By Don McCanne, M.D.
Physicians for a National Health Program, March 21, 2013
“If the piece has a hero, it’s an unlikely one: Medicare, the government program that by law can pay hospitals only the approximate costs of care. It’s Medicare, not Obamacare, that is bending the curve in terms of cost and efficiency.”
– Richard Stengel, managing editor, TIME, regarding “Bitter Pill’ by Steven Brill
Experience has shown that the efforts of private insurers are relatively feeble when compared to the tremendous power of government administered pricing. This is demonstrated by the S&P Healthcare Economic Indices, which indicate the change in the average per capita cost of health care services. When breaking down the S&P Healthcare Economic Composite Index into the S&P Healthcare Economic Medicare Index and the S&P Healthcare Economic Commercial Index (private insurers and large self-funded employer groups), it is clear that Medicare has bent the cost curve when compared to the private commercial insurers (Figure 1 – available at link, below).
Even though Medicare has done a better job than the private sector at getting prices right, comparisons with other nations have shown that we can do even better. The United States and Canada were on the same trajectory in growth of health care costs until Canada adopted its medicare program – a single payer national health program administered in each province. Figure 2 (at link below) demonstrates that, compared to the United States, Canada has effectively bent the cost curved for their entire national health expenditures.
Let’s keep bending the Medicare cost curve, but not just for seniors and people with disabilities. Let’s bend it for all of us.
https://pnhp.org/print/news/2013/march/the-cost-curve-is-bending-but-not-for-all-of-us
Comment:
By Don McCanne, M.D.
The full article explains how extending an improved Medicare to everyone as a single payer system would finally achieve for us that elusive goal of bending the cost curve – bringing the growth in health care costs down to sustainable levels.
Just seeing the two graphs mentioned above would make clicking on the link to the full article well worth your time. The concept is so important that you should consider sharing it with others. Our nation needs to understand that we can have an affordable, high quality health care system that serves all of us well, but not if we don’t change the direction of reform.