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In Fact, Argue Experts, Sanders' Medicare-for-All Numbers "Do Add Up"
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/12/fact-argue-experts-sanders-medicare-all-numbers-do-add"It's indisputable that single-payer systems in other countries cover everyone for virtually everything, and at much lower cost than our health care system," PNHP co-founder says
...
But according to other healthcare experts, both Clinton and Thorpe are working with false calculations. Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor in public health at City University of New York at Hunter College and co-founder of the advocacy group Physicians for a National Health Program, said Friday that the "numbers on single-payer do, in fact, add up."
"It's indisputable that single-payer systems in other countries cover everyone for virtually everything, and at much lower cost than our health care system," Woolhandler said. "Experience in countries with single-payer systems, such as Canada, Scotland, and Taiwan, proves that we can have more, better and cheaper care." For example, "if the U.S. moved to a single-payer system as efficient as Canada's, we'd save $430 billion on useless paperwork and insurance companies' outrageous profits, more than enough to cover the 31 million Americans who remain uninsured, and to eliminate co-payments and deductibles for everyone," she said.
In January, Woolhandler and her colleague Dr. David Himmelstein authored a response to Thorpe's analysis that found it to be based on "several incorrect, and occasionally outlandish, assumptions," including "administrative savings of only 4.7 percent of expenditures" and "huge increases in the utilization of care, increases far beyond those that were seen when national health insurance was implemented in Canada, and much larger than is possible given the supply of doctors and hospital beds.""Moreover, it is at odds with analyses of the costs of single-payer programs that he produced in the past, which projected large savings from such reform," the professors wrote.
Woolhandler said Friday, "A single-payer system could save even more money by bargaining with drug companies for discounts on drugs. Other countries get discounts of about 50 percent, and as the biggest customer we could have the bargaining power to get similar savings...Finally, single-payer systems have been better at controlling costs over the long-haul. Our medical arms race—with hospitals competing to offer expensive high tech care, even when they don't do enough to be good at it—has driven up costs and compromised the quality of care. In contrast, single-payer nations have used thoughtful health planning, to invest in expensive high tech care where it's needed, not just where it's redundant but profitable."
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One of the worst features of our current system is that we add a vast layer of expenses atop the sum of costs for medical treatment: the expense of subsidizing private health insurance companies.
Health insurance companies produce no medical service of any value whatsoever. Their sole function is to relieve the people of the burden of insuring ourselves at a much lower cost.
If pirates blockaded the Panama Canal and charged every vessel a hefty fee to sail through, they would be keeping the system restricted to those who could pay the tribute, ostensibly preventing too much traffic in the canal.
That's about all the service health insurance companies provide, too.
It's a stick-up.
