The Daily Camera
Saturday, November 3, 2007
The state’s blue-ribbon health-care-reform commission figures it would cost $1.1 billion to implement a sweeping measure under which all Coloradans would have to buy health insurance. The commission’s work is aimed in part to address the fact that nearly 790,000 residents are uninsured. The numbers are preliminary, but the question remains: Is this the right direction for Colorado? That question was posed this week to the Camera’s editorial advisory board.
Requiring people to buy health insurance is better than nothing, but it is not a comprehensive solution to the health-care and cost crisis.
There appear to be two major issues that health-care reform needs to address. First, our current system of multiple for-profit insurance companies wastes enormous amounts of money on duplicate administration, risk-avoidance and coverage disputes, estimated by some at 30 percent of total health care costs. And second, medical costs are hugely increased by uninsured people delaying diagnosis and treatment and then ending up in emergency rooms. Mandating the purchase of health insurance covers the second problem, but does nothing for the first.
A much more efficient and cost-effective approach would be to have a single-payer approach, like Medicare, available to all citizens, with this single entity paying hospitals and doctors for people’s basic needs. Clearly, setting the level of basic coverage would be a real political issue. And forcing health insurance companies to use common administrative procedures, to make supplemental coverage available to all, and to have their policies be fully transferable could be another bowl of hot potatoes. But these issues are not insurmountable, and taking them on will need to be done in any case.
Finally, the single-payer approach provides savings from eliminating unnecessary costs that will help to cover the increased level of basic care that currently is simply not provided, so the final societal bill may not increase dramatically, and may even be reduced.
Steve Pomerance