| According to Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard, David Himmelstein single-payer is the only plan that will solve the crisis. He recently spoke with independent writer Anne Underwood about Medical bankruptcies.
According to Himmmelstein, if you have health insurance and think that that will protect you from bankruptcy due to medical disaster you are sadly mistaken:
Q. A major goal of health care reform is to cover the uninsured. But does covering more people necessarily mean that medical bankruptcies will decline?
A. No. Our most recent study found that nearly two-thirds of Americans who declared bankruptcy cited illness or medical bills as a significant cause (PDF) of their bankruptcies. And of the medically bankrupt, three-quarters of that group had insurance, at least when they first got sick.
Q. How do people go bankrupt in spite of having insurance?
A. We found two categories of problems. Some people were too sick to work and lost their jobs. Along with their jobs, they lost their insurance. The second group had continuous coverage, but their policies had so many co-pays, deductibles and loopholes that they were bankrupted in spite of having coverage. Most of those who declared bankruptcy were in the latter group.
http://prescriptions.blogs.nyt...
Now, many of those who are arguing so hard against a public option because they are covered and fear that others being covered will cause them to lose their coverage are way off base. In many cases even being covered they are one disaster away from ruin, and getting no return on the premiums they pay.
Of course that is because someone is always cutting corners, and denying coverage to help the bottom line.
Himmmelstein then goes on to give a ringing endorsement to the true solution, single-payer:
Q. Would any of the plans under discussion on Capitol Hill reduce the rate of medical bankruptcies?
A. Only the single-payer plan sponsored by Representative John Conyers and Senator Bernie Sanders. The others pretty clearly do little or nothing for medical bankruptcy.
Q. How would a single-payer system reduce medical bankruptcies?
A. A single-payer system, such as the one proposed by my colleagues and myself, not only covers everyone, but also eliminates co-pays, deductibles and virtually all uncovered medical bills. Both the Sanders and Conyers bills would work that way. That's how it works in Canada. Every Canadian has coverage with zero co-pays and zero deductibles. As a result, when they get sick, they're not forced to pay for care. It's the coincidence of bills coming when you're least able to pay them that creates the problem.
He went on to compare other plans being discussed in Congress to the "Romney-care" model used in Massachusetts and gives a sobering analysis of their potential effectiveness:
Q. Is there anything in the other plans under discussion on Capitol Hill that you like?
A. What's being discussed is pretty much a clone of what we've done in Massachusetts [since the state instituted an individual mandate in 2007]. From our study and from my own observations as a doctor in Massachusetts, more people are now covered, but access to care hasn't improved substantially. For many people, it's worse. Saying that everyone now has coverage is like saying you're dressed when you have a hospital gown on. If you look at the back, not much is covered.
Q. In your opinion, then, the main plans under consideration on Capitol Hill miss the point.
A. It's like debating the difference between aspirin and Tylenol for a cancer patient.
With all that has happened in the healthcare debate that single-payer was compromised from the very beginning. Some things simply should not be for profit and the health and well-being of all Americans should be among them. Single-payer is the right thing for America to do from a moral, ecnonomical and welfare standpoint. America can lead the world in this important category once again if our citizenry will simply wise up and demand to.
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