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Single-payer universal health care is a form of financing health care in which there is one agency (public or quasi-public) that pays the providers for the care they deliver. In other words, it provides private health care through public insurance.
Health care providers in a U.S. style single-payer system are not employees of the government and providers negotiate each year on pay schedules with the single-payer agency.
What is Single-Payer - short video
The most cost-effective health insurance is that which uses a single, large risk pool- for coverage of medical costs of all. The U.S. Medicare program operates with just 3% overhead, compared to 15% to 25% overhead at a typical HMO. A single-payer system is essentially an improved Medicare for everyone.
The United States has the most bureaucratic health care system in the
world. Over 31% of every health care dollar goes to paperwork,
overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. Because the U.S. does not have a
unified system that serves everyone, and instead has thousands of
different insurance plans, each with its own marketing, paperwork,
enrollment, premiums, and rules and regulations, our insurance system
is both extremely complex and fragmented.
Advantages of the Single-Payer Health Coverage:
- Comprehensive medical benefits
- Choice of primary care provider and medical providers
- Health decisions made by patient and provider instead of HMOs
- Improved Health Planning
- Health coverage would be portable, not tied to employment.
- Eliminates the high (up to 33 percent) overhead cost of multiple private, for-profit insurances by including coverage for everyone in a single-risk pool (reducing administrative costs to 1-5%).
- Instead of hundreds of insurances with differing requirements (requiring increased office staff), providers would deal with only one form.
- The plan would be financed with a progressive tax, at less per-capita cost.
- Companies would avoid hassles of managing health care, and become more competitive without annual inflationary health costs.
- Consumers would pay less for goods and services that are inflated by businesses? high health costs - e.g., currently $1,500 is added to the cost of each U.S.-made automobile due to health costs.
- U.S. Consumers , who now spend twice as much per capita as consumers in other developed countries (with poorer outcomes), would save as administrative health costs are reduced.
- Single-risk-pool coverage would permit negotiation of lower, bulk rates for medications.
- Increased U.S. life expectancy: Similar socioeconomic single-payer European countries enjoy average two-year longer life expectancies.
- he over-45 million uninsured Americans and 50 million more underinsured would have access to preventative care, without having to resort to delayed, crisis Emergency Room care. at 4 to 5 times higher cost.
- Lessening demands on the nation?s emergency rooms for primary care would stem the tide of closures of overburdened emergency rooms.
- Retirees would not face loss of health coverage by employers.
- Eliminates the profit motive that places priority on stockholders? profits, and creates a perverse incentive to deny health coverage to the ill or high-risk.
A summary of Studies and Reports by the GAO, CBO and different states since the early '90s detailing the savings and efficiency of a Single Payer Health Care System.
For more information, please read:
Federal & State Reports of Cost & Savings of Single-Payer Health Care
The most cost-effective health insurance is that which uses a single, large risk pool- for coverage of medical costs of all. The more the risk pool is divided into numerous smaller insurance groups, the greater the cost to consumers, and the less efficient the coverage. Read National Health Insurance Bill (HR676) - Executive Summary of federal bill for Single-Payer, private provider health care.
Read DRAFT PROPOSAL for Colorado Single-Payer Health Care41k PDF
Rationale Behind Colorado Single-Payer Draft Proposal
Animated Illustration of Principle of Single Payer Health Care Created by Stanford Med Student
Facts About U.S. Health Care Single-Payer Health Care Talking Points
Contrast of Current U.S. Profit-Centered Health Care with More Cost-Effective Single-Payer Coverage A legal-size landscape document with point-by-point comparison of current U.S. health care with a single-payer system
For information about advantages of single-payer to business and labor, etc., read Single-Payer Information Packet |
