Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Single Payer Health Care shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Single Payer Health Care offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Single Payer Health Care at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Single Payer Health Care? Wrong! If the Single Payer Health Care is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Single Payer Health Care then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Single Payer Health Care? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Single Payer Health Care and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Single Payer Health Care wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Single Payer Health Care then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Single Payer Health Care site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Single Payer Health Care, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Single Payer Health Care, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
Single-payer health care is an American term describing the payment for doctors, hospitals and other providers for health care from a single fund. The Health care in Canada and
Medicare (United States) in the U.S. for the elderly are single-payer systems.
According to the National Library of Medicine, a "Single-Payer System" is
An approach to health care financing with only one source of money for paying health care providers. The scope may be national (the Canadian System), state-wide, or community-based. The payer may be a governmental unit or other entity such as an insurance company. The proposed advantages include administrative simplicity for patients and providers, and resulting significant savings in overhead costs. (From Slee and Slee, Health Care Reform Terms, 1993, p106) Year introduced: 1996 Single-Payer System. National Library of Medicine.
Some writers assume that the single payer is the government,Chua, Kao-Ping. "Single Payer 101". February 10, 2006 but the preceding definition as well as some single-payer proponents in the U.S. leave the government's role open to interpretation.
Single payer is one alternative proposed for health care reform ing the Health care in the United States . Proponents argue that it would provide universal coverage with at least the same quality and lower costs. Critics argue that single payer would harm quality and innovation and advocate tax code incentives and
free market consumer driven health care instead.
The term single-payer is often used in the U.S. to distinguish systems paid from a single source with other systems of universal health care in which the government has a higher degree of control, up to and including administering hospitals and employing doctors and staff.
(See socialized medicine.) Under single payer, doctors' practices and hospitals may remain private and negotiate for payments with the government.
Types and variations
Health care in Canada is an example of single-payer health care. The national government provides part of the funding, provincial governments manage the hospitals (and provide the brunt of the funding), and doctors in private practice contract with the government for fee-for-service payments. Many Canadian citizens have supplemental health insurance, which covers expenses not covered by
Medicare (Canada) . Fees for doctors, hospitals and other providers are set by negotiations among doctors' associations, provincial or regional governments, and the national government. Global budgets eliminate the cost of billing individually for huge numbers of products and services.Physicians for a National Health Program. "What is Single Payer?"
The
United States and
Australia also have single-payer health insurance programs named
Medicare; however, Medicare Australia provides universal health insurance, while Medicare (United States) is only for senior citizens and the disabled.http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/health_care.html Government is increasingly involved in Health care in the United States spending, paying about 45 percent of the $2.2 trillion the nation spent on medical care in 2004.
Scotland, Norway, and Finland have implemented single payer health insurance. Each country's citizens share risk in a common pool.http://www.pnhp.org/news/2004/august/lessons_from_three_c.php
According to Princeton University health economist Uwe E. Reinhardt, single-payer systems such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Canadian system are properly called "social insurance" systems, because they're coupled with a largely private delivery system.[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118411829790962883.html Letters: For Children's Sake, This 'Schip' Needs to Be Relaunched, Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2007, Uwe E. Reinhardt and others.
The Veterans Administration is a single payer system and provides excellent quality, said Reinhard. In a peer-reviewed paper published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers of the RAND Corp. reported that the quality of care received by Veterans Administration patients scored significantly higher overall than did comparable metrics for patients in the rest of the U.S. health system, he said. Comparison of quality of care for patients in the Veterans Health Administration and patients in a national sample. Asch SM, et al. Ann Intern Med. 2004 Dec 21;141(12):938-45.
Some writers describe socialized health care systems as "single-payer plans." Some writers have described any system of health care which intends to cover the entire population, such as voucher plans, as "single-payer plans,"A Health Care Plan So Simple, Even Stephen Colbert Couldn’t Simplify It, By ROBERT H. FRANK, New York Times, February 15, 2007Fuchs although this is an uncommon usage.
Proponents and intent
One of the leading organizations in support of single payer in the U.S. is Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), which seeks to establish a system similar to that in
Health care in Canada .
