PNHP

Universal Health Care And ‘Patient Dumping’

Universal Health Care And ‘Patient Dumping’

By Samuel Metz, M.D.
Health Affairs, Letters, October 2012

Sara Rosenbaum and coauthors describe one hospital’s unhappy experience with “patient dumping” (Aug 2012). The primary motivation behind hospitals’ aggressively transferring emergency patients to other facilities is to rid themselves of nonpaying or low-paying patients. The authors conclude with suggested steps to enhance provisions of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), intended to prevent such practices.

Not discussed in the article was one method to reduce, if not eliminate, patient dumping: a universal health care plan. Vermont enacted legislation to create a statewide universal health care program; once fully implemented, the system will render every patient a paying patient and reimburse providers equally for all patients.[1] Under these circumstances, there will be little financial gain from patient dumping.

Statewide single payer systems for publicly funded universal health care are advocated in many states, including Colorado.[2] Should Colorado be fortunate enough to pass such legislation, the procedural suggestions of Rosenbaum and colleagues would be rendered unnecessary. Indeed, EMTALA itself would be unnecessary.

NOTES

1. Hsiao WC, Knight AG, Kappel S, Done N. What other states can learn from Vermont’s bold experiment: embracing a single-payer health care financing system. Health Aff (Millwood). 2011;30(7):1232–41.

2. White CR. Background of a Colorado draft proposal for single payer health care [Internet]. Lakewood (CO): Health Care for All Colorado Foundation; [cited 2012 Aug 28]. Available from: http://healthcareforallcolorado.org/?p=955&ID=343&d=1

Health Affairs, October 2012;mar 31:2355; doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2012.0950

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/31/10/2355.3.full.pdf+html

"Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors"

NOTE: Do not bother reading this article; simply take only three seconds to skim it. Its essence can be elucidated by reading this one sentence gleaned from the article: “Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors on the long side and the short side.”

26 ways to profit from ‘Obamacare’

By Nigam Arora
MarketWatch, November 8, 2012

Obama has been re-elected; “Obamacare” is the law of the land. It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with Obamacare, you might as well generate big profits from it.

Obamacare has been profitable for us. We bought Amerigroup Corp. at $22.05, and, as of this writing, the stock is at $91.44 — this is a whopping 315% return.

It wasn’t long ago when we aggressively bought Tenet Healthcare at $20.40. Yesterday THC hit a 52-week high of $27.60.

Here are 26 ways to profit from both the long and the short side.

Hospital stocks

The best way to profit on the long side from Obamacare is to buy hospital stocks as utilization rates will increase and uncollected receivables will go down.

Under Obamacare, the pool of paying patients will increase. It is estimated that currently about 30 million Americans are uninsured. The increase in the number of paying patients will be huge.

By law, hospitals have to serve all patients who show up at their emergency rooms including indigents as well as those with no insurance. Hospitals also have difficulty collecting from low income Americans who may have no insurance or are underinsured. Some hospitals aren’t able to collect as much as 30% of their billings.

The earnings of some hospitals may increase by as much as 25%.

Our favorite stock in this sector is THC. Other hospital stocks on our list buy are Community Health Systems, HCA Holdings, LifePoint Hospitals, and Universal Health Services.

Medicaid HMOs

These HMOs focus on Medicaid and other government programs and will be big beneficiaries of Obamacare.

We own AGP but it is not suitable for those not in the stock. AGP is being bought by WellPoint.

Other names on our buy list are Centene Corp., Molina Healthcare, and WellCare Health Plans.

Medicare Part D

Medicare Part D is a private plan which provides prescription drug coverage for those eligible for Medicare. Government payments received by insurance companies for this program are likely to see reductions.

Humana is our top pick to short sell, but we will wait for this stock to meet all of our six screens before acting.

Branded pharmaceuticals

In the long run, branded pharmaceuticals will be hurt. Obama will be under intense pressure to reduce rising health care costs in Medicaid and Medicare. Branded drugs are a sitting duck simply because Big Pharma sells them for far less abroad than in the United States.

Large-cap pharmaceutical stocks are in favor these days. The market participants perceive them as safe. The reasoning goes that people will always be using drugs irrespective of what happens in Europe, China or to the U.S. economy.

It doesn’t hurt that these stocks also pay high dividends. Buying high dividend stocks is the rage. However Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year; if there is no compromise in Washington, income-tax rate on dividends will jump and high dividend stocks will give up some of their recent gains.

Secret to making money by short selling is to sell short stocks that are popular and whose fundamentals are likely to deteriorate. We are short Market Vectors Pharmaceutical.

We have recently taken profits on Lilly, but we plan to short it again.

Two other stocks to short on our list are Merck and Pfizer.

Generic pharmaceuticals

In the short run, Obamacare is positive for generic pharmaceutical companies such as Teva, Mylan, and Dr. Reddy’s Labs. In the long run, these companies will suffer as there will be intense pressure on the prices they can charge. There is an opportunity here on the long side in the medium term, but it will become a short opportunity in due course.

Medical devices

Obamacare levies a tax on medical devices. Further pressure on medical device companies such as Medtronic, Stryker, St. Jude Medical, and Zimmer Holdings to reduce prices will increase.

We plan to short sell these companies when they meet our six screens.

Testing laboratories

There will be more medical tests as more patients are insured. In the short run, implementation of Obamacare is positive for testing companies such as Quest Diagnostics and Laboratory Corp. of America.

In the long run, Obamacare is very negative for these companies because they will come under heavy pressure to reduce rates. These are some of the best ways to profit from the short side in the long-term.

Drug distributors

As more pharmaceuticals are used, the ruling is positive for drug distributors such as McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen.

Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors on the long side and the short side. The key to making money will be the timing of entries and exits using a proven method such as ZYX Change Method. If you cannot short, consider the inverse ETF RXD.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/26-ways-to-profit-from-obamacare-2012-11-08

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

The SEC will affirm that shareholders of health care firms must always have priority over the patients that should benefit from their products and services. The Affordable Care Act has expanded investor ownership within our health care system. As this article states, “Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors.”

Is this what our health care system is all about?

It doesn’t have to be this way

“Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors”

NOTE: Do not bother reading this article; simply take only three seconds to skim it. Its essence can be elucidated by reading this one sentence gleaned from the article: “Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors on the long side and the short side.”

26 ways to profit from ‘Obamacare’

By Nigam Arora
MarketWatch, November 8, 2012

Obama has been re-elected; “Obamacare” is the law of the land. It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with Obamacare, you might as well generate big profits from it.

Obamacare has been profitable for us. We bought Amerigroup Corp. at $22.05, and, as of this writing, the stock is at $91.44 — this is a whopping 315% return.

It wasn’t long ago when we aggressively bought Tenet Healthcare at $20.40. Yesterday THC hit a 52-week high of $27.60.

