What We Talk About When We Talk About Single Payer

There appears to be growing momentum on the left for a move toward single-payer health care. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) declared that while President Barack Obama took an important first step, “Now it’s time for the next step. And the next step is single payer.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently filed his single-payer legislation in the US Senate, with the support of 15 Democratic co-sponsors. A similar proposal has support from some Democrats in the US House of Representatives. In some cases, more progressive members of the party are targeting Democrats who do not openly support single payer. We are also seeing increasing public support for single-payer proposals. Does that mean that single payer is becoming a main tenet of the Democratic platform? Probably not. Could a single-payer system be enacted in the current political climate? Absolutely not. Could we take some baby steps toward single payer in the not so distant future? Maybe. The Essence Of Single-Payer Health Care To break this down a bit, let’s clarify a few points about what single payer actually means and offer a bit of insight into how much these details matter. If you were to look up definitions for single-payer health care, you will get some variations on a theme. In general, these are the most common features: Comprehensive universal coverage—in other words, everyone in a given region is covered by the same health plan with the same core set of services. Funding for that core set of servic...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Costs and Spending Insurance and Coverage Organization and Delivery Payment Policy single-payer health care Source Type: blogs