Recently, The Salt Lake Tribune published commentary supporting the expansion of Medicare and a single-payer health care system. Unfortunately, single-payer’s track record abroad reveals that substandard care, long waiting lists and rationing are endemic to such systems.
Furthermore, people need to realize that health insurance is expensive because healthcare is expensive. Insurance will remain expensive whether private insurance companies are paying the claims or a single-payer is reimbursing providers for the claims.
In Canada, the median patient waits more than four months to receive treatment from a specialist after referral from his primary-care physician. More than 50,000 people left Canada last year to receive medical treatment — partially because of waiting lists. In the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, 5 million patients will languish on waiting lists for non-emergency surgeries, such as hip replacements, by 2019.
By comparison, American patients wait less than four weeks, on average.
Rationing care is the single-payer’s solution for cutting health care costs. Britain’s National Health Service is facing what the government calls its “worst financial position in a generation.” Forty percent of hospitals are considering rationing care to save money. Some have already begun restricting access to hearing aids and hip and knee replacements.
By contrast, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandates insurance companies pay for more benefits than prior to the ACA. Americans also demand single-bed hospital rooms, best of care practices, and the best technology has to offer. This all comes at a cost.
Single-payer systems don’t just ration care. They also artificially lower reimbursement rates for hospitals and doctors. In many cases, these payments don’t even cover the cost of providing certain treatments and procedures. Providers could not survive solely on Medicare reimbursement rates.
Despite these stiff limits on spending, single-payer systems are still extremely expensive. Lawmakers in New York, California and Colorado have, or are considering, bills that would abolish private insurance and enroll all state residents in a single-payer system. These proposals would double their current states’ budgets.
The millions of Americans who dream of a government-funded single-payer health care system should note the experiences of other countries before they jump to the conclusion that a single-payer system will provide higher quality care at a lower cost. A single-payer system will deliver rationing of care, lower standards of care and put further pressure on the federal government’s already overburdened budget.
Craig Paulson is president of the Utah Association of Health Underwriters.