Dive Brief:
- A publicly-funded health care system guaranteeing universal coverage would reduce health care costs and relieve employers in businesses of a major financial burden, according to a new report from nonpartisan advocacy group Public Citizen.
- According to the group, universal health care would offer three major advantages: It would equalize health care costs for businesses, take billions of dollars of expense out of the system, and end "job lock" (a term used for employees that don't switch jobs or start new ventures because they will lose their health insurance).
- According to Becker's Hospital Review, a report issued eight months ago by Gerald Friedman, PhD, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, drew similar conclusions to the Public Citizen's report. Dr. Friedman's study concluded that the health care system could save $1.8 trillion over 10 years if the US adopted a single-payer system.
Dive Insight:
Historically, the notion of instituting single-payer at a federal level has been DOA whenever someone suggests it in Congress. But there is at least one state that should give the country a chance to look at single-payer in action, and that's Vermont. To go single-payer, Vermont has to jump through some hoops, including adoption of a financing plan, proving that the new system will cost less than the current fee-for-service one, and getting federal permission by a waiver to allow Vermont to proceed in or around 2017. But assuming it does get past these obstacles, it could be a historic shift in the health system. As many readers would know, the ACA drew heavily on the experiences of Massachusetts' early health reform. Perhaps the same will happen for single-payer in the future.