The Daily Gazette
June 4, 2006
Editorial for Single-Payer
Ever wonder who gets stuck with the bill when the government undercompensates hospitals and doctors for services provided to Medicare and Medicaid patients? The hospitals and docs may eat part of the loss, but according to a new study, they pass a fair amount of it on to private payers, too. That’s insurers, employers, workers who buy their own insurance and people who pay for their health care out of pocket – anyone left with money in their pockets when the music stops.
The study, commissioned by a Washington state insurance company, provides yet another argument for scrapping the existing, unfair system and switching to a single-payer government-funded plan.
It’s hard to blame hospitals for shifting the burden for care they’re obligated to provide but don’t get adequately reimbursed for. Many are losing money. While the situation is somewhat different for doctors – they haven’t exactly been losing money, they’ve simply not been making as much – their sentiment is understandable: Why should they be required to work harder for less?
According to the study, reported in Thursday’s New York Times, hospitals in Washington state in 2004 charged $738 million – or 14.3 percent – more to private payers to help offset underpayments from Medicare and Medicaid. A similar study of Washington doctors found they charged private payers an additional $620 million, or 12 percent, to compensate for being undercompensated by the government.
So private payers, who already pay for Medicaid and Medicare through their tax dollars, have to pay again. Why not abandon the charade, put all the programs under one roof – the U.S. government’s – and presumably save a lot with a single bureaucracy and economies of scale?