Tulsa World
October 12, 2010
Coburn: Private health insurance may end soon
By Randy Krehbiel
"There will be no insurance industry left in three years," Coburn told the Republican Women's Club of Tulsa County.
"That is by design. You're going to make insurance unaffordable for everyone -- which is what they want. Because if there's no private insurance left, what's left? Government-centered, government-run, single-payer health care."
Senator Tom Coburn, M.D.
And...
Medscape Family Medicine
October 13, 2010
Nursing Economics
Is U.S. Health Care Evolving Toward a Single-Payer System? An Interview with Health Care Economist Paul Feldstein, PhD
Interview by Peter I. Buerhaus, PhD, RN, FAAN
Peter Buerhaus: Looking to the future, do you think the passage of health reform legislation and its implementation could eventually lead to the adoption of a single-payer system?
Paul Feldstein: It is hard to say where we are going, particularly because the legislation creates health insurance exchanges which will be overseen by an insurance regulator. The insurance regulator will have the authority to set the benefit package and influence whether a state approves or denies rate hikes by insurance companies. I can see a scenario where there is very little cost containment and little pressure to keep insurance premiums from rising substantially. And, if there is a weak mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance, then the resulting adverse selection is likely to cause insurers to increase their premiums. People will become dissatisfied with the premium increases and some may become more supportive of a government-funded public insurance option. By heavily subsidizing government-provided health insurance and undercutting private insurers, many people will switch to lower-cost public insurers because studies show that people are willing to switch insurers for not much of a price difference. Eventually, if many individuals purchase public insurance, we could end up with a single-payer system or something close to one.
Paul J. Feldstein, Ph.D.
Comment: The majority of progressives predict that a single payer system is inevitable because the nation will no longer tolerate the increasing costs of health care. On the other side, many conservatives and libertarians predict that a single payer system may be inevitable because health plans will no longer be affordable in a regulated insurance market. Senator Tom Coburn and Professor Paul Feldstein represent the latter view.
Senator Coburn has been nicknamed "Dr. No" because of his conservative, anti-government, obstructionist approach to legislation. His views can be dismissed as those of a right-wing ideologue.
Prof. Feldstein, on the other hand, presents a more intellectual discourse of his position on health care financing. In a conversation we had during a forum at which we both appeared (Eighth Tamkin Symposium at the University of California at Irvine), Prof. Feldstein indicated to me that he was a dedicated follower of the teachings of his mentor at the University of Chicago - Milton Friedman. I probably need not say more.
The full interview of Prof. Feldstein (link above) is worth reading if you wish to better understand the sincere framing of single payer concepts from the perspective of a free-market intellectual. Although I say that his framing is sincere, it is distorted by what I believe to be exaggerated potential adverse consequences of single payer and by his failure to include certain inescapable benefits of single payer which, specifically, more than offset the deficiencies. He also repeats many of the trite criticisms of single payer that are based more on ideology and less on solid policy science, supposedly proving points by citing what are actually exceptions.
So while those on the right threaten us with the inevitability of single payer, the supporters of health care justice preach the inevitability of single payer. It looks like it's not if we'll have single payer, but when. But it won't happen until we all understand that the financing mechanism of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not an avenue to reform, but a barrier that must be displaced. What we put in its place is where we totally disagree.
I might add that my conversation with Prof. Feldstein was in 2006, long before the recent reform process was underway, and at that time he told me that he believed that eventually we would have a single payer system, as much as he lamented the prospect. He is a very bright individual.
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