The Santa Barbara Independent
March 10, 2005
Healthcare for All
By Peter Conn, Chairperson of the S.B. chapter of Healthcare for All
The present healthcare system in this country is in dire need of extensive rehabilitation. It bankrupts the sick – even those with insurance – as well as hospitals. Our healthcare system has an unsustainable inflation rate and is burdened by administrative waste and inefficiency. It fails to deliver proper care almost half the time and is unavailable to ever larger numbers of people. Your “choice” of plan or doctor depends on who you work for and how much you can afford. This non-system has had over 40 years to get it right. It was supposed to hold down costs through competition and give us “choice.” Yet never have so many paid so much for so little.
http://www.independent.com/opinions/voices955.htm
Comment: Simply repeating, “…never have so many paid so much for so little.” The article does then proceed with an excellent description of CHIRA, the single payer bill introduced by Sen. Sheila Kuehl.
(My selection of today’s quote is admittedly biased since we just spent four fantastic days camping with the author, Peter Conn, and his wife Paulina in California’s Anza-Borrego desert, now painted with a spectacular bloom of wildflowers.)
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Message: 2
Subject: qotd: Confusion over “single-payer”
The Berkshire Eagle
March 16, 2005
Insurance plan tries to promote healthy lifestyle
By Carrie Saldo
The Berkshire Health Group — whose members include municipalities such as Lenox, Great Barrington and Adams, as well as school districts like Mount Greylock Regional School District and Central Berkshire — recently approved
adopting a “consumer-driven health plan.”
Availability of a consumer-driven health plan is subject to approval by the Selectmen and various unions, said (Town Manager Gregory) Federspiel. Enrollment would be voluntary and could begin as soon as July; the traditional plans would still be available.
Federspiel said it is up to each person to weigh the pros and cons of both the available single-payer plan and the proposed consumer-driven plan, and to decide which is right for their health care needs.
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/Stories/0,1413,101~7514~2764913,00.html
Comment: In this article, the term “single-payer” is being used to refer to Blue Cross/Blue Shield coverage. It is gratifying to see that “single-payer” has now become part of the standard rhetoric about our health care system. But confusing single-payer with Blue Cross/Blue Shield indicates that we must press on ever more energetically with our education campaign.
(For those who object to the “single payer” label, please keep in mind that this is now the standard term in the health policy literature for a precisely defined model of public financing of health care. For those who prefer other terms, an effort must be made to define your model. If it is single payer, then you should state so, at least parenthetically, to clarify that we are all out there with the same message. For those who prefer other models of reform, at least you’ll understand exactly what we mean when we say “single payer.”)