Here are 26 ways to profit from both the long and the short side.

Hospital stocks

The best way to profit on the long side from Obamacare is to buy hospital stocks as utilization rates will increase and uncollected receivables will go down.

Under Obamacare, the pool of paying patients will increase. It is estimated that currently about 30 million Americans are uninsured. The increase in the number of paying patients will be huge.

By law, hospitals have to serve all patients who show up at their emergency rooms including indigents as well as those with no insurance. Hospitals also have difficulty collecting from low income Americans who may have no insurance or are underinsured. Some hospitals aren’t able to collect as much as 30% of their billings.

The earnings of some hospitals may increase by as much as 25%.

Our favorite stock in this sector is THC. Other hospital stocks on our list buy are Community Health Systems, HCA Holdings, LifePoint Hospitals, and Universal Health Services.

Medicaid HMOs

These HMOs focus on Medicaid and other government programs and will be big beneficiaries of Obamacare.

We own AGP but it is not suitable for those not in the stock. AGP is being bought by WellPoint.

Other names on our buy list are Centene Corp., Molina Healthcare, and WellCare Health Plans.

Medicare Part D

Medicare Part D is a private plan which provides prescription drug coverage for those eligible for Medicare. Government payments received by insurance companies for this program are likely to see reductions.

Humana is our top pick to short sell, but we will wait for this stock to meet all of our six screens before acting.

Branded pharmaceuticals

In the long run, branded pharmaceuticals will be hurt. Obama will be under intense pressure to reduce rising health care costs in Medicaid and Medicare. Branded drugs are a sitting duck simply because Big Pharma sells them for far less abroad than in the United States.

Large-cap pharmaceutical stocks are in favor these days. The market participants perceive them as safe. The reasoning goes that people will always be using drugs irrespective of what happens in Europe, China or to the U.S. economy.

It doesn’t hurt that these stocks also pay high dividends. Buying high dividend stocks is the rage. However Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year; if there is no compromise in Washington, income-tax rate on dividends will jump and high dividend stocks will give up some of their recent gains.

Secret to making money by short selling is to sell short stocks that are popular and whose fundamentals are likely to deteriorate. We are short Market Vectors Pharmaceutical.

We have recently taken profits on Lilly, but we plan to short it again.

Two other stocks to short on our list are Merck and Pfizer.

Generic pharmaceuticals

In the short run, Obamacare is positive for generic pharmaceutical companies such as Teva, Mylan, and Dr. Reddy’s Labs. In the long run, these companies will suffer as there will be intense pressure on the prices they can charge. There is an opportunity here on the long side in the medium term, but it will become a short opportunity in due course.

Medical devices

Obamacare levies a tax on medical devices. Further pressure on medical device companies such as Medtronic, Stryker, St. Jude Medical, and Zimmer Holdings to reduce prices will increase.

We plan to short sell these companies when they meet our six screens.

Testing laboratories

There will be more medical tests as more patients are insured. In the short run, implementation of Obamacare is positive for testing companies such as Quest Diagnostics and Laboratory Corp. of America.

In the long run, Obamacare is very negative for these companies because they will come under heavy pressure to reduce rates. These are some of the best ways to profit from the short side in the long-term.

Drug distributors

As more pharmaceuticals are used, the ruling is positive for drug distributors such as McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen.

Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors on the long side and the short side. The key to making money will be the timing of entries and exits using a proven method such as ZYX Change Method. If you cannot short, consider the inverse ETF RXD.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/26-ways-to-profit-from-obamacare-2012-11-08

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

The SEC will affirm that shareholders of health care firms must always have priority over the patients that should benefit from their products and services. The Affordable Care Act has expanded investor ownership within our health care system. As this article states, “Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors.”

Is this what our health care system is all about?

It doesn’t have to be this way

"Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors"

NOTE: Do not bother reading this article; simply take only three seconds to skim it. Its essence can be elucidated by reading this one sentence gleaned from the article: “Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors on the long side and the short side.”

26 ways to profit from ‘Obamacare’

By Nigam Arora
MarketWatch, November 8, 2012
Obama has been re-elected; “Obamacare” is the law of the land. It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with Obamacare, you might as well generate big profits from it.
Obamacare has been profitable for us. We bought Amerigroup Corp. at $22.05, and, as of this writing, the stock is at $91.44 — this is a whopping 315% return.
It wasn’t long ago when we aggressively bought Tenet Healthcare at $20.40. Yesterday THC hit a 52-week high of $27.60.
Here are 26 ways to profit from both the long and the short side.
Hospital stocks
The best way to profit on the long side from Obamacare is to buy hospital stocks as utilization rates will increase and uncollected receivables will go down.
Under Obamacare, the pool of paying patients will increase. It is estimated that currently about 30 million Americans are uninsured. The increase in the number of paying patients will be huge.
By law, hospitals have to serve all patients who show up at their emergency rooms including indigents as well as those with no insurance. Hospitals also have difficulty collecting from low income Americans who may have no insurance or are underinsured. Some hospitals aren’t able to collect as much as 30% of their billings.
The earnings of some hospitals may increase by as much as 25%.
Our favorite stock in this sector is THC. Other hospital stocks on our list buy are Community Health Systems, HCA Holdings, LifePoint Hospitals, and Universal Health Services.
Medicaid HMOs
These HMOs focus on Medicaid and other government programs and will be big beneficiaries of Obamacare.
We own AGP but it is not suitable for those not in the stock. AGP is being bought by WellPoint.
Other names on our buy list are Centene Corp., Molina Healthcare, and WellCare Health Plans.
Medicare Part D
Medicare Part D is a private plan which provides prescription drug coverage for those eligible for Medicare. Government payments received by insurance companies for this program are likely to see reductions.
Humana is our top pick to short sell, but we will wait for this stock to meet all of our six screens before acting.
Branded pharmaceuticals
In the long run, branded pharmaceuticals will be hurt. Obama will be under intense pressure to reduce rising health care costs in Medicaid and Medicare. Branded drugs are a sitting duck simply because Big Pharma sells them for far less abroad than in the United States.
Large-cap pharmaceutical stocks are in favor these days. The market participants perceive them as safe. The reasoning goes that people will always be using drugs irrespective of what happens in Europe, China or to the U.S. economy.
It doesn’t hurt that these stocks also pay high dividends. Buying high dividend stocks is the rage. However Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year; if there is no compromise in Washington, income-tax rate on dividends will jump and high dividend stocks will give up some of their recent gains.
Secret to making money by short selling is to sell short stocks that are popular and whose fundamentals are likely to deteriorate. We are short Market Vectors Pharmaceutical.
We have recently taken profits on Lilly, but we plan to short it again.
Two other stocks to short on our list are Merck and Pfizer.
Generic pharmaceuticals
In the short run, Obamacare is positive for generic pharmaceutical companies such as Teva, Mylan, and Dr. Reddy’s Labs. In the long run, these companies will suffer as there will be intense pressure on the prices they can charge. There is an opportunity here on the long side in the medium term, but it will become a short opportunity in due course.
Medical devices
Obamacare levies a tax on medical devices. Further pressure on medical device companies such as Medtronic, Stryker, St. Jude Medical, and Zimmer Holdings to reduce prices will increase.
We plan to short sell these companies when they meet our six screens.
Testing laboratories
There will be more medical tests as more patients are insured. In the short run, implementation of Obamacare is positive for testing companies such as Quest Diagnostics and Laboratory Corp. of America.
In the long run, Obamacare is very negative for these companies because they will come under heavy pressure to reduce rates. These are some of the best ways to profit from the short side in the long-term.
Drug distributors
As more pharmaceuticals are used, the ruling is positive for drug distributors such as McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen.
Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors on the long side and the short side. The key to making money will be the timing of entries and exits using a proven method such as ZYX Change Method. If you cannot short, consider the inverse ETF RXD.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/26-ways-to-profit-from-obamacare-2012-1…

