I found the recent LA Times editorial “Gavin Newsom is already moving California toward single-payer” frustrating. It’s about time that the LA Times gets single payer right! To be sure, this opinion by the LA Times Editorial Board, gets some things right but it also gets some things wrong.
Here’s an example of what it gets right:
“Extending healthcare coverage to all would not only help low-income working families climb out of poverty and off other government assistance programs, it would make it easier to implement programs that improve efficiency in the healthcare system and slow the growth of healthcare spending.”
We need to see more analysis like this in the conventional media instead of the steady stream of emotionally charged, inaccurate malarkey (like “government-run,” “unaffordable,” and “unrealistic.”)
Here are three areas where the editorial gets single-payer seriously wrong:
“Gavin Newsom backed an assortment of ambitious and expensive programs as he campaigned for governor, none more so than the idea of converting the state to a single-payer healthcare system.”
This implied criticism of Newsom makes no sense, particularly the use of the term “expensive.” What could possibly be more expensive than our current system? Single-payer systems like Newsom backs have been proven time and again to be money-savers. In fact, a study of the most recent single-payer legislation passed by the California Senate in 2017, showed that the plan would save Californians $38 billion a year. Far from being “expensive,” single-payer presents Californians with a path to control our runaway healthcare costs and cover everybody well, and Governor Newsom knows it.
“Switching to a single-payer system, in which the government would cover the costs of necessary medical care, involves considerably more than just replacing insurance companies with bureaucrats.”
This is true, but the framing is inaccurate and prejudicial. First, in the most recent California Medicare for All Bill (2016), it would be an independent public agency that would provide claims-processing services rather than “the government.” As for the reference to “bureaucrats,” anyone who has disputed billing from a private health insurance company has experienced a bureaucracy every bit as entrenched as that in the public sector.
What’s the difference between an insurance company bureaucrat and a public agency bureaucrat? The public agency bureaucrat is dedicated to the welfare of all Californians while the insurance company bureaucrat is dedicated to the welfare of their executives and shareholders. Which would you prefer?
“Providing free health insurance to people who are in the country illegally is a tough sell for some Californians.”
While extending coverage to all residents, documented or not, is controversial, this statement misrepresents what single-payer is. No single-payer proponents are talking about “free” health insurance for anyone except the most impoverished.
Every single-payer bill introduced in California has addressed the funding mechanism for the system. All of these options include provisions that everyone would pay something through their taxes (replacing all premiums, deductibles and co-pays), with credits to the very low-income people who today are covered by Medi-Cal.
A study of the recently introduced Healthy California Act offered several combinations of funding options including a gross receipts tax, payroll tax and sales tax. With single-payer, every resident would pay their fair share according to their means.
And we cannot forget the fact that we are ALREADY providing free healthcare to anyone – documented or not – who walks into an Emergency Room without health insurance. We are providing them free healthcare in the most expensive way possible. Paying through a fair and progressive tax mechanism (rather than through premiums that only some can afford) would mean that every resident would contribute to the funding of our California Medicare for All plan in one way or another.
It’s about time the LA Times Editorial Board leaves off the knee-jerk reporting on single-payer and starts reporting the facts!
–Georgia Brewer
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