2200 Physicians Endorse Single-Payer System Proposal

In an editorial published in American Journal of Public Health, a group of physicians propose a government-funded, single-payer health care system, which so far has received the endorsement of 2200 of their colleagues.

The proposed system would provide health care, dental care, long-term care, and prescription drug coverage to every citizen of the United States. All hospitals and clinicians would be combined into one large network in order to allow free patient choice and prevent turnover, preserving patient-physician relationships and improving the quality of care.

To accommodate the additional costs of such a system, the author propose lowering administrative health care costs by removing existing incentives that lead to waste within health organizations. The system would also pay hospitals for their operating costs through global budgets, rather than through per-patient billing. According to the authors, if administrative costs were lowered to the levels seen in Canada, 15% of national health spending, or $500 billion would be saved.

Such a universal system would also save costs through the ability to negotiate prices with drug companies. Additionally, the authors wrote, “the greater efficiency and simplicity of the [system] would curb inflation in health costs, so that cost savings would grow with time.”

Regarding payment, the authors envision a flexible system in which physicians and other practitioners could be paid through fee-for-service or through salaries at hospitals and other facilities.

“A single-payer [system]… would at long last take the right to health care from the realm of political rhetoric to reality,” the authors concluded.

Reference:

Gaffney A, Woolhandler S, Angell M, Himmelstein DU. Moving forward from the Affordably Care Act to a single-payer system. Am J Public Health. 2016;106(6):987-988.