about $400 billion annually that is presently wasted on unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy. That’s enough money to cover everyone who is currently uninsured and to upgrade everyone else’s coverage without increasing overall U.S. health spending by a single penny.

Patients could go to the doctor and hospital of their choice. They’d be covered for all medically necessary services and medications, with no co-pays or deductibles.

Second, we’d acquire powerful cost-control tools like the ability to purchase medications in bulk, negotiate fees, develop global budgets for hospitals and coordinate capital investments. Such tools would rein in costs and help assure the program’s sustainability over the long haul.

It’s never too late to do the right thing. So when naysayers urge cuts to Medicare, don’t buy it. Tell them to ask Congress to enhance Medicare and to extend it to all.

Dr. Quentin Young is national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-oped-0805-pro-20100804,0,2770491.story

Con: Patients will end up receiving less care

By Cory Franklin

No physician in the United States has been a more articulate spokesman for the medically disenfranchised in the last half century than Quentin Young; his ideas on health care merit our attention. But he is simply mistaken that the best remedy for our health care problems is to expand Medicare to every American.

Medicare, adopted in 1965, has been a success — albeit a qualified one. Many of its advantages are indisputable, but some are oversold.

Medicare expansion raises the untested arguments of single-payer advocates — savings accrued through lower administrative costs, negotiating fees, global budgets, centralized planning and purchasing.

The biggest problem in expanding Medicare is essentially solving what economist Greg Mankiw calls the trilemma, the three problems of health care delivery — cost, access and quality. Any two might be achieved but the third necessarily suffers. Expanding Medicare could certainly improve access but no one has figured out how to prevent escalating costs or diminishing quality (e.g. less subspecialty care). The question must be asked: Under universal Medicare might the country pay more and see patients receive less?

Dr. Cory Franklin is a physician with NorthShore University HealthSystem.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-oped-0805-con-20100804,0,5728796.story

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

Supporters of Medicare for all are already familiar with the Pro position expressed so well by Quentin Young, but you may want to download the full article anyway to share it with others who may be less informed.

The full article on the Con position, written by Cory Franklin, also provides passive support for the Medicare for all position. He argues that 1) Medicare is going broke, 2) physicians are unhappy with Medicare reimbursement rates, 3) there have been many extensive technological advances in the past 45 years, 4) aging and obesity would put a strain on Medicare, 5) patients no longer pay 50 percent of total costs out of pocket, and that 6) there are unintended consequences in a massive government assumption of costs.

The reason that his arguments support Medicare for all is that he provides no alternative to address these issues other than the “untested” policies of the single payer model. In fact, the policies listed have been tested extensively in other nations and proven to be effective in both controlling costs and ensuring health care access for everyone.

A word needs to be said about the oft-repeated common wisdom that cost, access and quality are interdependent and that an improvement in one automatically results in an impairment of one or both of the others. Improve access and costs will go up and quality will go down, they say. This meme has been repeated so often that it is no longer questioned. Even Cory Franklin advances it with his statement: “Expanding Medicare could certainly improve access but no one has figured out how to prevent escalating costs or diminishing quality.”

What is the truth? As a universal program, Medicare for all would eliminate financial barriers to access for everyone. Expanded coverage would be paid for initially by the recovery of the profound administrative waste that uniquely characterizes our dysfunctional, fragmented system of financing health care. Not only would costs not increase, but single payer policies that would be put in place would slow the growth in costs to sustainable levels far into the future. A single payer system is also much more adept at identifying and incentivizing beneficial health care practices, thereby improving the quality of care delivered.

The opponents of Medicare for all are locked into the framing of the three-legged stool of cost, access and quality – reinforce one leg and the other two destabilize. We can show them how we can use Medicare for all to reinforce all three legs – proving universal access to higher quality care while controlling costs – to provide a solid, permanent structure of affordable, high quality care for everyone.

