... as
Dr. Marcia Angell explains, it is harmed by a for-profit delivery system
Medicare is, after all, a government-financed singlepayer
program embedded within our private, market-based system. It’s by
far the most efficient part of our system, with overhead costs of less than 3
percent, and it covers virtually everyone over the age of 65, not just some of
them. It also covers everyone for the full package of benefits, so it can’t be
tailored to avoid high-risk patients. But Medicare is not perfect, and was
weakened by the Bush administration, which was hostile to it. Out-ofpocket
costs are substantial and growing. Doctors’ fees are skewed to
reward highly paid specialists for doing as many expensive procedures as
possible. Furthermore, because Medicare pays for care in a market-based
entrepreneurial system, it experiences many of the same inflationary forces
as the private insurance system. If Medicare were extended to everyone, it
would have to be in the context of a nonprofit delivery system. Otherwise,
we would not realize the advantages of a single-payer, coordinated financing
system.
Please check out the
video of Dr. Angell's testimony and be sure to rec the thread if you're so inclined so others will be able to view this powerful, crystal-clear argument for single-payer.
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