By Pat Barcas
Fox Valley Labor News, April 5, 2014
CHICAGO — Single-payer health care, or universal health care, is care paid for by the government through taxation. The United States does not offer this, falling woefully behind other industrialized nations in health care, and advocates want to change that through legislation.
“I think single payer is inevitable in America,” said Anne Scheetz, M.D., of the Illinois Single Payer Coalition. “Health care right now in America isn’t sustainable. It’s a terrible system and it’s going to fall apart.”
The Labor News sat down with Scheetz, and another advocate, Hale Landes of IBEW Local 134. Landes said even though many unions offer privatized health care, single payer would still benefit them.
“Health care is a huge bargaining chip in union negotiations. Take that away and we have more power. No one likes negotiating, but the thing is, the health insurance company doesn’t care, because they always win,” said Landes.
Single payer would allow for older people only working for insurance coverage to retire and open up the market, and workers comp insurance industry would vanish, because everyone would be covered.
“It really eliminates a lot of problems,” he said.
People who don’t want to pay the increased tax for covering strangers may not know they are already covering the cost. The existing system is operating extremely inefficiently, and hospitals have to raise prices for those uninsured who get treated at the emergency room.
“The vast majority of people would pay less in taxes than they pay now in premiums, co-pays, and services,” said Sheetz, who added the system we have now only serves those at the top, and snubs those at the bottom.
“Low-wage workers pay the same now as high wage-workers. It’s a huge disparity. And no one has the responsibility now of putting health care where it’s needed, so low income and rural areas have either one choice or no choice at all in an emergency,” she said.
Landes cited the efficiency of the VA in delivering quality care to those who say the government is too sloppy to handle single payer.
“The Obamacare rollout was done with private companies. It’s not always the most efficient way,” he said.
The points for single payer are staggering — a 2013 study alone showed massive savings during the first year alone if the United States switches to single payer.
Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, found that upgrading the nation’s Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all ages would yield more than a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation, enough to pay for high-quality, comprehensive health benefits for all residents of the United States at a lower cost to most individuals, families and businesses.
Friedman said the savings would come from slashing the administrative waste associated with today’s private health insurance industry ($476 billion) and using the new, public system’s bargaining muscle to negotiate pharmaceutical drug prices down to European levels ($116 billion).
“We want people to know they can do something about this,” said Scheetz, who said representatives from the Illinois Single Payer Coalition are available for educational speaking engagements.
“Learn about single payer, contact your state senator or representative. This will help a lot of people,” Scheetz stressed.
Visit the Illinois Single Payer Coalition website to join, to obtain more information or to schedule a speaking engagement.
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