Excerpts from Pro and Con op-eds on Medicare for all

Chicago Tribune
August 4, 2010

Pro: Rx for Medicare’s birthday: Expand it

By Quentin Young
I was in active medical practice on July 30, 1965, when Medicare was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Its impact on older Americans and their families was swift and spectacular. I saw the results with my own eyes.
Almost overnight, millions of Americans age 65 and older had the doors to health care opened to them that had hitherto been closed. They streamed into our doctors’ offices seeking long-deferred and sometimes urgently needed medical attention.
Simultaneously, the specter of crushing medical debt was lifted from the shoulders of tens of millions of America’s seniors and their children. You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief.
In fact, Medicare stands like a rock in a troubled sea of waste, inefficiency and disarray in the rest of our health care system, dominated as it is by big, corporate insurers whose paramount goal is to maximize profits, often by enrolling the healthy, avoiding the sick, raising premiums and denying claims.
Medicare is not without its problems, of course. Its benefits package could be richer. It lacks authority to negotiate lower prices with drug companies. The reimbursement rate to physicians could be enhanced and stabilized, instead of depending on an annual cat-and-mouse game with Congress (the “doc fix”) over a flawed accounting formula that only erodes physician confidence in the program.
But the best way to remedy these problems — and to bring down skyrocketing health care costs at the same time — is to improve the program and, most important, to expand it to cover every person in the United States.
That’s right: Extend Medicare to everyone. By replacing our crazy-quilt, inefficient system of private health insurers with a streamlined, publicly financed single-payer program, we would reap enormous savings.
First, we would save about $400 billion annually that is presently wasted on unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy. That’s enough money to cover everyone who is currently uninsured and to upgrade everyone else’s coverage without increasing overall U.S. health spending by a single penny.
Patients could go to the doctor and hospital of their choice. They’d be covered for all medically necessary services and medications, with no co-pays or deductibles.
Second, we’d acquire powerful cost-control tools like the ability to purchase medications in bulk, negotiate fees, develop global budgets for hospitals and coordinate capital investments. Such tools would rein in costs and help assure the program’s sustainability over the long haul.
It’s never too late to do the right thing. So when naysayers urge cuts to Medicare, don’t buy it. Tell them to ask Congress to enhance Medicare and to extend it to all.
Dr. Quentin Young is national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-oped-0805-pro-20100804,0,2770491.story

Con: Patients will end up receiving less care

By Cory Franklin
No physician in the United States has been a more articulate spokesman for the medically disenfranchised in the last half century than Quentin Young; his ideas on health care merit our attention. But he is simply mistaken that the best remedy for our health care problems is to expand Medicare to every American.
Medicare, adopted in 1965, has been a success — albeit a qualified one. Many of its advantages are indisputable, but some are oversold.
Medicare expansion raises the untested arguments of single-payer advocates — savings accrued through lower administrative costs, negotiating fees, global budgets, centralized planning and purchasing.
The biggest problem in expanding Medicare is essentially solving what economist Greg Mankiw calls the trilemma, the three problems of health care delivery — cost, access and quality. Any two might be achieved but the third necessarily suffers. Expanding Medicare could certainly improve access but no one has figured out how to prevent escalating costs or diminishing quality (e.g. less subspecialty care). The question must be asked: Under universal Medicare might the country pay more and see patients receive less?
Dr. Cory Franklin is a physician with NorthShore University HealthSystem.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-oped-0805-con-20100804,0,5728796.story

Supporters of Medicare for all are already familiar with the Pro position expressed so well by Quentin Young, but you may want to download the full article anyway to share it with others who may be less informed.
The full article on the Con position, written by Cory Franklin, also provides passive support for the Medicare for all position. He argues that 1) Medicare is going broke, 2) physicians are unhappy with Medicare reimbursement rates, 3) there have been many extensive technological advances in the past 45 years, 4) aging and obesity would put a strain on Medicare, 5) patients no longer pay 50 percent of total costs out of pocket, and that 6) there are unintended consequences in a massive government assumption of costs.
The reason that his arguments support Medicare for all is that he provides no alternative to address these issues other than the “untested” policies of the single payer model. In fact, the policies listed have been tested extensively in other nations and proven to be effective in both controlling costs and ensuring health care access for everyone.
A word needs to be said about the oft-repeated common wisdom that cost, access and quality are interdependent and that an improvement in one automatically results in an impairment of one or both of the others. Improve access and costs will go up and quality will go down, they say. This meme has been repeated so often that it is no longer questioned. Even Cory Franklin advances it with his statement: “Expanding Medicare could certainly improve access but no one has figured out how to prevent escalating costs or diminishing quality.”
What is the truth? As a universal program, Medicare for all would eliminate financial barriers to access for everyone. Expanded coverage would be paid for initially by the recovery of the profound administrative waste that uniquely characterizes our dysfunctional, fragmented system of financing health care. Not only would costs not increase, but single payer policies that would be put in place would slow the growth in costs to sustainable levels far into the future. A single payer system is also much more adept at identifying and incentivizing beneficial health care practices, thereby improving the quality of care delivered.
The opponents of Medicare for all are locked into the framing of the three-legged stool of cost, access and quality – reinforce one leg and the other two destabilize. We can show them how we can use Medicare for all to reinforce all three legs – proving universal access to higher quality care while controlling costs – to provide a solid, permanent structure of affordable, high quality care for everyone.

