Nursing Informatics · Clinical Perspectives · Healthcare Systems
"The United States alone [among wealthy countries] treats health care as a commodity to be
distributed according to the ability to pay rather than a social service to be distributed
according to medical need."
— JAMA (2003), 290, 798
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Single Payer Now!
June 19, 2024 --
Dear SFC Editor,
I write to commend the comments in Linda Baumann's letter in today's SFC. As she points out, single-payer health is long past due. This deserves a little elucidation: why single-payer?
When there is more than one payer -- and often the payer winds up being the patient -- the incentive is to stick the other guy with the bill. Thus, unconscionable mountains of paperwork confront our hapless healthcare providers and vast insurance company and State and Federal bureaucracies are erected.
Numerous studies demonstrate that 15% to 30% of our healthcare dollars are thus consumed. Compare this to any country (such as, say, Canada) that does actually have a single payer. There, the bureaucratic overhead is typically 4% to 8%. And no medical bankruptcies.
Come on, California! We are compassionate people. We lead the nation in so many ways... Let's do this!
Single