By MARIA BRANDECKER
Legislative Gazette Staff Writer
Mon, Mar 3, 2008
Citing the recent Democratic upset victory in a special Senate election and the theme of change that is central to the candidacies of the same party’s presidential primary candidates, at least one supporter of a single payer health care system sees now as an opportune time to advocate for health care reform in New York.
It was Albany County Legislator Phillip G. Steck who pointed to the Senate race and the primary season, though he doesn’t necessarily agree with the presidential candidates’ health care proposals, as reasons why now is a fitting time to call on the state’s political leaders to make a change.
Steck was among advocates for a single payer health care system who held a press conference last Wednesday in Albany to voice their support for making the change in how people in New York and the rest of the country pay for their medical care. They say a single-payer system would achieve exactly as the name implies, providing health care for the entire population by centralizing funding under one source, for example the government.
The advocates said that having a centralized system for health care would ensure that all citizens receive coverage of all medical services by eliminating eligibility limitations for private and public health insurance. The advocates argued that health care should be a right of all citizens not a commodity for insurance companies to profit from and that establishing a single payer system is the way to achieve this goal.
Also speaking at the press conference were Hunger Action Network of New York State Executive Director Mark Dunlea, New York State Academy of Family Physicians Executive Vice President Vito F. Grasso and Dr. Tony Mason, vice chairman of the Capital District Chapter of Physicians for National Heath Program.
The advocates are urging the state Legislature and New York’s representatives in Washington to support the U.S. National Health Insurance Act, a federal universal health care bill (H.R.676) introduced in Congress and Assemblyman Felix Ortiz’s, D-Brooklyn, proposed resolution, (K.779) in the Assembly, in support of H.R.676.
The legislation would enact a single payer system that supporters say would decrease the control private insurance companies have over the health care system. According to the advocates, having one source that controls health care would create an equal opportunity for all citizens throughout the state and country to receive the type of health care they desire and need. The advocates would like to see the single payer system instituted on a state and national level.
Dunlea said the single payer system is one of the methods being studied by the Task Force on Universal Health Care that was established by the governor in 2007. The task force is conducting a cost-benefit analysis of a state single payer system, Dunlea said.
The advocates say a single payer system would benefit consumers and the economy by centrally regulating insurance costs and therefore lowering costs for patients. Patients would also be guaranteed a greater variety of options in choosing service providers and physicians and would no longer be limited to the type of insurance they are eligible for based on income, they said.
Businesses and medical institutions would also save money on taxes, Steck said. Steck said the high expense of providing health insurance is stifling many businesses.
Grasso said the Academy of Family Physicians recently re-evaluated its view on health care reform in response to the escalating costs of health insurance. “Tampering with the existing system is no longer an option because this approach has consistently failed in the past,” Grasso said.
Grasso said a single payer system would provide comprehensive reform and decrease systematic problems in the present “fragmented” health care system. Centralizing health care would make systematic problems easier to control and address when they do occur, Grasso said.
One of the main reasons the academy supports single payer system is its belive that it could lead to a reduction in the amount of staff needed to complete extra paper work, such as confirming patients’ eligibility for enrollment and authorization for receiving certain services, which Grasso says is not cost efficient for businesses. On average doctors must hire 2.5 staff people just to fill out paper work, Dunlea said. Grasso argued the extra paper work is unnecessary because it has “nothing to do with the quality of care patients are provided.”
“The [existing] system impedes the ability of patients to advocate for themselves and to obtain the quality of care the consistency of care that they deserve and believe they are getting,” Grasso said.
Mason added that a single payer health care system would strength the working relationship between patients and doctors. Often when patients switch jobs under the current system, Mason explained, they are forced to also switch providers and physicians placing both parties at a disadvantage. This is also a problem when physicians drop out of a particular service provider.
“Patients are restrained by income or by limits imposed by the insurance company,” Mason said. He said patients should have more freedom in choosing service providers and physicians. The single payer system would eliminate preferred physician lists, out-of-area limitations and other restrictions on choosing a doctor, as well as co-payments, Mason said.
“The only real question is not whether single payer makes the most sense for taxpayers, for business, for consumers and for doctors, it’s whether the politicians are willing to put the interests of those groups ahead of the interests of the insurance companies,” Dunlea said.
The advocates said changing the system is a difficult task due to the fact that a substantial amount of capital that is available in the health care system is under the control of private insurance companies and that this capital is an essential part of the health care system. Steck said that are ways to incorporate this capital, as well as employees of private insurance companies into a new system.
Absent from the press conference was Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried, D,WF-Manhattan, who sponsoring bill A.07354, a piece of legislation that calls for a universal health care system in New York and currently has 85 co-sponsors in the Assembly. Sen. Eric Schneiderman, D,WF-Manhattan, a member of the Senate’s Health Committee is sponsoring a same-as bill (S.3107).
