Single-payer system and Florida's budget are linked
Ray Bellamy
Tallahassee Democrat
My View
April 29, 2009
No to offshore drilling in a state that depends on pristine beaches and an attractive environment to attract a vibrant tourist industry. No to Seminole gaming, which would siphon money from those least able to afford it and create a number of other social problems.
What to do? Say yes to single-payer national health insurance. How would this help, you ask? The single largest expenditure in Florida’s budget is the $16 billion for Medicaid. And this Medicaid cost goes up annually at an unsustainable rate. That item, the entire Medicaid budget, would disappear if we had single payer national health insurance, such as HR 676 in the U.S. House, or S703 in the U.S. Senate. Since everyone would have comprehensive health coverage, including long-term care, dental, pharmacy and mental health — think a very comprehensive “Medicare for All” from the day of birth — state Medicaid expenditures would vanish from the budget. Also eliminated would be Leon County’s costs for providing employee and retiree health care, the same costs for the city of Tallahassee, and also for state employees and state retirees. Now this is sustainable improvement for our state’s budget number-crunchers to love.
Single payer is the only health care reform proposal that is revenue neutral in our $2.4 trillion national health care cost equation. It achieves universal coverage by saving an estimated $380 billion a year in wasted profit for the insurance industry and counter-productive administrative excess caused by that industry. These savings would go toward covering all of us with comprehensive coverage, free choice of physician and free choice of hospital, just as Medicare would be if it were much better funded.
Single payer is the only proposal for covering the uninsured that is fiscally responsible, the only proposal that covers all citizens, and the only proposal that utilizes a successful business model: Medicare. Australia, Canada, Taiwan and other countries with better-rated health care quality at half the per-capita costs of the U.S. patchwork system have greater success with the single payer model at far less cost than we. There is no successful model in the world experience for a private, for-profit insurance system such as proposed by those opposed to single payer.
We have a unique opportunity to achieve this needed reform in health care and solve our Florida budget crisis. Our own congressman, Allen Boyd, has stated his support for “universal health coverage.” But if the Obama administration is successful in shepherding through the Obama plan, Boyd is likely to be presented with a bill that will subsidize the health coverage for the uninsured at an additional national cost of $150 billion to $200 billion, but leave in place the 31-percent overhead and excessive insurance company profits within the present system. In fact, additional administrative costs would be added.
Boyd, as a leader of the Blue Dog caucus in Congress, is in a position to lead the redirection of health care reform toward single payer and take a true leadership role in Congress. The more than $18 billion saved from our state budget would go a long way toward helping our education, law enforcement, state worker salaries and other pressing social needs. Let Congressman Boyd know how you feel.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ray Bellamy is a physician practicing in Tallahassee. Contact him at ray.bellamy@med.fsu.edu.