By Yue-Chune Lee, Yu-Tung Huang, Yi-Wen Tsai, Shiuh-Ming Huang, Ken N Kuo, Martin McKee and Ellen Nolte
BMC Health Services Research
August 4, 2010

Background

Taiwan established a system of universal National Health Insurance (NHI) in March, 1995. Today, the NHI covers more than 98% of Taiwan’s population and enrollees enjoy almost free access to healthcare with small co-payment by most clinics and hospitals. Yet while this expansion of coverage will almost inevitably have improved access to health care, however, it cannot be assumed that it will necessarily have improved the health of the population. The aim of this study was to determine whether the introduction of National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan in 1995 was associated with a change in deaths from causes amenable to health care.

Methods

Identification of discontinuities in trends in mortality considered amenable to health care and all other conditions (non-amenable mortality) using joinpoint regression analysis from 1981 to 2005.

Results

Deaths from amenable causes declined between 1981 and 1993 but slowed between 1993 and 1996. Once NHI was implemented, the decline accelerated significantly, falling at 5.83% per year between 1996 and 1999. In contrast, there was little change in non-amenable causes (0.64 percent per year between 1981 and 1999). The effect of NHI was highest among the young and old, and lowest among those of working age, consistent with changes in the pattern of coverage. (This result is consistent with our expectations as 77% of the working age population were already covered by the pre-existing social insurance; thus they were inevitably going to be affected less by the introduction of NHI.) NHI was associated with substantial reductions in deaths from circulatory disorders and, for men, infections, whilst an earlier upward trend in female cancer deaths was reversed.

Conclusions

NHI was associated in a reduction in deaths considered amenable to health care; particularly among those age groups least likely to have been insured previously.

Policy Implications

These findings have implications for other countries that do not have universal health insurance coverage. The implementation of NHI in Taiwan was associated with a sustained reduction in deaths from causes amenable to health care, which surpassed the underlying decline in other causes. It is reasonable to expect that the introduction of universal coverage elsewhere might also have beneficial effects.

Looking ahead, while the Taiwanese NHI has succeeded in terms of cost (3.4% of GDP), satisfaction (77.5% satisfied in 2007), low administrative cost (1.49%), and equitable financial burden, the system is not without problems. For example, as a publicly-managed program, it is difficult to insulate it from political interference, a factor that has contributed to a continuing financial deficit. Thus, the existing budget may be inadequate to sustain the current level of performance.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/10/225/abstract

Full article (provisional):
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-10-225.pdf

United States has worst rate of amenable mortality:
https://pnhp.org/news/2008/january/united_states_has_wo.php

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

Taiwan’s 1995 introduction of a single payer system of universal National Health Insurance provides us with a natural experiment on the impact of single payer reform on health outcomes. The results are dramatic. The rate in reductions of deaths due to disorders that are amenable to health care were nine times the reductions in deaths from non-amenable causes. Nine times!

The United States should be especially interested in these results since, in a study of nineteen industrialized nations, we have the worst rate of amenable mortality (link above). We have over 100,000 excess deaths per year due to disorders amenable to health care.

