Don’t Bring the Chaos to Our Shores
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for supporters of Medicare-for-All, with single-payer health care systems in other countries making the news for all the wrong reasons. Ambulance drivers in the United Kingdom are striking for the SECOND time in less than a month, with officials telling the public not to call emergency services unless it’s life threatening. It was also reported that Ukrainian refugees in the UK are returning home for needed medical treatment because wait times in the UK are too long. No wonder British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently admitted to using private healthcare.
Things aren’t any better further north. Scotland’s National Health Service is “under immense pressure” according to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Bureaucrats are reexamining discharge plans to see if they can cut loose some patients early.
Meanwhile, Canada’s health system is “failing badly” and experiencing “mounting surgical backlogs, physician shortages and burned out nurses,” according to a Fraser Institute report. The report also shows that while Canada ranked as the highest spender on health care as a share of its economy, it has “fewer human and capital medical resources” than comparable systems.
The verdict is in—single-payer healthcare is an expensive, uncompassionate mess. To be sure, American health care costs too much, there’s too much paperwork and too many surprise bills. But a government takeover like Medicare-for-All would only make things worse—and let special interests game the system.
Instead of building a new government system from scratch, we need to keep what works and fix what doesn’t with a Personal Option.
Every man, woman, and child in our country should be able to access the health care they need– regardless of their income. As the name implies, a Personal Option offers all Americans more flexibility and trusts them to make their own decisions about their own health care, from insurance coverage to what doctors they can see to accessing new therapies. Health care should be all about choice and control—who you trust with the important decisions about your health care.
One way to give you control over your health care spending would be to allow all Americans to access the powerful tool known as the Health Savings Account (HSA). Similar to 401(k) retirement accounts, HSAs allow participants to set aside money on a pre-tax basis to pay for eligible medical expenses.
Contributions to your HSA are tax deductible and all interest earned is 100% tax deferred. You can further reduce your overall taxable income if contributions are made through payroll deductions. The accounts can be used to pay for copays, deductibles, prescriptions, vision, and dental care. But HSAs are only available to people with a federally defined high-deductible health insurance plan — just 10% of Americans. Congress should change the law so that every American who wants an HSA can have access to one.
Direct Primary Care (DPC) is another payment model that would help reduce costs. DPC allows patients access to quality health care with a monthly subscription fee, payable to the physician – cutting out the insurance middleman.
DPC removes the fee-for-service structure whereby physicians are compensated for services that may or may not be needed. Without the fee-for-service, the inclination to tack on unnecessary or redundant tests is eliminated. The end result is a doctor that spends less time filling out insurance forms and spends more time with the patient. Congress needs to change the law so that all Americans can choose to join a DPC and deduct health care costs on their tax returns.
The best way to improve health care is to increase flexibility in healthcare, because what works in Manhattan may not work in rural Arcadia, Florida. By supporting policies that provide doctors more flexibility and patients more choice and control, the Personal Option lets Americans succeed in keeping the chaos of the single-payer system of away from their healthcare.
Dr. Lee Gross is the owner of Epiphany Health & president of Docs 4 Patient Care Foundation.