The SEC will affirm that shareholders of health care firms must always have priority over the patients that should benefit from their products and services. The Affordable Care Act has expanded investor ownership within our health care system. As this article states, “Obamacare will prove to be a gold mine for astute traders and investors.”
Is this what our health care system is all about?
It doesn’t have to be this way.

Dr. Weisbart writes on single payer in the AMA Journal of Ethics

A Single-Payer System Would Reduce U.S. Health Care Costs

By Ed Weisbart, MD, CPE
American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, Virtual Mentor, November 2012

Today’s fragmented system is akin to requiring each household in a community to anticipate their needs for the coming year and negotiate their own fees and scope of services with the local police and fire departments. Imagine instead how much of their budgets these life-saving community services would be obliged to devote to marketing to and negotiating with each household and the rampant disparities in service that would result. That is precisely what is happening today in health care, and it is absurdly wasteful. For police and fire departments, we have recognized that it is significantly less wasteful to give all citizens the same “coverage” for set prices and to administer it with regional coordination. Global budgeting is the only sensible strategy for such unpredictable yet universally needed services.

Conclusion

The ACA has begun the process of much needed change. Now we need to go further in reforming health care finance to enable all Americans to achieve their fundamental human right to comprehensive coverage. The rest of the modern world has run the laboratory studies for us; now is the time for us to adopt this well proven solution.

http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2012/11/oped1-1211.html

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Health care financing is a fundamental ethical issue, thus it is very appropriate that Ed Weisbart’s article on single payer be published in the AMA’s journal of ethics. Hopefully, the brief excerpt above will entice you to click on the link to read the entire article, and then share it with others to spread the word on the imperative of the single payer model – an improved Medicare for everyone.

Dr. Weisbart writes on single payer in the AMA Journal of Ethics

A Single-Payer System Would Reduce U.S. Health Care Costs

By Ed Weisbart, MD, CPE
American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, Virtual Mentor, November 2012
Today’s fragmented system is akin to requiring each household in a community to anticipate their needs for the coming year and negotiate their own fees and scope of services with the local police and fire departments. Imagine instead how much of their budgets these life-saving community services would be obliged to devote to marketing to and negotiating with each household and the rampant disparities in service that would result. That is precisely what is happening today in health care, and it is absurdly wasteful. For police and fire departments, we have recognized that it is significantly less wasteful to give all citizens the same “coverage” for set prices and to administer it with regional coordination. Global budgeting is the only sensible strategy for such unpredictable yet universally needed services.
Conclusion
The ACA has begun the process of much needed change. Now we need to go further in reforming health care finance to enable all Americans to achieve their fundamental human right to comprehensive coverage. The rest of the modern world has run the laboratory studies for us; now is the time for us to adopt this well proven solution.
http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2012/11/oped1-1211.html

Health care financing is a fundamental ethical issue, thus it is very appropriate that Ed Weisbart’s article on single payer be published in the AMA’s journal of ethics. Hopefully, the brief excerpt above will entice you to click on the link to read the entire article, and then share it with others to spread the word on the imperative of the single payer model – an improved Medicare for everyone.

What does the election mean for health care reform?

Yes, Obama Won a Mandate

By Jonathan Cohn
The New Republic, November 7, 2012
I’ve waited more than two years to write this sentence: The Affordable Care Act is here to stay. It survived the Supreme Court and now it has survived the threat of a unified Republican government determined to repeal it. Implementation of the law will present huge challenges, but, for the first time in a long while, the administration and its allies can focus on those challenges rather than on rearguard political fights to keep the program alive.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/109818/obama-wins-four-more-years-mandate-…

The reelection of President Obama and the failure of the Republicans to gain more than filibuster control of the Senate means that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare, or ACA) will be fully implemented by 2014, as scheduled.
Although such complex legislation inevitably calls for legislative refinements, any significant efforts to expand the effectiveness of ACA would surely be blocked in the Republican-controlled House.
In the meantime, efforts on the state level to improve ACA will continue. Although small incremental steps are possible, it is unlikely that any model close to a true single payer system will be enacted within the states, even if the single payer label is used. The reason is that major enabling federal legislation would be required to construct a true stated-based single payer system, and the House still has its primary tool that it has wielded so effectively for the past two years: gridlock.
Although it seems like this might be a time to kick back and wait until the political climate improves, nothing could be further from the truth. The first step in advancing health care justice is to educate – inform the public on the facts.
We have two messages: 1) no matter how many tweaks are applied, ACA will not achieve health care justice – 30 million will remain uninsured, tens of millions underinsured, and health care costs will not be contained, and 2) there is a model that will cover absolutely everyone, provide access to high quality care, reduce financial barriers to care, and slow the increase in health care spending which would benefit us all – a single payer, improved Medicare for everyone.
We need to intensify our efforts to spread the word so that the people of our nation will be ready to support reform enthusiastically when the political climate becomes more favorable.

The Early History of PNHP

By Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., and David Himmelstein, M.D. 

PNHP note: The two articles below describe the founding of Physicians for a National Health Program. The articles span a quarter-century – one was written shortly after the organization’s founding, the other was written in October of this year. We reproduce them here, the most recent one first, as part of the observance of PNHP’s 25th anniversary and as a contribution to understanding its continuing mission. 

We initiated PNHP in the summer of 1986 at a meeting of about 200 clinicians caring for the poor organized by Lucy Candib and Gene Bishop in New Hampshire.

Several factors led us to propose this new organization to colleagues:

1)      Fifteen years after the nationwide implementation of Canada’s Medicare program, research by us and others had recently documented the striking advantages of the single-payer approach in terms of access to care and cost efficiency.

