Health Care: Where Are We Headed?
by Jackie Wolf, Co-Chair of Mass Care

On October 6, 2009, Diana Stein and Jackie Wolf, members of the League of Women Voters of Amherst, appeared on a program entitled “Health Care: Where Are We Headed?” for the Council on Aging, organized by Ruth Young.

Approximately 100 people came to the Jenks Center to hear the pros and cons of suggested changes to our health insurance system. Stein and Wolf described the benefits of a single-payer plan, which is supported by the National League. Alan Macdonald, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, spoke against the single-payer option. Robert Frank, Jr., partner in the law firm Choate, Hall and Stewart, LLP, served as moderator.

Diana Stein and Jackie Wolf		Alan McDonald
Click on photo to obtain larger image

 

Stein and Wolf presented statistics showing that the United States ranks much lower in quality on health care measures such as life expectancy and infant mortality than other modern, developed nations. On a per capita basis, however, the health care costs of the United States are double that of modern developed nations. Massachusetts has some of the highest per capita costs in the world.

 

The United States spends so much more than other nations on health care in large measure due to the fragmented and segmented way in which health insurance is financed in the United States and health care providers paid. We have hundreds of insurance companies all with different forms, different payment schedules, and huge expenses for advertising and marketing. In addition, the for-profit and not-for-profit health insurance companies make money when they deny care; in fact, they frequently overturn treatment decisions by doctors for this reason.

There were several Winchester LWV members in the audience, including Pat Wells and Frances Shawcross Photographer Jean Herbert

 

The burden of these high health insurance costs are unsustainable for individuals, businesses, states and the nation.  Under a single payer approach – as proposed for Massachusetts in HB 2127: The Massachusetts Health Care Trust bill – everyone in the state would pay into one health care trust, just as people now do paying into Medicare. With a single-payer approach, you would retain your choice of doctor, hospital or other health care provider. The savings generated by reducing the exorbitant and unnecessary waste that goes to advertising, marketing, high CEO salaries and needless duplication of paperwork would provide the resources to cover everyone with quality benefits.

 

Macdonald rose to challenge the proposal of single-payer as a good way to reform health care. Speaking for the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, he agreed that the goal was to insure everyone – but not with a single-payer approach. The Roundtable studied health reform in the early 1990’s and came up with a list of ten goals or recommendations. These include making sure everyone has a basic health plan with catastrophic insurance, stressing illness prevention, addressing tort reform, and determining the most effective way of paying for health care provider services.  Alan repeated, often, that the Business Roundtable sees “individual choice and individual responsibility” at the core of health care reform.