The health law and its incentives

By Marc H. Lavietes, M.D.
The New York Times, Letters, May 9, 2013

Re “What Health Insurance Doesn’t Do,” by Ross Douthat (column, May 5):

Ross Douthat’s statement that liberals “remain wedded to the dream of a health care bureaucracy that pays” is disingenuous. Obamacare will provide greater access to health care but will neither diminish health care costs nor provide universal care. Progressive physicians favor a single-payer health plan serving as an insurance fund, leaving physicians free to organize their own practices and patients free to choose their physicians.

“Lump” payments for a given condition (angina, asthma) rather than individual payments for each test ordered would push physicians to minimize testing rather than maximize it, and thus limit cost. A powerful single provider could negotiate reasonable drug prices, thus decreasing the exorbitant cost of prescription drugs.

Countries with a single-payer system show major reductions in their administrative costs. Pharmaceutical industry and medical insurance company profits are unconscionable. It is possible to improve health care while limiting both bureaucracy and cost.

Dr. Marc H. Lavietes, a clinical associate professor of medicine at U.M.D.N.J., is secretary of Physicians for a National Health Program, New York City chapter. He resides in Bradley Beach, N.J.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/opinion/the-health-law-and-its-incentives.html?_r=0