2)      After five years of the Reagan administration assault on safety-net program, we were convinced that efforts focused on defending existing safety-net programs (e.g. Medicare and Medicaid) and institutions (public hospitals and community clinics) could not protect our patients. The public programs were (and are) woefully inadequate.

·         Medicare, despite its positive aspects, covered less than half of the total medical expenses of the elderly; privatization had started with the 1985 Medicare HMO program; and providers siphoned billions, taking advantage of the payment system that had been adopted from private insurers.

·         Medicaid patients were often unwelcome at doctor’s offices and private hospitals; and private HMOs were beginning to make incursions into this program too.

·         Clinics and public hospitals, where we ourselves practiced were chronically starved of resources and hence provided separate and unequal care for minorities, the poor and the poorly insured.


Defense of these woefully inadequate approaches meant defending substandard (if valiant) care.

3)      Advocacy for national health insurance (NHI) or a national health service (NHS), which had been a powerful force in the 1960s and 1970s, had largely died out. The scattered supporters of these different approaches, who had previously been sharply divided, seemed ready to collaborate. Moreover, experience in Canada and the U.K. challenged the traditional view that an NHS necessarily offered a more thoroughgoing reform than NHI. Canada’s single-payer NHI banned competing private insurance, mandating that all Canadians get care from a single, unified medical care system. In contrast, many wealthy Britons opted for private coverage, offering them an escape from the NHS. We chose the name “Physicians for a National Health Program” to avoid the old fights about NHI vs. NHS.

4)      We sensed a growing dissatisfaction among colleagues with the then incipient corporate domination of medicine, which was being stimulated by the emergence of HMOs and managed care. Many doctors seemed ready for an alternative.

5)      A ballot initiative in Massachusetts instructing congresspeople to support single-payer reform was the immediate trigger for our initiative. A group of Massachusetts Gray Panthers – Dave Danielson, Art Mazer and Gerry Bergman, among others – had succeeded in getting the question on the ballot. They were concerned that the Massachusetts Medical Society might openly oppose the measure and encouraged a public display of physician support for single payer.

At the New Hampshire conference, colleagues reacted enthusiastically to our proposal. Discussion centered on whether the new group should be a physicians’ organization or seek to organize a broader constituency.

Influenced by the Massachusetts Gray Panthers’ request for support from a group specifically identified as physicians, and the belief that many physicians supportive of single payer would hesitate to join a broader group, we chose the PNHP path. But we agreed that PNHP should be part of a broader “Network of Health Professionals for a National Health Program” (NHP2), and eventually “People for a National Health Program.”

Several colleagues who remain active in PNHP participated in those discussions, including Oli Fein, Howard Waitzkin, Gordy Schiff, Mardge Cohen, Henry Kahn, Jeff Scavron and Len Rodberg. (We are surely forgetting many others). Len offered to create a database program to maintain the membership list (an esoteric feat in 1986). Milton Terris volunteered to have stationary printed (including NHP2 stationery).

Following the conference, we set about enlisting colleagues willing to be listed as “Founding Members” on a membership solicitation letter that we had drafted, which outlined the essential elements of a single-payer reform. Many responded positively.

Aided by Steffie’s sister (who spent some months with us in Cambridge) we mailed membership invitations to several thousand colleagues, using lists obtained from other physician organizations. By late 1987, about 200 dues-paying members had signed up.

From the outset, there was general agreement that the group should draw up a single-payer physicians’ manifesto, with the hope that it could be published in a major journal, allowing us to increase our legitimacy and recruitment. In early 1988 we met with Arnold Relman, the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, to explore whether he was open to publishing such an article. He made no commitment, but expressed interest.

We set about drafting an article, with extensive feedback from 28 colleagues who formed the writing group. Relman eventually accepted and published the article, which appeared on January 12, 1989.

The New England Journal’s publication of PNHP’s proposal was greeted as a “man bites dog” story by the press. Colleagues in several cities organized press conferences to reach out to the lay media. We and many other PNHP colleagues were interviewed by major media outlets, and PNHPers made appearances on national television programs including “The Today Show,” “Good Morning America” and the “Mac
Neil/Lehrer NewHour.” PNHP had arrived as an organization, and memberships flowed in by the dozens.

The surge in membership allowed us to hire a staffer to take over maintenance of the membership database and other essential tasks, and necessitated moving the organization’s office out of our home. Bob Lawrence (our department chair at the time) agreed to allow us to utilize our hospital offices to house PNHP.

From the outset, PNHP was envisaged as a membership-driven organization, focused on providing opportunities for progressive physicians to express their views in an effective manner. We were convinced that a large number of physicians each spending a modest amount of time on PNHP work could accomplish far more than a few paid staffers. Moreover, leadership that was intimately aware of the daily realities encountered in medical practice was essential to assure that PNHP remained relevant to physicians. Hence, the staff role was not to lead, but to facilitate communication among the members, and to assume many of the burdensome tasks of maintaining the organization’s infrastructure.

Another feature of PNHP that was established early on was a monthly conference call for active members to share information and ideas for effective action.  Many of the early members of PNHP went on to start local chapters, and the monthly phone call provided them with regular support and inspiration.

Our first experience with an executive director was an unfortunate one. Several months after starting work, she became convinced that adhering strictly to the single-payer message compromised our possibilities for funding. (We later learned that a foundation had let her know that watering down PNHP’s advocacy agenda would result in a substantial donation.) She asked PNHP’s newly formed board – led by Jeff Scavron, the first PNHP president – to make this change in focus, and eject us from the organization. Instead, the board unanimously endorsed our approach and dismissed the staffer.

Subsequently Judy Kaplan took over as the staffer in Cambridge, followed by Donna Pound. Both performed yeoman service, helping us to initiate the PNHP Newsletter.

Communicating with Colleagues 

 Shortly before PNHP was initiated, Malcolm Peterson (chief-of-staff at the Seattle VA) had invited us to present the case for single-payer reform at a session he chaired at the American College of Physicians annual meeting. Responding to Malcolm’s invitation, we assembled a raft of slides for the presentation, adopting a traditional, data-intensive grand rounds style. The positive response to the presentation bolstered our view that many physicians would more readily embrace the single-payer message if it were communicated in such a traditional format.

Ike Taylor, who had moved to Boston after retiring as dean of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, helped to shape these presentations. He had sought us out after reading the New England Journal article. Ike dived into PNHP activism on many fronts, and agreed to assume the PNHP presidency.

As invitations for presentations grew, many PNHP colleagues became skilled speakers on single payer, often using the PNHP slide set, which was updated annually and widely distributed.

Further publications in the JAMA outlining PNHP’s views on quality improvement (led by Gordy Schiff); financing (in collaboration with Kevin Grumbach and Tom Bodenheimer) and long-term care (led by Charlene Harrington) fleshed out key aspects of PNHP’s program, and gained visibility for the organization.