In Congress, Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) has introduced The United States National Health Insurance Act (HR 676). HR 676 has 76 co-sponsors, including Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who is a candidate for president.
Converting to a single-payer system is seen by proponents as a solution to the flaws in the current U.S. system. The U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world on both a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP. Despite this expenditure, the current U.S. system fails to provide universal coverage. Nearly 47 million Americans, about 16 percent of the population, lacked health insurance in 2006. The lack of universal coverage contributes to another flaw in the current U.S. health care system: on most dimensions of performance, it underperforms relative to other industrialized countries. In a 2007 comparison by the Commonwealth Fund of health care in the U.S. with that of Germany, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, the U.S. ranked last on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes.
For example, U.S. ranks 22nd in infant mortality, between Taiwan and Croatia, 46th in life expectancy, between Saint Helena and Cyprus, and 37th in health system performance, between Costa Rica and Slovenia.
The U.S. system is often compared with that of its northern neighbor, Canada (see Canadian and American health care systems compared). Canada's system is largely publicly funded. In 2004, Americans spent an estimated US$6,102 per capita on health care, while Canadians spent US$3,165. A 2007 review of all studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the U.S. found that "health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent."Open Medicine, Vol 1, No 1 (2007), Research: A systematic review of studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the United States, Gordon H. Guyatt, et al.
Proponents of health care reform argue that moving to a single-payer system would reallocate the money currently spent on the administrative overhead required to run the hundredsThe trade association AHIP, America's Health Insurance Plans, has some 1,300 members. of insurance companies in the U.S. to provide universal care. "The Health Care Crisis and What to Do About It"By Paul Krugman, Robin Wells, New York Review of Books, March 23, 2006 An often-cited study by Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information determined that some 30 percent of U.S. health care dollars, or more than $1,000 per person per year, went to health care administrative costs. Costs of Health Administration in the U.S. and CanadaWoolhandler, et al, NEJM 349(8) Sept. 21, 2003
Theoretically, advocates suggest, shifting the U.S. to a single-payer health care system could provide universal coverage, give patients free choice of providers and hospitals, and guarantee comprehensive coverage and equal access for all medically necessary procedures, without increasing overall spending. Shifting to a single-payer system could also theoretically eliminate oversight by managed care reviewers, restoring the traditional doctor-patient relationship.
Opponents and criticisms
"Political barriers to single payer are very strong," said Jonathan Oberlander, political scientist, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and it is "very unlikely" in the U.S. "All that money we spend on health care is income to insurance companies and providers, the pharmaceutical industry and so on...They're deeply invested in keeping the status quo." Oberlander comments that one of the "poignant scenes" in the movie Sicko, is a scene in which Michael Moore puts price tags over Congressmens' heads. The health care insurance and pharmaceutical industries give a lot of money to fund election campaigns and in return expect political obligation not to upset the status quo.Fresh Air from WHYY, July 9, 2007. Diagnosing U.S. Health Care — and 'Sicko,' Too. Terry Gross interviewing Jonathan Oberlander, associate professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Several criticisms have been leveled against the idea of changing the U.S. health care system to a single-payer system.
Perhaps the largest obstacle is a lack of political will. Timid ideas won't fix health mess. By Marie Cocco, Sacramento Bee, February 10, 2007
While polling data indicate that U.S. citizens are concerned about health care costs and think the system needs reform (see
#Polls , below) most are generally satisfied with the quality of their own health care. According to a Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health in 2003, 86.9% of Americans reported being "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their health care services, compared to 83.2% of Canadians. Satisfaction with health care and physician services, Canada and United States, 2002 to 2003 In the same study, 93.6% of Americans reported being "satisfed" or "very satisfied" with their physician services, compared to 91.5% of Canadians (according to the study authors, that difference was not statistically significant).
A few medical researchers say that patient satisfaction surveys are a poor way to evaluate medical care. Researchers at the
RAND Corporation and the Department of Veterans Affairs asked 236 elderly patients at 2 managed care plans to rate their care, then examined care in medical records, as reported in Annals of Internal Medicine. There was no correlation. "Patient ratings of health care area easy to obtain and report, but do not accurately measure the technical quality of medical care," said John T. Chang, UCLA, lead author. Capital: In health care, consumer theory falls flat David Wessel, Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2006. Patients' Global Ratings of Their Health Care Are Not Associated with the Technical Quality of Their Care, John T. Chang, et al., Ann Intern Med. 2006 May 2;144(9):665-72.
