Medicare for All

By J. Thomas

This month, Dr. Gerald Friedman, Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, released a new study on the potential cost savings if New York state implemented a single-payer, universal health care system. In a single-payer system, every American would be guaranteed a basic level of health care, much like Medicare guarantees health coverage to American seniors.

Among the findings from Friedman’s estimates: 98 percent of New Yorkers would save money; 2 percent of New Yorkers – those making more than $436,000 annually – would pay more via increased taxes; New Yorkers would save an average of $2,200 each year; and business savings would spur the creation of 200,000 jobs. Moreover, Friedman says, “New York’s overall economic savings from a single-payer model reduces health care spending by $45 billion.”

“This detailed economic study gives us clear proof that a universal health care plan is the right move for New York,” said Assembly Health Committee chair and lead sponsor Richard Gottfried.

It’s more urgent than ever for New Yorkers to learn about the benefits of universal health care. In December, Public Citizen Health Care Advocate Vijay Das spoke before New York legislators as part of a series of historic meetings in support of the New York Health Bill, which would extend health coverage to every New Yorker. More

Good news emerged this week in the fight for health care justice in the United States. A new poll shows that the majority of Americans support single-payer health care. In a single-payer system, every American would be guaranteed a basic level of health care, much like Medicare guarantees health coverage to all American seniors.

Among the poll’s other findings: 80 percent of self-identified Democrats support single-payer, in addition to one-quarter of Republicans. President Obama himself backed single-payer as a state senator. As for a “public option,” where Americans would be given the choice to buy into Medicare before they turn 65, only 13 percent of the public was opposed.

In many ways, this poll is remarkable. More and more Americans understand and embrace a universal Medicare-for-all health plan. Stay tuned for Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) re-introductions of their versions of single-payer, Medicare-for-All bills this year.

Vijay Das is a health care advocate for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch.

By J. Thomas

November 15 marked the start of the open enrollment period for the nation’s health law which means millions of Americans once again have the opportunity to purchase private health plans on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) health insurance marketplaces.

An op-ed in Salon by Public Citizen’s health care advocate, Vijay Das, reveals a glitch in the ACA that adds barriers to coverage for working families. The ACA’s “family glitch” is a drafting error with big effects. As it stands, employers must offer affordable coverage to their employees – but not their employees’ families. So, if an individual plan is “affordable” (i.e., it costs less than 9.5% of what the employee earns), the employee is ineligible for subsidies, even if the cost of family coverage is exorbitant and unaffordable.

Even worse, the ones who are most affected tend to be children from low income households– 460,000 of them, according to the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office. Meanwhile, parents are faced with a difficult choice – maintain their own too costly family insurance or drop it and enroll their kids in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). One more hitch during this post-election “lame-duck” Congress: CHIP expires next October. Nobody knows if Congress will reauthorize it by the end of year, and, if so, at what level the program will be funded.

The family glitch points to a larger problem in American health care. The U.S. stands as the only wealthy nation in the world with uninsured kids and no universal health care. The civil rights movement expanded rights on many fronts: for LGBT individuals, environmental protections and international human rights, to name a few. But when it comes to children’s health, our nation remains far behind the curve. The concept of “American exceptionalism” was meant to symbolize hopes and dreams, not sick kids. More

Yesterday marked the 49^th Anniversary of Medicare, our nation’s first national health insurance program. Since its inception, Medicare has extended health coverage to nearly 50 million seniors and people with disabilities.

To celebrate, U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) spoke passionately on the U.S. House floor, commemorating the anniversary of the beloved program and highlighting the benefits of extending Medicare to all Americans.

Rep. Conyers emphasized the huge cost savings (close to $600 billion in 2015) that would be achieved by expanding Medicare and curbing the wasteful spending inherent in the current for-profit, private insurance system used by those not eligible for Medicare or other government-financed programs

In presenting the case for the passage of H.R. 676, Rep. Conyers emphasized that a nationwide single-payer system built off Medicare is the best way to address the core challenges undermining our health care system.

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By Sabrina Morello

“If equity and social solidarity in access to health care and financing health care were fundamental goals of a health care system, the single-payer system provides an ideal platform for achieving these goals” said Tsung-Mei Chen, MA Health Policy Research Analyst at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Health at Princeton University. Last week, Chen and other experts, including those from Canada, Denmark and Taiwan, provided testimony outlining the benefits of single-payer health care systems in their respective countries to members of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging.

Subcommittee chair U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) began the hearing by laying out an array of issues with our current fragmented health care system, with an emphasis on the fact that we are the only major industrialized nation that does not guarantee health care as a fundamental right. Senator Sanders cited 2012 data showing 15 percent of our population (more than 48 million Americans) are left uninsured and even more have high deductibles and co-pays or caps on coverage that end up driving citizens into bankruptcy.

This statistic stands out sharply from countries like Taiwan, which established a single-payer system in 1995, and currently has more than 99.6 percent of its population covered by national health care, according to Dr. Ching-Chuan Yeh, former Minister of Health for Taiwan, Professor at the School of Public Health, College of Medicine at Tzu-chi University. Dr. Yeh’s testimony was a poignant example of a far more equitable system than exists in the U.S.: “[a]ccess to health care is an inalienable right in [Taiwan’s] constitution. Residents living in remote mountainous areas and offshore islands, and the poor, the disabled, the aged get pretty much the same access and health care as anyone else.”

In addition to being inequitable, the care we do provide in America seems to lag behind single-payer nations in regards to health outcomes. Victor Rodwin, PhD, MPH, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at NYU, notes that among 19 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations, France, a single-payer nation, has the lowest rate of avoidable mortality (an important indicator of quality of care) while the U.S. has the highest rate. Our nation could avoid about 101,000 deaths if we were able to decrease our avoidable mortality levels to those seen in France. More