Moving to Chicago

In 1991 a decision was made to move PNHP’s headquarters to Chicago. This decision was motivated by several factors.

  • We were planning a sabbatical year in Washington and hence would not be present at the Cambridge office.
  • We and others felt it important to broaden leadership of the organization.
  • Ron Sable, a dynamic and much loved physician who had founded the AIDS program at Cook County Hospital was stepping back from clinical work because of illness, and was available to assume the role of coordinator, supported by the very strong Chicago PNHP cohort that included Quentin Young, Gordy Schiff, and Claudia Fegan
  • Chicago made sense as the home base of a national physician organization.

Ron and Quentin skillfully built PNHP in Chicago.  Taking advantage of an opportunity to share office space with another group Quentin chaired, the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group (focused on Illinois health policy issues), the new office of PNHP opened on January 1, 1992. Ida Hellander, who was working at Sid Wolfe’s Public Citizen Health Research Group where David spent his sabbatical, was recruited to join them in leading the Chicago office.

After Ron’s death in 1993, Quentin Young stepped in to the role of national coordinator.

Quentin and Ida vastly increased PNHP’s recruiting efforts and public visibility, turned our periodic meetings from small, informal affairs into well-organized, dynamic gatherings, and greatly facilitated membership communications.  With help from Mike McCally, they secured grants from three foundations and tripled the budget.

Claudia – at that time a partner in Quentin’s practice – and Gordy both assumed an increasingly critical role in the organization, serving as PNHP Presidents, traveling speakers, and unofficially helping to oversee the Chicago office.

With Bill Clinton’s election and the 1993-1994 health reform debate, single-payer advocates swung into action. Vicente Navarro, included in the White House task force at Jesse Jackson’s insistence, remained firm in advocating single payer from the inside, and Several PNHP representatives were invited to present their case to Hillary Clinton. Once the Clinton plan was unveiled, a lively debate within PNHP resulted in a clear stance to continue single-payer advocacy, and point out the flaws in the Clinton plan – prefiguring PNHP’s position on President Obama’s reform plan.

The subsequent years brought new energy and leadership from colleagues across the nation. We are certainly omitting the names of many who played foundational roles in PNHP’s earlier years, both nationally and in building chapters around the country.

*********

Physicians for a National Health Program: 

Report from the United States 

By Steffie Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein

International Journal of Health Services, 1987

A new organization called Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) is mobilizing physician support for a universal, comprehensive public system of health care for the United States. Recent changes in power relations within medicine (the so-called proletarianization of physicians) are prodding many physicians to abandon their traditional reactionary role in health policy. PNHP is working with elderly, labor, community, and health care activist groups to put a national health program (NHP) back on the U.S. health policy agenda. In this article, five key features of an NHP needed to simultaneously assure access, control costs, and minimize bureaucracy are noted.

Physicians have long been a bulwark of conservatism in U.S. health policy. Organized medicine has opposed virtually every initiative to extend access
to services and democratize health care decision-making. As corporate control increasingly threatens the preeminent position of physicians (1), a significant portion of the medical profession appears ready to break with this tradition of reaction. Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) is a new organization attempting to crystallize and direct the growing discontent of physicians into support for a national health program (NHP).

An NHP is the only stable solution to the widely perceived crisis in U.S. health care. There is overwhelming evidence that an NHP could provide universal access to high quality care and control costs. In contrast, current health policies have failed to contain costs and have exacerbated problems in both access to and quality of care. Health care costs (corrected for overall inflation) have risen more rapidly over the past six years than during the last half of the 1970s. This escalation occurred despite, or perhaps because of, the growing preoccupation of policy makers with cost control through competitive strategies, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), prospective reimbursement, and the like. Meanwhile the number of people without health insurance increased 43 percent between 1978 and 1985, and both physicians and hospital social workers report feeling pressured to discharge patients from hospitals prematurely.

While cost control initiatives have failed to control costs, they are rapidly changing power relations within health care. These recent initiatives have shared a common thread – they offer financial incentives for hospitals, HMOs, and insurers to control physicians and patients. Much of the recent cost increase is attributable to the growing administrative structure required to operate health care as a profit-making capitalist industry and enforce inequality in access to medical services. Administration consumes at least 22 percent of U.S. health spending, in contrast to 6 percent in the United Kingdom and 8 percent in Canada (2). U.S. physicians increasingly confront hospital, insurance company, and other corporate bureaucracies that dictate the parameters of medical care. Marx’s classic description of the evolution of an industry appears germane. The power of physicians as independent petit bourgeois medical producers is rapidly giving way before the onslaught of corporate control (3).

The U.S. public has long supported an NHP (4), a support that was reaffirmed by the 67 percent majority of the Massachusetts electorate who voted for the National Health Program Referendum in November of 1986. Surprisingly, 56 percent of physicians also favor some form of NHP, though three-quarters of doctors are convinced that most of their colleagues oppose such reform (5). Unfortunately, politicians, wary of threatening insurance companies and other elements of the medical-industrial complex, persist in dismissing an NHP as utopian and unpopular. In this context, we are convinced that physicians can help place an NHP on the political agenda. There will undoubtedly be considerable struggle over the precise form of an NHP in the United States, and aspects of many proposals will threaten the self­interest of physicians. However, we believe that the following features are both crucial to progress in health care and attractive to many physicians.

1. Coverage must be universal and comprehensive, including coverage of preventive, curative, mental health, occupational, and rehabilitative care. This could assure access to care, avoid a two-class system, and minimize administrative expense. Allowing balance billing, competing private insurance, or out-of-pocket payments negates these advantages.

2. Hospitals should be paid on an annual lump sum basis for operating expenses. This would minimize incentives for both undercare (since hospitals could not retain a surplus) and overcare (since excess services would not generate additional income). Lump sum budgeting also streamlines administration since billing is eliminated.

3. Payment for capital costs must be separated from hospital operating costs and physician fees. If hospitals can buy new buildings and equipment with surplus funds from their yearly budgets, they have a strong incentive to skimp on care. Real health planning becomes impossible since rich hospitals can continue to expand, while areas without sufficient resources will remain underserved. Similarly, paying physicians for capital such as office-based computed tomography (CT) scanners encourages unnecessary purchase and use of such expensive equipment.

4. Private insurance companies should be excluded from any NHP. Public administration is cheaper, and allows much more democratic control of key policy decisions. Private insurance firms have incentives to increase costs and bureaucracy since these result in higher income. Reimbursement decisions are important public policy and must be recognized as such.

5. Public accountability should be encouraged, but should not be confused with bureaucratic dominance a la diagnosis related groups (DRGs). Detailed administrative oversight of clinical practice (e.g., how many EKGs should be allowed for a patient with a myocardial infarction) should be discouraged. Such oversight costs as much as it saves, and is unnecessary if financial incentives for or against the use of technology and services are minimal.

