Single-payer care good for business
After listening to endless debates are arguments about which candidate has the best health care and Medicare plans, the more convinced I am that our current health care system should be scrapped and that we adopt or incorporate features of the three health care systems used by most other industrialized countries and develop a new health care system that is more efficient and less costly.
The one common feature of each system is that everyone pays and everyone is covered. The only difference is how they achieve that goal.
There is the Beveridge model used by Great Britain, Spain, Scandinavia and New Zealand. Hong Kong has its own Beveridge-style plan and, of course, Cuba, which is the purest example of total government control.
The Bismarck model is found in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland and to a degree Latin America. In this model, health insurance plans have to cover everyone and they don’t make a profit. Germany has 240 funds that are tightly regulated by government, which enables greater cost control.
And then there is the National Health Insurance Model that uses private-sector providers, but payment comes from a government-run insurance program that every citizen pays into. This single-payer system has considerable market power to negotiate for lower prices. The NHI system is found in Canada, Taiwan and South Korea.
The U.S. system has many different systems. All other countries have settled on one model for everybody. This is a much simpler and more cost efficient system than the U.S. system. The U.S. spends $7,000 per person, while in all other industrialized countries the average cost per person is a little over $3,500.
To reduce costs and ensure coverage for everyone, an individual mandate is essential for any health care plan, which is why Gov. Romney chose that model for Massachusetts. And just think of how much more competitive American businesses would be if they did not have the cost of providing health care for their employees.
Victor Darst
West Dundee