HOW to SAVE MONEY on HEALTHCARE REFORM

GET THE FACS BEHIND THE NEWS! The Urban Institute estimated that a gov’t insurance plan would save $224 to $400 billion over a period of 10 years. The private insurance co’s simply will not offer the low cost full coverage insurance plans that would reduce the subsidy for the uninsured and underinsured. The gov’t plan would. The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed this by estimating that the cost of one of the proposed House plans would be reduced from $1.1 billion to only $800 billion, a saving of $300 billion over a 10 yr period with a gov’t plan.

There is another IMPORTANT step we can take to reduce cost by an estimated $40 billion annually or $400 billion over a 10 year period.

According to Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler Physicians for a National Health Plan the public option misses at least 84 percent of the administrative savings available through a single payer, gov’t, healthcare plan.

The public plan option would not do anything to streamline the administrative tasks (and costs) of hospitals, physicians offices, and nursing homes. They would still contend with multiple payers, and hence still need the complex cost tracking and billing apparatus that drives administrative costs. These unnecessary provider administrative costs account for the vast majority of bureaucratic waste. The Physician group research in California showed that now 31% of every health care $ was paid for administrative costs. This compared to 3% of medicare administrative costs. Hence, even if 95 percent of Americans who are currently privately insured were to join a public plan (and it had overhead costs at current Medicare levels), the savings on insurance overhead would amount to only 16 percent of the roughly $40 billion annually achievable through single payer.

If you are genuinely interested in healthcare reform at the lowest cost please check into single payer facts. The PNHP information is available
Tel 312-782-6006 info@pnhp.org