For this reason, some U.S. reformers argue for other, more incremental changes to achieve universal health care, such as tax credits or vouchers.Emanuel EJ, Fuchs VR. Health care vouchers -- a proposal for universal coverage. N Engl J Med 2005;352:1255-1260. However, proponents of a single-payer system, such as Marcia Angell, M.D., former editor of the
New England Journal of Medicine, assert that incremental changes in a free-market system are "doomed to fail."
Other criticisms of single-payer health care as a solution for universal coverage in the U.S. include:
- A single-payer system could put the government, rather than health care providers and insurers, in the role of deciding which procedures and medications would be covered.
- In a single-payer system where hospitals and practitioners remain private, public money goes into private hands and therefore must be guarded to protect public trust. This could require a level of bureacracy similar to the bureacracy associated with private insurance.
: Note however, that this issue does not arise in total public health care systems (which may also be single-payer) where the hospitals and / or general practitioners work for the government. In this case the prioritization of access to government funded services is done according to the patients' needs as judged by medical professionals. There are no bureaucrats cross-checking doctors records against either patients medical insurance cover (as in the present system) or against medical contracts (as in a single-payer system with private practitioners).
- Converting to a single-payer system could be a radical change, creating administrative chaos.
Polls
In recent public opinion polls, majorities of Americans say that the current health care system needs fundamental changes, and that they are dissatisfied with the quality and costs of health care, although they are satisfied with the quality of their own health care. Those polled believe the federal government should guarantee insurance for all Americans, even if they had to pay higher taxes. In some polls, respondents prefer a universal health insurance program, "like Medicare," even if it limited their choice of doctors, and even if there were waiting lists for non-emergency treatments. But respondents were split when they were asked whether the federal government should require all Americans to participate in a national health plan.
According to a
New York Times/
CBS News poll in February 2007, New York Times/CBS News Poll, Feb. 23-27, 2007, N=1,281 adults nationwide. 54% of respondents said that "fundamental changes are needed" in the health care system, and 36% said that "Our health care system has so much wrong with it that we need to completely rebuild it." 57% were dissatisfied with the quality of health care in this country, although 77% were satisfied with the health care they themselves received. 81% were dissatisfied with the cost of health care, and 52% were dissatisfied with the costs of their own health care. 65% said that providing for the uninsured was more important than keeping costs down. 95% said that it is a serious problem that many Americans do not have health insurance. 64% said that the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans, and 60% would pay higher taxes to do so. But only 43% said that it would be fair for the government in Washington to require all Americans to participate in a national health care plan funded by taxpayers, compared to 48% who said it would be unfair.
According to a Washington Post-
ABC News poll in October 2003, "Washington Post-ABC News Poll: Health Care," October 20, 2003America's HealthTogether 62% of respondents preferred "a universal health insurance program, in which everybody is covered under a program like Medicare that's run by the government and financed by taxpayers," compared to 32% who preferred the current system, in which most people get their health insurance from employers. 56% would support a universal health insurance program even if it limited their own choice of doctors, and 63% would support it even if it meant there were waiting lists for some non-emergency treatments.
State proposals
Several single payer referendums have been proposed at the state level, but so far all have failed to pass:
California in 1994,
Massachusetts in 2000, and Oregon in 2002.
In 2006, the state legislature of California passed SB 840, The Health Care for All Californians Act, a single payer health care system, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) vetoed the bill. California State Senator
Sheila Kuehl has reintroduced the bill. California Healthcare for All California Onecarenow.org
References
See also
External links
- Institute of Medicine Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance. Hidden costs, value lost: uninsurance in America. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2003. Frequently-cited source.
- Physicians for a National Health Program Advocates for single-payer system. Extensive source material from peer-reviewed journals.