Will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) erase this blemish on our health care system? Most of our dysfunctional financing system will remain in place. Some will receive care under an expansion of Medicaid, but as a chronically underfunded program with insufficient numbers of willing providers, access problems are inevitable. Others will receive care under the private plans in the insurance exchanges, but financial barriers to access will remain because of the low actuarial values of the plans and inadequate subsidies. There is little reason to believe that the tweaks of PPACA will have much impact on amenable mortality.

After enacting a single payer system, Taiwan not only greatly reduced amenable mortality, but it was done at a fraction of our spending, with great patient satisfaction, with extremely low administrative costs, and with a financing system that is equitable. Maybe Taiwan needs to spend more, but just think of what we could have with the amount that we are already spending. Besides, saving 100,000 lives a year seems to be a worthy policy goal.

The impact of universal National Health Insurance on population health: the experience of Taiwan

By Yue-Chune Lee, Yu-Tung Huang, Yi-Wen Tsai, Shiuh-Ming Huang, Ken N Kuo, Martin McKee and Ellen Nolte
BMC Health Services Research
August 4, 2010

Background

Taiwan established a system of universal National Health Insurance (NHI) in March, 1995. Today, the NHI covers more than 98% of Taiwan’s population and enrollees enjoy almost free access to healthcare with small co-payment by most clinics and hospitals. Yet while this expansion of coverage will almost inevitably have improved access to health care, however, it cannot be assumed that it will necessarily have improved the health of the population. The aim of this study was to determine whether the introduction of National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan in 1995 was associated with a change in deaths from causes amenable to health care.

Methods

Identification of discontinuities in trends in mortality considered amenable to health care and all other conditions (non-amenable mortality) using joinpoint regression analysis from 1981 to 2005.

Results

Deaths from amenable causes declined between 1981 and 1993 but slowed between 1993 and 1996. Once NHI was implemented, the decline accelerated significantly, falling at 5.83% per year between 1996 and 1999. In contrast, there was little change in non-amenable causes (0.64 percent per year between 1981 and 1999). The effect of NHI was highest among the young and old, and lowest among those of working age, consistent with changes in the pattern of coverage. (This result is consistent with our expectations as 77% of the working age population were already covered by the pre-existing social insurance; thus they were inevitably going to be affected less by the introduction of NHI.) NHI was associated with substantial reductions in deaths from circulatory disorders and, for men, infections, whilst an earlier upward trend in female cancer deaths was reversed.

Conclusions

NHI was associated in a reduction in deaths considered amenable to health care; particularly among those age groups least likely to have been insured previously.

Policy Implications

These findings have implications for other countries that do not have universal health insurance coverage. The implementation of NHI in Taiwan was associated with a sustained reduction in deaths from causes amenable to health care, which surpassed the underlying decline in other causes. It is reasonable to expect that the introduction of universal coverage elsewhere might also have beneficial effects.

Looking ahead, while the Taiwanese NHI has succeeded in terms of cost (3.4% of GDP), satisfaction (77.5% satisfied in 2007), low administrative cost (1.49%), and equitable financial burden, the system is not without problems. For example, as a publicly-managed program, it is difficult to insulate it from political interference, a factor that has contributed to a continuing financial deficit. Thus, the existing budget may be inadequate to sustain the current level of performance.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/10/225/abstract

Full article (provisional):
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-10-225.pdf

United States has worst rate of amenable mortality:
https://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/january/united_states_has_wo.php

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

Taiwan’s 1995 introduction of a single payer system of universal National Health Insurance provides us with a natural experiment on the impact of single payer reform on health outcomes. The results are dramatic. The rate in reductions of deaths due to disorders that are amenable to health care were nine times the reductions in deaths from non-amenable causes. Nine times!

The United States should be especially interested in these results since, in a study of nineteen industrialized nations, we have the worst rate of amenable mortality (link above). We have over 100,000 excess deaths per year due to disorders amenable to health care.

Will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) erase this blemish on our health care system? Most of our dysfunctional financing system will remain in place. Some will receive care under an expansion of Medicaid, but as a chronically underfunded program with insufficient numbers of willing providers, access problems are inevitable. Others will receive care under the private plans in the insurance exchanges, but financial barriers to access will remain because of the low actuarial values of the plans and inadequate subsidies. There is little reason to believe that the tweaks of PPACA will have much impact on amenable mortality.

