[Sosfbay-discuss] Spiraling premiums: the solution is single-payer, by Ron Forthofer

[JamBoi]

Spiraling premiums: the solution is single-payer (Ron Forthofer, Rocky
Mtn. News)
Date:	Tue, 27 Mar 2007 07:08:18 -0700 (PDT)


Plug the health care drain

Spiraling insurance premiums threaten the state's
economic security. Moving to a single-payer
system - public funding, private providers - just
makes sense.


By Ron Forthofer [2002 Green candidate for
governor of Colorado]
Rocky Mountain News, March 24, 2007
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_5439743,00.html


Although health care is the top domestic concern
of Americans, neither the Bush administration nor
congressional leaders are willing to provide the
leadership necessary to solve the crises
confronting uninsured and underinsured Americans
and U.S. businesses. Leading politicians continue
to put campaign contributions from the health
insurance and pharmaceutical industries ahead of
the interests of other businesses and the
American public. However, as U.S. businesses are
faced with ever increasing health insurance
premiums, more are willing to tackle the crisis
and become a part of the solution. 
In an October address, Dr. Henry E. Simmons,
president of the National Coalition on Health
Care, the nation's largest health care alliance,
said: "The escalation of health care costs is no
longer only a health care issue. It has now
created a gigantic national economic problem. For
as these costs rise, they slow the rate of
economic growth. By cutting into corporate
operating margins, they reduce the capacity of
firms to grow by investing in research, plant and
equipment. And they put American firms at a steep
disadvantage in world markets, where they have to
compete against companies in countries with much
lower health care costs." 

Ever-increasing health insurance premiums put
small businesses in a bind. They often face the
impossible choice of providing jobs or health
insurance. In addition to the direct costs of
insurance, each small business pays staff to deal
with health insurance brokers/companies.
Employers who can't afford a staff person often
conduct negotiations themselves. All this time
and money spent on the complex array of health
insurance "gotchas," multiplied across thousands
of small businesses in Colorado, represent
millions of dollars that could be invested
elsewhere. 

Health insurance coverage also impacts the
ability to attract and retain employees: 

• If a small business doesn't offer health
insurance, potential employees may not consider
its job openings. 

• A business that offers insurance must be
careful whom it hires since one person with a
serious health problem could drive premiums sky
high. 

• A business providing health insurance is likely
to have higher labor costs than a nonproviding
competitor, putting it at a disadvantage in
bidding situations. 

Large businesses also are stymied. S. Gary
Snodgrass, executive vice president of Exelon
Corp., one of the country's largest public
utilities, said health coverage for its employees
and retirees is its fastest-growing expense.
Between 2001 and 2004, he said, those costs rose
70 percent, forcing the company to shift more of
the burden to workers. 

Ford Motor Co. spent almost $12,500 per hourly
employee and retiree on health care expenses in
2002. William Clay Ford Jr., executive chairman
of the board, said the rising cost of health
benefits is the "biggest issue on our plate that
we can't solve. Health care is out of control.
It's a system that's broke." 

In the fall of 2002, the Big Three automakers in
Canada said: "The (Canadian) public health care
system significantly reduces total labor costs
for automobile manufacturing firms, compared to
the cost of equivalent private insurance services
purchased by U.S.-based automakers; these health
insurance savings can amount to several dollars
per hour of labor worked. Publicly funded health
care thus accounts for a significant portion of
Canada's overall labor cost advantage in auto
assembly, vs. the U.S., which in turn has been a
significant factor in maintaining and attracting
new auto investment to Canada." 

In June 2005, Toyota placed a new plant in
Ontario instead of the United States, and health
care costs were a key consideration. 

The Canadian system reduces the role of the
insurance industry - and, hence, the
administrative burden on the health care system.
Applying the Canadian model to the U.S. means
that instead of having more than 1,200 private
health insurers - each with its own costly
bureaucracy and concomitant expenses - there
would be only one group in each state dealing
with administration. The Canadian health care
delivery system is private, but the financing is
public. It is a tax-based system costing far less
than we pay in the U.S. 

Health care expenses in the U.S. consume about 16
percent of our GDP vs. about 10 percent in
Canada. The U.S. "system" is wasteful, with as
much as 25 percent of premiums used for things
other than health care. More importantly, the
Canadian system covers everyone with
comprehensive medical care, whereas our "system"
fails to cover almost 47 million Americans, and
another 30 million to 50 million are
underinsured. 

Studies by the Government Accounting Office and
the Congressional Budget Office show that the
single-payer system - public funding and private
health care - can provide universal comprehensive
coverage here and save money over the current
failed market-based approach. These studies are
supported by a May 2005 report by Kenneth Thorpe
for the National Coalition on Health Care. Thorpe
is the former top economist at the Department of
Health and Human Services and now is chairman of
the Health Policy and Management Department of
Emory University in Atlanta. The report projected
a saving of $1.1 trillion in the first 10 years
under a universal, publicly financed system -
even while insurance coverage is extended to
every American and stronger quality measures are
put in place, a far larger savings than other
proposals for reforming the U.S. market-based
health insurance system. 

Under the single-payer approach, business saves
because it would not waste resources researching
health insurance decisions, and workers
compensation costs would drop due to removal of
the health care component. The playing field
would be leveled in hiring and in competitive
bidding. Uncertainty about health care costs
would be eliminated. Large companies would boost
their competitiveness in international markets. 

Business can best protect its interests by
supporting the single-payer bill now in Congress,
H.R. 676. Among the 55 co-sponsors of this bill,
none is from Colorado. If major surgery is not
performed on the U.S. health care system, U.S.
businesses and tens of millions of Americans will
continue to pay a steep price for the failure to
act. 

Ron Forthofer is a retired professor of
biostatistics at the University of Texas School
of Public Health in Houston. A resident of
Longmont, he was the Green Party candidate for
governor of Colorado in 2002 and won 4 percent of
the vote in Colorado's 2nd Congressional District
in 2000. He can be reached at
ron_forthofer at yahoo.com

___________________

JamBoi
The Green Parties' #1 Blogger
See http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=JamBoi

The Celts invading the Italian Penninsula's reply when questioned by the nervous Romans around 400BC
"To the brave belong all things"

Jammy The Sacred Cow Slayer

"Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)
http://dailyJam.blogspot.com


 
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