- 2006 video created by Sheila Kuehl, California state senator, explaining single payer health care system, and promoting SB 840
- National Center for Policy Analysis Corporate-funded free-market think tank opposed to government health care.
Single-payer health care is an American term describing the payment for doctors, hospitals and other providers for health care from a single fund. The
Health care in Canada and
Medicare (United States) in the U.S. for the elderly are single-payer systems.
According to the National Library of Medicine, a "Single-Payer System" is
An approach to health care financing with only one source of money for paying health care providers. The scope may be national (the Canadian System), state-wide, or community-based. The payer may be a governmental unit or other entity such as an insurance company. The proposed advantages include administrative simplicity for patients and providers, and resulting significant savings in overhead costs. (From Slee and Slee, Health Care Reform Terms, 1993, p106) Year introduced: 1996 Single-Payer System. National Library of Medicine.
Some writers assume that the single payer is the government,Chua, Kao-Ping. "Single Payer 101". February 10, 2006 but the preceding definition as well as some single-payer proponents in the U.S. leave the government's role open to interpretation.
Single payer is one alternative proposed for
health care reform ing the
Health care in the United States . Proponents argue that it would provide universal coverage with at least the same quality and lower costs. Critics argue that single payer would harm quality and innovation and advocate tax code incentives and
free market consumer driven health care instead.
The term single-payer is often used in the U.S. to distinguish systems paid from a single source with other systems of universal health care in which the government has a higher degree of control, up to and including administering hospitals and employing doctors and staff.
(See socialized medicine.) Under single payer, doctors' practices and hospitals may remain private and negotiate for payments with the government.
Types and variations
Health care in Canada is an example of single-payer health care. The national government provides part of the funding, provincial governments manage the hospitals (and provide the brunt of the funding), and doctors in private practice contract with the government for fee-for-service payments. Many Canadian citizens have supplemental health insurance, which covers expenses not covered by Medicare (Canada) . Fees for doctors, hospitals and other providers are set by negotiations among doctors' associations, provincial or regional governments, and the national government. Global budgets eliminate the cost of billing individually for huge numbers of products and services.Physicians for a National Health Program. "What is Single Payer?"
The United States and Australia also have single-payer health insurance programs named
Medicare; however, Medicare Australia provides universal health insurance, while Medicare (United States) is only for senior citizens and the disabled.http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/health_care.html Government is increasingly involved in Health care in the United States spending, paying about 45 percent of the $2.2 trillion the nation spent on medical care in 2004.
Scotland, Norway, and Finland have implemented single payer health insurance. Each country's citizens share risk in a common pool.http://www.pnhp.org/news/2004/august/lessons_from_three_c.php
According to Princeton University health economist Uwe E. Reinhardt, single-payer systems such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Canadian system are properly called "social insurance" systems, because they're coupled with a largely private delivery system.[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118411829790962883.html Letters: For Children's Sake, This 'Schip' Needs to Be Relaunched, Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2007, Uwe E. Reinhardt and others.
The Veterans Administration is a single payer system and provides excellent quality, said Reinhard. In a peer-reviewed paper published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers of the RAND Corp. reported that the quality of care received by Veterans Administration patients scored significantly higher overall than did comparable metrics for patients in the rest of the U.S. health system, he said. Comparison of quality of care for patients in the Veterans Health Administration and patients in a national sample. Asch SM, et al. Ann Intern Med. 2004 Dec 21;141(12):938-45.
Some writers describe socialized health care systems as "single-payer plans." Some writers have described any system of health care which intends to cover the entire population, such as voucher plans, as "single-payer plans,"A Health Care Plan So Simple, Even Stephen Colbert Couldn’t Simplify It, By ROBERT H. FRANK, New York Times, February 15, 2007Fuchs although this is an uncommon usage.
Proponents and intent
One of the leading organizations in support of single payer in the U.S. is Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), which seeks to establish a system similar to that in Health care in Canada .
In Congress, Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) has introduced The
United States National Health Insurance Act (HR 676). HR 676 has 76 co-sponsors, including Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who is a candidate for president.