The Canadian NHP meets many of these criteria, and offers a concrete, though flawed, point of reference in mobilizing support for an NHP in the United States. We recognize that Canadian health care remains largely a sickness care system, dominated by a bourgeois medical model, antagonistic to “alternative” providers, basically insufficient in its approach to social and environmental problems, and riven by class inequalities among
health workers. Nonetheless, Canada has achieved a surprising degree of equality in access to health services, without excessive costs. The Canadian working class is no longer threatened with the termination of coverage in case of unemployment, strikes, or disability. We have found the real-life experience of the Canadian NHP vital in countering the powerful disinformation campaign against public medicine, and in answering the hundreds of what-if questions that arise in discussion of an NHP. The early, enthusiastic response to PNHP confirms that many physicians are prepared to embrace the concept of an NHP.

The Canadian experience demonstrates that monopsony government payment for health care can assure considerable public control of health resources and personnel despite private ownership and practice. In contrast, the British National Health Service owns most health facilities and employs most personnel, but coexists with a private sector. This allows for two-class care, as well as the underfunding of the public sector since the well-to-do can seek care elsewhere. The Canadian experience also suggests a possible strategy for overcoming political obstacles to an NHP. The Canadian NHP originated in Saskatchewan, where a socialist provincial government introduced a province-wide health insurance plan. The spark from Saskatchewan spread rapidly across the prairie resulting in a universal, comprehensive health care program throughout Canada within five years. Statewide demonstration projects in states with relatively progressive regimes might provide a similar springboard for winning a nationwide program in the United States.

PNHP is actively pursuing outreach to the physician community through presentations at conferences, grand rounds, and public forums. The decision to organize a physicians’ group followed several months of discussion. PNHP’s founders felt that a broader group could not attract many sympathetic physicians who are not already activists. PNHP is seen as a part of a Network of Health Professionals for a National Health Program, which can amplify the voices of existing organizations like the Coalition for a National Health Service, and the National Association for Public Health Policy. We are already working jointly with elderly and community organizations to formulate proposals for statewide demonstration programs in Massachusetts and a few other states.

To join PNHP or obtain information on our activities, write: Physicians for a National Health Program, Center for National Health Program Studies, Department of Medicine, The Cambridge Hospital, 1493 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02139. [PNHP note: PNHP’s current address is Physicians for a National Health Program, 29 E. Madison St., Suite 1412, Chicago IL 60602.]

References

1. McKinlay, J. B., and Arches, J. Towards the proletarianization of physicians. Int. J. Health Serv. 15(2): 161-196, 1985.

2. Himmelstein, D.U., and Woolhandler, S. Socialized medicine: A solution to the cost crisis in health care in the United States. Int. J. Health Serv. 16(3): 339-354, 1986.

3. Himmelstein, D.U., and Woolhandler, S. Medicine as industry: The health sector in the U.S. Monthly Rev. 35(11): 13-25, 1984.

4. Navarro, V. Where is the popular mandate? N. Engl. f. Med. 307: 1516-1518, 1982.

5. Colombotos, J., and Kirchner, C. Physicians and Social Change. Oxford University Press, New York, 1986.

International Journal of Health Services, Volume 17, Number 4, 1987.

© 1987, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. http://baywood.com

doi: 10.2190/C343-W933-786Q1R3T

What does the election mean for health care reform?

Yes, Obama Won a Mandate

By Jonathan Cohn
The New Republic, November 7, 2012

I’ve waited more than two years to write this sentence: The Affordable Care Act is here to stay. It survived the Supreme Court and now it has survived the threat of a unified Republican government determined to repeal it. Implementation of the law will present huge challenges, but, for the first time in a long while, the administration and its allies can focus on those challenges rather than on rearguard political fights to keep the program alive.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/109818/obama-wins-four-more-years-mandate-agenda-validation-obamacare

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

The reelection of President Obama and the failure of the Republicans to gain more than filibuster control of the Senate means that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare, or ACA) will be fully implemented by 2014, as scheduled.

Although such complex legislation inevitably calls for legislative refinements, any significant efforts to expand the effectiveness of ACA would surely be blocked in the Republican-controlled House.

In the meantime, efforts on the state level to improve ACA will continue. Although small incremental steps are possible, it is unlikely that any model close to a true single payer system will be enacted within the states, even if the single payer label is used. The reason is that major enabling federal legislation would be required to construct a true stated-based single payer system, and the House still has its primary tool that it has wielded so effectively for the past two years: gridlock.

Although it seems like this might be a time to kick back and wait until the political climate improves, nothing could be further from the truth. The first step in advancing health care justice is to educate – inform the public on the facts.

We have two messages: 1) no matter how many tweaks are applied, ACA will not achieve health care justice – 30 million will remain uninsured, tens of millions underinsured, and health care costs will not be contained, and 2) there is a model that will cover absolutely everyone, provide access to high quality care, reduce financial barriers to care, and slow the increase in health care spending which would benefit us all – a single payer, improved Medicare for everyone.

We need to intensify our efforts to spread the word so that the people of our nation will be ready to support reform enthusiastically when the political climate becomes more favorable.

Employers gradually bailing out on employee coverage

Health-Care Law Spurs a Shift to Part-Time Workers

By Julie Jargon, Louise Radnofsky and Alexandra Berzon
The Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2012

Some low-wage employers are moving toward hiring part-time workers instead of full-time ones to mitigate the health-care overhaul’s requirement that large companies provide health insurance for full-time workers or pay a fee.

Several restaurants, hotels and retailers have started or are preparing to limit schedules of hourly workers to below 30 hours a week. That is the threshold at which large employers in 2014 would have to offer workers a minimum level of insurance or pay a penalty starting at $2,000 for each worker.

If a company offers health insurance but the coverage is deemed sparse or unaffordable, the company must pay $3,000 for every worker who gets a federal tax subsidy to purchase coverage as an individual.

Pillar Hotels & Resorts this summer began to focus more on hiring part-time workers among its 5,500 employees. The company has 210 franchise hotels, under the Sheraton, Fairfield Inns, Hampton Inns and Holiday Inns brands.

CKE Restaurants Inc., parent of the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s burger chains, began two months ago to hire part-time workers to replace full-time employees who left.

Home retailer Anna’s Linens Inc. is considering cutting hours for some full-time employees to avoid the insurance mandate if the health-care law isn’t repealed.