After enacting a single payer system, Taiwan not only greatly reduced amenable mortality, but it was done at a fraction of our spending, with great patient satisfaction, with extremely low administrative costs, and with a financing system that is equitable. Maybe Taiwan needs to spend more, but just think of what we could have with the amount that we are already spending. Besides, saving 100,000 lives a year seems to be a worthy policy goal.

The impact of universal National Health Insurance on population health: the experience of Taiwan

By Yue-Chune Lee, Yu-Tung Huang, Yi-Wen Tsai, Shiuh-Ming Huang, Ken N Kuo, Martin McKee and Ellen Nolte
BMC Health Services Research
August 4, 2010
Background
Taiwan established a system of universal National Health Insurance (NHI) in March, 1995. Today, the NHI covers more than 98% of Taiwan’s population and enrollees enjoy almost free access to healthcare with small co-payment by most clinics and hospitals. Yet while this expansion of coverage will almost inevitably have improved access to health care, however, it cannot be assumed that it will necessarily have improved the health of the population. The aim of this study was to determine whether the introduction of National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan in 1995 was associated with a change in deaths from causes amenable to health care.
Methods
Identification of discontinuities in trends in mortality considered amenable to health care and all other conditions (non-amenable mortality) using joinpoint regression analysis from 1981 to 2005.
Results
Deaths from amenable causes declined between 1981 and 1993 but slowed between 1993 and 1996. Once NHI was implemented, the decline accelerated significantly, falling at 5.83% per year between 1996 and 1999. In contrast, there was little change in non-amenable causes (0.64 percent per year between 1981 and 1999). The effect of NHI was highest among the young and old, and lowest among those of working age, consistent with changes in the pattern of coverage. (This result is consistent with our expectations as 77% of the working age population were already covered by the pre-existing social insurance; thus they were inevitably going to be affected less by the introduction of NHI.) NHI was associated with substantial reductions in deaths from circulatory disorders and, for men, infections, whilst an earlier upward trend in female cancer deaths was reversed.
Conclusions
NHI was associated in a reduction in deaths considered amenable to health care; particularly among those age groups least likely to have been insured previously.
Policy Implications
These findings have implications for other countries that do not have universal health insurance coverage. The implementation of NHI in Taiwan was associated with a sustained reduction in deaths from causes amenable to health care, which surpassed the underlying decline in other causes. It is reasonable to expect that the introduction of universal coverage elsewhere might also have beneficial effects.
Looking ahead, while the Taiwanese NHI has succeeded in terms of cost (3.4% of GDP), satisfaction (77.5% satisfied in 2007), low administrative cost (1.49%), and equitable financial burden, the system is not without problems. For example, as a publicly-managed program, it is difficult to insulate it from political interference, a factor that has contributed to a continuing financial deficit. Thus, the existing budget may be inadequate to sustain the current level of performance.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/10/225/abstract
Full article (provisional):
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-10-225.pdf
United States has worst rate of amenable mortality:
https://pnhp.org/news/2008/january/united_states_has_wo.php

Taiwan’s 1995 introduction of a single payer system of universal National Health Insurance provides us with a natural experiment on the impact of single payer reform on health outcomes. The results are dramatic. The rate in reductions of deaths due to disorders that are amenable to health care were nine times the reductions in deaths from non-amenable causes. Nine times!
The United States should be especially interested in these results since, in a study of nineteen industrialized nations, we have the worst rate of amenable mortality (link above). We have over 100,000 excess deaths per year due to disorders amenable to health care.
Will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) erase this blemish on our health care system? Most of our dysfunctional financing system will remain in place. Some will receive care under an expansion of Medicaid, but as a chronically underfunded program with insufficient numbers of willing providers, access problems are inevitable. Others will receive care under the private plans in the insurance exchanges, but financial barriers to access will remain because of the low actuarial values of the plans and inadequate subsidies. There is little reason to believe that the tweaks of PPACA will have much impact on amenable mortality.
After enacting a single payer system, Taiwan not only greatly reduced amenable mortality, but it was done at a fraction of our spending, with great patient satisfaction, with extremely low administrative costs, and with a financing system that is equitable. Maybe Taiwan needs to spend more, but just think of what we could have with the amount that we are already spending. Besides, saving 100,000 lives a year seems to be a worthy policy goal.

