Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Why Single Payer, Part 6: The Single Payer System

MILES
In this final segment in this series, we'll hear more excerpts from Dr. Rocky White's presentation to the Alamosa Rotary Club about why businesses are paying the bulk of the cost of our current healthcare system, and why a single payer system would help. I'm Miles Eddy and I also spoke with Mr. Russ Johnson, CEO of the Alamosa Hospital, and Emergency room doctor Beth Kinney.

Russ Johnson

RUSS JOHNSON
The problems in healthcare now are going beyond how do we tweak Medicare, how do we improve Medicaid by two and a half percent, to a point where we really have to look at infrastructure issues, and along that dialog goes an all payer system.

DR WHITE
Right now most of the things we do in healthcare are account to no one. The insurance does what ever they want, the government does what they want, and none of us really have much of a say-so in the financing of our healthcare. We need to make this system accountable to the people. We take one personal from each senatorial district and set them on a board to oversee this agency. This board of trustees are appointed with the task of creating regulations, implementing policy, creating a platform for the thorny ethical issues that come up in healthcare, within a framework of democracy that all of us can go to these people and say "listen, here's our problems," and then we got a group of people that can address those problems for the entire state.

DR KINNEY
I think single payer is really the only way to go. I think we would see less of those sore thoughts, and client visits because people would have access to primary care without having to come to the ER for those kind of things, and I think we would see less serious acute care problems where people have simply let a health condition go far too long because they don't have access to care and they come in only when they are truly in a crisis. I think we would see less of that as well, which would be good for everybody.

DR WHITE
We need to create a new federal system. I appreciate free market system, and I an a strong supporter of the free market system, but the problem is that we are racking profits off of a social industry that is medicine, and we are scooping profits off the top, and people are dying or suffering as a result. When that happens it becomes a problem.

RUSS JOHNSON
I think that there is a place for capitalist enterprise in healthcare because I think that it does tend to generate innovation, creativity and opportunity. I think that we have lost some of where that balance ought to be.

DR WHITE
We're not proposing socialized medicine. Socialized medicine is when the clients are owned by the government, the hospitals are owned by the government. Under the system that we're proposing right now, we're proposing keeping everything as a fee for service, and in that way we provide competition, and the beauty about this system is that hospitals and doctors no longer have to compete with one another to try and keep the poorly insured out of their practice. The whole emphasis now in competition will be competing for quality of care and outcomes, and the really is where the competition in medicine has to occur.

RUSS JOHNSON
Once we have everybody covered and people can then choose where they want to go for healthcare, the market begins to allow itself to sort out. Right now, the folks that don't have insurance don't get to enter into that equation and so their just out of luck and consequentially, the profit motive widens that gap rather than help close that gap.

DR WHITE
How do we fund that organization? The first thing that we can do is take the amount of money that is given to the state every year. The second thing that we can do is take everyone that is on Medicare, because actually Medicare has that provision right now where you can actually buy into an insurance company as a co plan for Medicare. And thirdly what we can do is take everyone and provide what is called a graduated income contribution, basically a deduction that can come out of your pay check just like FICA does right now, and cut out the bureaucracy and the profit taking that we already see in this industry on both ends of the spectrum, plus the amount of money that is spent every year on delayed care because have no insurance, we will have enough money to fund this system.

RUSS JOHNSON
We already spend almost twice as much as every other country per person, so there's money in the system.

DR WHITE
The delivery of care remains in the private sector, we leave it along just like it is today, with the exception, that as many of you guys know, the insurance company tells you what doctor you can see, many times. Under this program, they can choose the doctor they want to go to, they can choose the hospital that they want to go to, the patient physician relationship remains the same.

RUSS JOHNSON
There isn't universal coverage for care, and so if your solely interested in a profitable bottom line, you aren't going to provide any services to people that can't pay if you don't have to.

DR WHITE
Most doctors are becoming pretty favorable of it at this point because we're just as discussed with this system as you guys are.

MILES
Here's what senator Ken Salazar said on December 3rd, 2005:

KEN SALAZAR
When senator Clinton and other tried to go forward with different concepts with respect to healthcare in the early 1990's, they weren't successful. I think the mood in American has changed today so that there is a sense of urgency with respect to looking at healthcare. This is one of those options that ought to be exampled. John McCain and I who have been working on this issue for awhile decided the best thing to do is to try and get the politics and the interest holders out of the game and to try and bring in a group of experts to really look at a broken system that we have on healthcare and to come up with a recommendation to the President and the congress on what will work and looking at all of the different concepts including the single payer concept.

MILES
In putting together this story, I had hoped to provide a comprehensive presentation of our currently healthcare system and what the impact of a single payer system would be. I quickly learned that this goal was far beyond the scope of this series! However, I am encouraged with the discussion and will leave you with this thought: If we the people are unhappy with the quality of our healthcare system, we the people have the power to change it through our elected officials. This requires an informed public, and I hope you have benefited from this series.

You have been listening to Doctor Rocky White, Mr. Russ Johnson, CEO of the Alamosa Hospital, and Emergency Room doctor Beth Kinney. Special thanks goes to KRZA Community Radio in Alamosa. Produced in the studios of Midi Age Productions: w-w-w dot M-I-D-I-A-G-E dot com. (www.midiage.com) The phone is 719-379-0308. Reporting from the beatify San Luis Valley of southern Colorado, I'm Miles Eddy.