Darden Restaurants Inc. was among the first companies to say it was changing hiring in response to the health-care law. The Orlando, Fla., parent of Red Lobster and Olive Garden in February began testing hiring part-time workers in four markets to replace some full-time employees who had left, a spokesman said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204707104578094941709047834.html

And…

Jobs Without Benefits: The Health Insurance Crisis Faced by Small Businesses and Their Workers

By Ruth Robertson, Kristof Stremikis, Sara R. Collins, Michelle M. Doty, and Karen Davis
The Commonwealth Fund, November 2012

The share of U.S. workers in small firms who were offered, eligible for, and covered by health insurance through their jobs has declined over the past decade. Less than half of workers in companies with fewer than 50 employees were both offered and eligible for health insurance through their jobs in 2010, down from 58 percent in 2003.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2012/Oct/1640_Robertson_jobs_without_benefits_small_businesses.pdf

And…

Employers Expected To Keep Some Of Health Law’s Popular Provisions, Even If Obama Loses

By Julie Appleby
Kaiser Health News, November 5, 2012

No matter who wins the presidential election…

Employers will continue looking for ways to cap expenses, moving toward higher deductible policies, or placing limits on how much they pay toward their workers’ premiums — both trends that predate the federal health law, analysts say.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2012/November/06/employer-insurance-coverage-election.aspx

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

As we have stated several times before, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to encourage the perpetuation of employer-sponsored health plans which currently provide the majority of the population with coverage. Current trends do not look favorable. More than half of workers in small companies do not even receive health care coverage, and some larger employers are beginning to shift to part-time employment in order to escape the insurance requirements of ACA. Those that continue coverage are shifting more costs to employees through higher deductibles and through a shift to defined contribution programs.

A health care financing system should provide full coverage for everyone automatically. Obviously, ACA does not do that. The CBO predicts that 30 million will remain without coverage, but based on the fact that employers are beginning to bail out, it is likely that the numbers of uninsured will be even greater. We have to do something different.

How could we achieve automatic enrollment for everyone? Simple. Just as with Medicare Part A, enroll every qualified individual automatically. In a properly designed single payer system, absolutely everyone would be qualified, and therefore everyone would be enrolled.

Wealth & Health: Public Taxes, Private Dollars

By Carl Finamore
BeyondChron (San Francisco), Nov. 5, 2012

Let’s not kid ourselves, despite all the talk about healthcare reform the last few years, getting sick in America is still very risky.

There are 25 million people with insurance in 2010 still struggling to pay medical bills according to a conservative estimate by the Commonwealth Fund. In fact, nearly two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies are still linked to those debts. Meanwhile, those without any health insurance were estimated at 48 million in 2011 with the Congressional Budget Office estimating that even after the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented seven years from now, at least 29 million people will remain completely uninsured. Overall, not such a good social contract for most Americans. However, it appears to be a very good deal for wealthy investors. What better source to consult than Bain & Company. Yes, that Bain & Company.

According to Bain, private equity global investments in healthcare doubled in one year – from $15 billion in 2010 to $30 billion in 2011.

That remarkably concentrated investment represents a whopping 15 percent of all private equity deals in the world last year and netted an astounding profit of $500 billion. The question is raised – what impact, aside from the aforementioned huge profits for the few, does that investment in private healthcare have on the rest of us?

I wanted to ask this and other questions of someone equally expert at providing care to patients as Bain is at making money off patients. So, I paid a visit to a working doctor attending the October 27 national conference of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) held in San Francisco.

Andy Coates, MD, is president-elect of PNHP, an acute care physician at a community hospital in upstate Troy, New York, a medical director at a county public nursing home and a faculty member at Albany Medical College. A busy guy.

Asked to identify the number one problem with healthcare in the United States, Dr. Coates replied: “I am very tempted to say ‘profit is the problem,’ end of story.”

But there’s more. “The American system has an enormous amount of unnecessary bureaucratic waste,” he elaborated. “A great burden of time-consuming administrative efforts, aimed at extracting profit from caregiving, weighs upon us. So much of the cost of healthcare has nothing to do with what is happening at the bedside. The quest for corporate profits undermines the effort to provide medical care to human beings.”

Healthcare is Big Business Funded by Our Taxes

Some might be surprised that the for-profit healthcare system Dr. Coates criticizes so sharply is mostly paid for with our tax dollars. Through tax subsidies for private health insurance and for public employee health benefits, through direct government Medicare and Medicaid subsidies and through numerous other ways, our taxes pay around 60 percent of our current health spending, or as PNHP leaders Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein say, we are “paying for national health insurance and not getting it.”

Woolhandler, MD, is professor of public health at City University of New York, visiting professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and spokesperson for PNHP. She told me that “the majority of healthcare funding in other developed countries is also paid through taxes but in each case the costs are much lower and you get more.”

Incredibly, health spending amounts to around $9000 per capita in this country whereas other developed countries spend about half as much because they have some version of a not-for-profit national public healthcare system.

It’s another sad commentary that the data also clearly establishes that “our system does not perform any better,” says Woolhandler, such as, for example, in life expectancy where we are two or three years behind other developed countries.

Actually, we do not have to go too far to find more comparisons between private and public forms of healthcare delivery. We can look right here in this country.

For example, the completely government paid and operated Veterans Health Administration (VA), widely acclaimed for its superior medical services, makes bulk purchases of prescription drugs at substantially reduced costs.

By contrast, the government is prohibited by law from making these same bulk purchases on the open market on behalf of Medicare and Medicaid patients because it would undercut monopoly profits of pharmaceutical giants.

Another comparison is the cost advantages of the two systems. Fortune magazine called the not-for profit VA “the most wired and cost-effective health system in the land” whereas the private sector squanders around 31 percent of their budget on non-treatment related administrative costs. These statistics are not secret. In fact, they are generally known.

As Walter Tsou, MD ,PNHP member and past president of the American Public Health Association told a San Francisco public forum on October 29, “We know what works, all we have to do is pay attention to the social science data.”

But even when these savings are clearly documented, the for-profit system is so entrenched that government Medicare and Medicaid tax funds continue flowing to private providers and insurers such as the expanding Medicare Advantage programs. And here is where, according to PNHP, the private sector grievously repeats its pattern of extravagance and greed.

Facts are Facts but Money is Power

According to research soon to appear in the International Journal of Health Services by a group of policy experts, including Dr. Woolhandler, it was determined that the amount of tax dollars that Medicare has “overpaid private insurance companies under the Medicare Advantage program and its predecessors over the past 27 years is a startling figure of $282.6 billion in excess payments, most of them over the past eight years.”

That’s wasted money that should have been spent on improving patient care, shoring up Medicare’s trust fund or reducing the federal deficit, researchers said.

So, here we have the rather noteworthy variance of huge amounts of public dollars going to private suppliers of healthcare, often insatiable Wall Street investors operating without any of the control or regulation taxpayers should expect. Is there any wonder costs are going up?