Converting to a single-payer system is seen by proponents as a solution to the flaws in the current U.S. system. The U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world on both a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP. Despite this expenditure, the current U.S. system fails to provide universal coverage. Nearly 47 million Americans, about 16 percent of the population, lacked health insurance in 2006. The lack of universal coverage contributes to another flaw in the current U.S. health care system: on most dimensions of performance, it underperforms relative to other industrialized countries. In a 2007 comparison by the
Commonwealth Fund of health care in the U.S. with that of Germany, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, the U.S. ranked last on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes.
For example, U.S. ranks 22nd in infant mortality, between Taiwan and Croatia, 46th in life expectancy, between Saint Helena and Cyprus, and 37th in health system performance, between Costa Rica and Slovenia.
The U.S. system is often compared with that of its northern neighbor, Canada (see Canadian and American health care systems compared). Canada's system is largely publicly funded. In 2004, Americans spent an estimated US$6,102 per capita on health care, while Canadians spent US$3,165. A 2007 review of all studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the U.S. found that "health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent."Open Medicine, Vol 1, No 1 (2007), Research: A systematic review of studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the United States, Gordon H. Guyatt, et al.
Proponents of health care reform argue that moving to a single-payer system would reallocate the money currently spent on the administrative overhead required to run the hundredsThe trade association AHIP, America's Health Insurance Plans, has some 1,300 members. of insurance companies in the U.S. to provide universal care. "The Health Care Crisis and What to Do About It"By Paul Krugman, Robin Wells, New York Review of Books, March 23, 2006 An often-cited study by Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information determined that some 30 percent of U.S. health care dollars, or more than $1,000 per person per year, went to health care administrative costs. Costs of Health Administration in the U.S. and CanadaWoolhandler, et al, NEJM 349(8) Sept. 21, 2003
Theoretically, advocates suggest, shifting the U.S. to a single-payer health care system could provide universal coverage, give patients free choice of providers and hospitals, and guarantee comprehensive coverage and equal access for all medically necessary procedures, without increasing overall spending. Shifting to a single-payer system could also theoretically eliminate oversight by managed care reviewers, restoring the traditional doctor-patient relationship.
Opponents and criticisms
"Political barriers to single payer are very strong," said Jonathan Oberlander, political scientist, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and it is "very unlikely" in the U.S. "All that money we spend on health care is income to insurance companies and providers, the pharmaceutical industry and so on...They're deeply invested in keeping the status quo." Oberlander comments that one of the "poignant scenes" in the movie
Sicko, is a scene in which Michael Moore puts price tags over Congressmens' heads. The health care insurance and pharmaceutical industries give a lot of money to fund election campaigns and in return expect political obligation not to upset the status quo.Fresh Air from WHYY, July 9, 2007. Diagnosing U.S. Health Care — and 'Sicko,' Too. Terry Gross interviewing Jonathan Oberlander, associate professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Several criticisms have been leveled against the idea of changing the U.S. health care system to a single-payer system.
Perhaps the largest obstacle is a lack of political will. Timid ideas won't fix health mess. By Marie Cocco, Sacramento Bee, February 10, 2007
While polling data indicate that U.S. citizens are concerned about health care costs and think the system needs reform (see #Polls , below) most are generally satisfied with the quality of their own health care. According to a Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health in 2003, 86.9% of Americans reported being "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their health care services, compared to 83.2% of Canadians. Satisfaction with health care and physician services, Canada and United States, 2002 to 2003 In the same study, 93.6% of Americans reported being "satisfed" or "very satisfied" with their physician services, compared to 91.5% of Canadians (according to the study authors, that difference was not statistically significant).
A few medical researchers say that patient satisfaction surveys are a poor way to evaluate medical care. Researchers at the RAND Corporation and the Department of Veterans Affairs asked 236 elderly patients at 2 managed care plans to rate their care, then examined care in medical records, as reported in Annals of Internal Medicine. There was no correlation. "Patient ratings of health care area easy to obtain and report, but do not accurately measure the technical quality of medical care," said John T. Chang, UCLA, lead author. Capital: In health care, consumer theory falls flat David Wessel, Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2006. Patients' Global Ratings of Their Health Care Are Not Associated with the Technical Quality of Their Care, John T. Chang, et al., Ann Intern Med. 2006 May 2;144(9):665-72.
