The Case for Single-Payer Health Care

The Case for Single-Payer Health Insurance


One of the problems with the United States health care system is that it’s a cobbled together mess of government and private plans. Some members of the population get access to health care via Medicare (if over 65) and some adults and children living in poverty conditions can have access to Medicaid. Explaining Medicaid is extremely complicated because it functions as a joint state/federal program. Suffice to say for now, some people can get “government-paid” health care, but many cannot. This is problematic because there are cases of parents turning down promotions and better jobs to stay within the income perimeters. They did the calculations, and they came out ahead having Medicaid but earning less income. Thus, they are playing the system, but I can’t say I blame them.

The rest of us need to hope our employer covers us, or we have to go on the open market to purchase insurance. Good luck with that! Individual insurance is extremely costly unless you go with a major-medical, extremely high deductible plan.
Rates vary significantly, and what most employees don’t realize is that insurance is part of salary! Insurance plans cost employers anywhere from $7,000 to $10,000 on average per employee. Family plans are more. Why does it cost so much? At many places, the employer is insuring a relatively small “pool” of people. Where I work, we insure about 250 employees, and our average age of employee is on the high side. Thus, on the whole, we are higher risk. In many cases, health insurance consumes a significant portion of salary. If you earn around 40K annually, about one-fifth of your salary package is likely going to health insurance.

I wanted to explain some basics before going into what I would advocate. Essentially, I would argue that the United States should have a single-payer system. Many nations do this differently, but I would propose that our money is essentially pooled as if we were paying into one big insurance company. This would spread the risk, and spreading risk is what insurance is all about. With over 300 million people on one plan, we should be able to keep the costs lower than what we’re currently doing. This would not be “free” healthcare. Everyone would pay with payroll deductions.

One other part of my rationale is that I strongly believe health insurance should not be a “for-profit” enterprise. It should be a basic right just like fire and police protection. How would we like the police department or fire department to be “for profit”? “We’re sorry sir, but you forgot to pay your premium, so we can’t put your house fire out today.” Or, “Your house had old wiring, which is a pre-existing condition; we’re sorry, but we deny your fire coverage based on a failure to disclose a pre-existing condition.”

Health insurance companies serve absolutely no positive function in our nation. They make profit off sickness and disease. Period. We don’t need them. They raise premiums at a pace that far exceeds inflation and cost of living expenses, in many cases 10-15% annually. At any rate, regardless of the actual profit via statistics, any profit means more money out of individuals’ pockets. And, there’s no denying that insurance company executives get big payouts and bonuses, and private insurance company employees are rewarded (with bonuses and promotions) for DENYING coverage to policy holders.

Now, I know there are objections to single-payer, so I’ll try to respond to the more common concerns.

First objection: “This is government-run health care, and it means that government bureaucrats would make decisions.” Many people, apparently, do not trust the government. I have two responses to this legitimate concern.

Responses:

First, it’s not government “run” health care. Hospitals and doctors are still private; hospitals are not suddenly federal buildings, and doctors are not made into government employees. That would be a truly socialistic system, and that is not what single payer means.
Second, and this is debatable, but I’ll throw it out there: I trust my government more than I trust insurance company executives. Why? It goes back to the profit idea. When health care is not-for-profit, decisions of life and death are not made based on profit margins.
Finally, insurance companies already “get in between” patient and doctor. Single-payer would actually eliminate this, not cause it! Any doctor, by definition, would be “in-network.” That means, you could go to any doctor at any time in any U.S. location. (At least, in my version of single-payer, but I don’t see how this could be false under any single-payer plan.)

Second objection: “But then we’re paying for the unemployed, “lazy” people.”

Response: We already are, except now we get no benefit from the taxes and deductions taken. With a single-payer system, at least everyone gets something back for what they pay in.

Third objection: We can’t afford government paid health care.

Response: We can’t afford private health care either! Soon, fewer and fewer will be able to afford private health care. More families will go bankrupt. Guess who pays for bankruptcies? All of us in the form of higher medical costs. Why do you think you get charged 20 dollar for aspirin, or 100 dollars for a box of Kleenex? Because many people default on their medical bills and then declare bankruptcy.

A challenge to Congress:

I want just one Republican or so-called Blue Dog Democrat to stand up and make the case AGAINST Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans’ Administration. If they go on record against any form of government insurance, I want them on the record as saying that, on principle, they will work to abolish Medicare! Not one single conservative politician has done this. So, either they are pandering to the elderly for votes, or they really believe it. If they really believe, then I want them to put forth a piece of legislation that calls for abolishing Medicare!
Then, I want them to decline their taxpayer paid health insurance and pick up their own policy since they claim the government is so terrible at running programs.

Here’s the bottom line response to any and all objections to a single payer system:

We ALL are ALREADY paying for EVERYONE’S health care.