We as a society will pay the price as millions of uninsured avoid treatment, millions suffer economic hardship because of rising co-pay and deductible costs and millions discover too late their skimpy insurance coverage will not cover their medically recommended recovery plan.

“We need to be active on these issues,” San Francisco single-payer activist Don Bechler told me at the PNHP conference.

“When we have access to the microphone, we win these debates. So, to organize the campaign for universal healthcare minus the insurance companies, it is important that people go to singlepayernow.net or healthcare-now.org and support the national ‘Improved and Expanded Medicare for All Act’ in Congress (HR 676).”

Certainly both research and activism are necessary components of the renewed and reinvigorated national healthcare debate that we so desperately need. But, for this debate to be productive, it cannot, unlike the Congressional discussions we’ve seen, tap dance around the greed and inefficiency of the profiteers who are engulfing and undermining our medical system.

Sources available upon request.

Carl Finamore is Machinist Lodge 1781 delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council. He can be reached at local1781@yahoo.com

http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Wealth_Health_Public_Taxes_Private_Dollars_10671.html

Wealth & Health: Public Taxes, Private Dollars

By Carl Finamore
BeyondChron (San Francisco), Nov. 5, 2012

Let’s not kid ourselves, despite all the talk about healthcare reform the last few years, getting sick in America is still very risky.

There are 25 million people with insurance in 2010 still struggling to pay medical bills according to a conservative estimate by the Commonwealth Fund. In fact, nearly two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies are still linked to those debts. Meanwhile, those without any health insurance were estimated at 48 million in 2011 with the Congressional Budget Office estimating that even after the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented seven years from now, at least 29 million people will remain completely uninsured. Overall, not such a good social contract for most Americans. However, it appears to be a very good deal for wealthy investors. What better source to consult than Bain & Company. Yes, that Bain & Company.

According to Bain, private equity global investments in healthcare doubled in one year – from $15 billion in 2010 to $30 billion in 2011.

That remarkably concentrated investment represents a whopping 15 percent of all private equity deals in the world last year and netted an astounding profit of $500 billion. The question is raised – what impact, aside from the aforementioned huge profits for the few, does that investment in private healthcare have on the rest of us?

I wanted to ask this and other questions of someone equally expert at providing care to patients as Bain is at making money off patients. So, I paid a visit to a working doctor attending the October 27 national conference of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) held in San Francisco.

Andy Coates, MD, is president-elect of PNHP, an acute care physician at a community hospital in upstate Troy, New York, a medical director at a county public nursing home and a faculty member at Albany Medical College. A busy guy.

Asked to identify the number one problem with healthcare in the United States, Dr. Coates replied: “I am very tempted to say ‘profit is the problem,’ end of story.”

But there’s more. “The American system has an enormous amount of unnecessary bureaucratic waste,” he elaborated. “A great burden of time-consuming administrative efforts, aimed at extracting profit from caregiving, weighs upon us. So much of the cost of healthcare has nothing to do with what is happening at the bedside. The quest for corporate profits undermines the effort to provide medical care to human beings.”

Healthcare is Big Business Funded by Our Taxes

Some might be surprised that the for-profit healthcare system Dr. Coates criticizes so sharply is mostly paid for with our tax dollars. Through tax subsidies for private health insurance and for public employee health benefits, through direct government Medicare and Medicaid subsidies and through numerous other ways, our taxes pay around 60 percent of our current health spending, or as PNHP leaders Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein say, we are “paying for national health insurance and not getting it.”

Woolhandler, MD, is professor of public health at City University of New York, visiting professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and spokesperson for PNHP. She told me that “the majority of healthcare funding in other developed countries is also paid through taxes but in each case the costs are much lower and you get more.”

Incredibly, health spending amounts to around $9000 per capita in this country whereas other developed countries spend about half as much because they have some version of a not-for-profit national public healthcare system.

It’s another sad commentary that the data also clearly establishes that “our system does not perform any better,” says Woolhandler, such as, for example, in life expectancy where we are two or three years behind other developed countries.

Actually, we do not have to go too far to find more comparisons between private and public forms of healthcare delivery. We can look right here in this country.

For example, the completely government paid and operated Veterans Health Administration (VA), widely acclaimed for its superior medical services, makes bulk purchases of prescription drugs at substantially reduced costs.

By contrast, the government is prohibited by law from making these same bulk purchases on the open market on behalf of Medicare and Medicaid patients because it would undercut monopoly profits of pharmaceutical giants.

Another comparison is the cost advantages of the two systems. Fortune magazine called the not-for profit VA “the most wired and cost-effective health system in the land” whereas the private sector squanders around 31 percent of their budget on non-treatment related administrative costs. These statistics are not secret. In fact, they are generally known.

As Walter Tsou, MD ,PNHP member and past president of the American Public Health Association told a San Francisco public forum on October 29, “We know what works, all we have to do is pay attention to the social science data.”

But even when these savings are clearly documented, the for-profit system is so entrenched that government Medicare and Medicaid tax funds continue flowing to private providers and insurers such as the expanding Medicare Advantage programs. And here is where, according to PNHP, the private sector grievously repeats its pattern of extravagance and greed.

Facts are Facts but Money is Power

According to research soon to appear in the International Journal of Health Services by a group of policy experts, including Dr. Woolhandler, it was determined that the amount of tax dollars that Medicare has “overpaid private insurance companies under the Medicare Advantage program and its predecessors over the past 27 years is a startling figure of $282.6 billion in excess payments, most of them over the past eight years.”

That’s wasted money that should have been spent on improving patient care, shoring up Medicare’s trust fund or reducing the federal deficit, researchers said.

So, here we have the rather noteworthy variance of huge amounts of public dollars going to private suppliers of healthcare, often insatiable Wall Street investors operating without any of the control or regulation taxpayers should expect. Is there any wonder costs are going up?

We as a society will pay the price as millions of uninsured avoid treatment, millions suffer economic hardship because of rising co-pay and deductible costs and millions discover too late their skimpy insurance coverage will not cover their medically recommended recovery plan.

“We need to be active on these issues,” San Francisco single-payer activist Don Bechler told me at the PNHP conference.

“When we have access to the microphone, we win these debates. So, to organize the campaign for universal healthcare minus the insurance companies, it is important that people go to singlepayernow.net or healthcare-now.org and support the national ‘Improved and Expanded Medicare for All Act’ in Congress (HR 676).”

Certainly both research and activism are necessary components of the renewed and reinvigorated national healthcare debate that we so desperately need. But, for this debate to be productive, it cannot, unlike the Congressional discussions we’ve seen, tap dance around the greed and inefficiency of the profiteers who are engulfing and undermining our medical system.

Sources available upon request.

Carl Finamore is Machinist Lodge 1781 delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council. He can be reached at local1781@yahoo.com

http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Wealth_Health_Public_Taxes_Private_Dollars_10671.html