For this reason, some U.S. reformers argue for other, more incremental changes to achieve universal health care, such as tax credits or vouchers.Emanuel EJ, Fuchs VR. Health care vouchers -- a proposal for universal coverage. N Engl J Med 2005;352:1255-1260. However, proponents of a single-payer system, such as Marcia Angell, M.D., former editor of the
New England Journal of Medicine, assert that incremental changes in a free-market system are "doomed to fail."
Other criticisms of single-payer health care as a solution for universal coverage in the U.S. include:
- A single-payer system could put the government, rather than health care providers and insurers, in the role of deciding which procedures and medications would be covered.
- In a single-payer system where hospitals and practitioners remain private, public money goes into private hands and therefore must be guarded to protect public trust. This could require a level of bureacracy similar to the bureacracy associated with private insurance.
: Note however, that this issue does not arise in total public health care systems (which may also be single-payer) where the hospitals and / or general practitioners work for the government. In this case the prioritization of access to government funded services is done according to the patients' needs as judged by medical professionals. There are no bureaucrats cross-checking doctors records against either patients medical insurance cover (as in the present system) or against medical contracts (as in a single-payer system with private practitioners).
- Converting to a single-payer system could be a radical change, creating administrative chaos.
Polls
In recent public opinion polls, majorities of Americans say that the current health care system needs fundamental changes, and that they are dissatisfied with the quality and costs of health care, although they are satisfied with the quality of their own health care. Those polled believe the federal government should guarantee insurance for all Americans, even if they had to pay higher taxes. In some polls, respondents prefer a universal health insurance program, "like Medicare," even if it limited their choice of doctors, and even if there were waiting lists for non-emergency treatments. But respondents were split when they were asked whether the federal government should require all Americans to participate in a national health plan.
According to a New York Times/
CBS News poll in February 2007, New York Times/CBS News Poll, Feb. 23-27, 2007, N=1,281 adults nationwide. 54% of respondents said that "fundamental changes are needed" in the health care system, and 36% said that "Our health care system has so much wrong with it that we need to completely rebuild it." 57% were dissatisfied with the quality of health care in this country, although 77% were satisfied with the health care they themselves received. 81% were dissatisfied with the cost of health care, and 52% were dissatisfied with the costs of their own health care. 65% said that providing for the uninsured was more important than keeping costs down. 95% said that it is a serious problem that many Americans do not have health insurance. 64% said that the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans, and 60% would pay higher taxes to do so. But only 43% said that it would be fair for the government in Washington to require all Americans to participate in a national health care plan funded by taxpayers, compared to 48% who said it would be unfair.
According to a
Washington Post-ABC News poll in October 2003, "Washington Post-ABC News Poll: Health Care," October 20, 2003America's HealthTogether 62% of respondents preferred "a universal health insurance program, in which everybody is covered under a program like Medicare that's run by the government and financed by taxpayers," compared to 32% who preferred the current system, in which most people get their health insurance from employers. 56% would support a universal health insurance program even if it limited their own choice of doctors, and 63% would support it even if it meant there were waiting lists for some non-emergency treatments.
State proposals
Several single payer referendums have been proposed at the state level, but so far all have failed to pass: California in 1994,
Massachusetts in 2000, and Oregon in 2002.
In 2006, the state legislature of California passed SB 840, The Health Care for All Californians Act, a single payer health care system, but Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) vetoed the bill. California State Senator Sheila Kuehl has reintroduced the bill. California Healthcare for All California Onecarenow.org
References
See also
External links
- Institute of Medicine Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance. Hidden costs, value lost: uninsurance in America. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2003. Frequently-cited source.
- Physicians for a National Health Program Advocates for single-payer system. Extensive source material from peer-reviewed journals.
- 2006 video created by Sheila Kuehl, California state senator, explaining single payer health care system, and promoting SB 840
- National Center for Policy Analysis Corporate-funded free-market think tank opposed to government health care.
Single-payer health care - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Single-payer health care is an American term describing the payment for doctors, hospitals and other providers of health care from a single fund.
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