By Steffie Woolhandler, M.D.
The New York Times, Room for Debate, Oct. 20, 2015
The United States isn’t Denmark, but it can, like Scandinavia, implement changes to its health care system that save money, cover everyone and help us live longer.
In the 1950s, U.S. health statistics were world class: infant mortality rate among the lowest, life expectancy among the highest, and health costs about average. One by one, other nations — not just Denmark and Sweden, but Australia, Britain, Canada and Taiwan, to name a few — adopted national health programs. By the end of the 20th century, the U.S. was the lone hold out for private, for-profit health insurance, and its health statistics lagged behind dozens of countries. Meanwhile, costs soared to twice the average in other wealthy nations.
For Americans, national health insurance would mean comprehensive coverage, a free choice from a smorgasbord of any doctor or hospital and lower costs. Other countries have seen huge savings by evicting private insurers and the reams of expensive paperwork they inflict on doctors and hospitals. Aetna keeps 19 cents of every premium dollar for overhead and profit, leaving only 81 cents for care. And U.S. hospitals devote 25.3 percent of total revenue to administration, reflecting the high cost of collecting patient copayments and deductibles, and fighting with insurers.
Obamacare will direct an additional $850 billion in public funds to private insurers, and boost insurance overhead by $273.6 billion. Yet it will leave 26 million uninsured and similar numbers with such skimpy coverage that a major illness would bankrupt them. Most Americans have coverage that limits their choice of doctors and hospitals, and inflicts steep financial penalties when they stray “out-of-network” by accident or necessity.
In contrast, insurance overhead in single-payer programs (and fee-for-service Medicare) takes only 1 percent to 2 percent. In these programs, hospitals don’t need to bill each patient; they’re paid a lump sum budget, the way we fund fire departments, sharply cutting hospital administrative costs. Moving to a single-payer system would save about $400 billion annually on paperwork and administration — enough to ensure every American top coverage.
Messages like “We are not Denmark” insist we put blinders on and refuse to learn from others. That reasoning would have us ignore innovations like vaccination or CT scanners (British inventions), echocardiograms (a Swedish one) or cardiac stents (first used in France). A single-payer reform — like the one advocated by the 20,000 members of Physicians for a National Health Program — could save thousands of American lives each year. That’s as American as apple pie.
Steffie Woolhandler is a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.