The impact of universal National Health Insurance on population health: the experience of Taiwan

By Yue-Chune Lee, Yu-Tung Huang, Yi-Wen Tsai, Shiuh-Ming Huang, Ken N Kuo, Martin McKee and Ellen Nolte
BMC Health Services Research
August 4, 2010

Background

Taiwan established a system of universal National Health Insurance (NHI) in March, 1995. Today, the NHI covers more than 98% of Taiwan’s population and enrollees enjoy almost free access to healthcare with small co-payment by most clinics and hospitals. Yet while this expansion of coverage will almost inevitably have improved access to health care, however, it cannot be assumed that it will necessarily have improved the health of the population. The aim of this study was to determine whether the introduction of National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan in 1995 was associated with a change in deaths from causes amenable to health care.

Methods

Identification of discontinuities in trends in mortality considered amenable to health care and all other conditions (non-amenable mortality) using joinpoint regression analysis from 1981 to 2005.

Results

Deaths from amenable causes declined between 1981 and 1993 but slowed between 1993 and 1996. Once NHI was implemented, the decline accelerated significantly, falling at 5.83% per year between 1996 and 1999. In contrast, there was little change in non-amenable causes (0.64 percent per year between 1981 and 1999). The effect of NHI was highest among the young and old, and lowest among those of working age, consistent with changes in the pattern of coverage. (This result is consistent with our expectations as 77% of the working age population were already covered by the pre-existing social insurance; thus they were inevitably going to be affected less by the introduction of NHI.) NHI was associated with substantial reductions in deaths from circulatory disorders and, for men, infections, whilst an earlier upward trend in female cancer deaths was reversed.

Conclusions

NHI was associated in a reduction in deaths considered amenable to health care; particularly among those age groups least likely to have been insured previously.

Policy Implications

These findings have implications for other countries that do not have universal health insurance coverage. The implementation of NHI in Taiwan was associated with a sustained reduction in deaths from causes amenable to health care, which surpassed the underlying decline in other causes. It is reasonable to expect that the introduction of universal coverage elsewhere might also have beneficial effects.

Looking ahead, while the Taiwanese NHI has succeeded in terms of cost (3.4% of GDP), satisfaction (77.5% satisfied in 2007), low administrative cost (1.49%), and equitable financial burden, the system is not without problems. For example, as a publicly-managed program, it is difficult to insulate it from political interference, a factor that has contributed to a continuing financial deficit. Thus, the existing budget may be inadequate to sustain the current level of performance.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/10/225/abstract

Full article (provisional):
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-10-225.pdf

United States has worst rate of amenable mortality:
https://pnhp.org/news/2008/january/united_states_has_wo.php

Taiwan’s 1995 introduction of a single payer system of universal National Health Insurance provides us with a natural experiment on the impact of single payer reform on health outcomes. The results are dramatic. The rate in reductions of deaths due to disorders that are amenable to health care were nine times the reductions in deaths from non-amenable causes. Nine times!

The United States should be especially interested in these results since, in a study of nineteen industrialized nations, we have the worst rate of amenable mortality (link above). We have over 100,000 excess deaths per year due to disorders amenable to health care.

Will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) erase this blemish on our health care system? Most of our dysfunctional financing system will remain in place. Some will receive care under an expansion of Medicaid, but as a chronically underfunded program with insufficient numbers of willing providers, access problems are inevitable. Others will receive care under the private plans in the insurance exchanges, but financial barriers to access will remain because of the low actuarial values of the plans and inadequate subsidies. There is little reason to believe that the tweaks of PPACA will have much impact on amenable mortality.

After enacting a single payer system, Taiwan not only greatly reduced amenable mortality, but it was done at a fraction of our spending, with great patient satisfaction, with extremely low administrative costs, and with a financing system that is equitable. Maybe Taiwan needs to spend more, but just think of what we could have with the amount that we are already spending. Besides, saving 100,000 lives a year seems to be a worthy policy goal.

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

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

“…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.