SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION

I agree with the first principle of the Health Care Project of the Archimedes movement mentored by John Kitzhaber: “we cannot solve the health care crisis by simply giving everyone insurance coverage.”

I worked in this field for many years as an insurance agent covering the group market and also as the owner of a third party administration company. And I can tell you that insurance companies have no business being in the health care business. Insurance is a risk model and insurance companies try to sharply define risk. This inevitably leads to the exclusion of both conditions and treatments.

Supposedly there are over 1300 insurance companies competing for business in this field. So you would expect that, with that much competition, prices would be kept down. That is not the case!! Health Insurance Premiums have increased at double, triple, and quadruple the so called regular rate of inflation ever since the mid Seventies , and that is because free market principles do not apply here. Additionally, in reality, there are only five major corporations handling 90% of the the health care business.

Free market forces do not operate in this sector because demand has always been greater than supply: there have always been fewer medical services and medical providers than the people wanting and needing those services. And health care is not for the most part 'elective'; when you need it you don't stop to shop around for the best price. In some cases people could not afford to pay for those services so the third party payment system (TPPS) (insurance) was invented or applied to this new field.

The first of these was Blue Cross then Blue Shield and their purposes were to guarantee medical providers that they would be paid for their services. Aside from administrative expenses, it would have worked quite well if it were not for one thing: Greed! However, TPPS removed the person incurring the costs from paying the bill so there was little or no complaint when costs went up. This was the perfect environment for “privatization” which was aided and abetted by the HMO act of 1973 and ERISA in 1974. While these laws were good in their overall intent, clauses were inserted in the original documents and by amendment which allowed anyone to get into the health care business without the financial requirements imposed on insurance companies. Consequently we had a growing “for profit” model.

By adopting a “single payer” model, controlled by the government, we not only contain costs but we eliminate an immense layer (20% to 30%, possibly as high as 50%) of profit taking and overhead and we devote most of that money to actual delivery of services, appliances, and medicines. And, because we will be extending coverage to 47 million uninsured and another 40 million underinsured, there should be little impact on employment. The ones who vehemently oppose “single payer” are those who are profiting by stealing from the American People. If we allow any part of the current system to continue, we are acquiescing to that continued theft. Get on the horn to all of your legislators and express your anger at being exploited and ripped off. There is no justification for allowing this to continue.