Advantages of Single-Payer Proposal for Comprehensive Systemic Health Care Reform*
Colorado Health Services Program
Health Care for All Colorado

Access to Quality Health Care for All

• Comprehensive, health care for all Colorado residents ? no exclusion for pre-existing conditions. Benefits include preventive care, mental health, addiction treatment, dental, vision, long-term care etc.
• Free choice of providers, hospitals, etc.
• Health care decisions made by individuals with providers, not HMOs or insurers
• Education funding for future health providers and incentives to encourage service in high-needs areas
• Wellness education to encourage positive health behaviors
• Retraining for displaced health insurance employees

Cost-Effective, sustainable financing

• Saves 15-20% overhead costs, e.g., excessive CEO salaries, shareholder profits, lobbying and marketing costs of private insurances.
• Single risk pool eliminates duplicative administrative health costs of over 1200 private insurances.
• Permits negotiation of annual global budgets for health care facilities, and fair provider reimbursements.
• Permits negotiation of bulk rates for prescription drugs and durable medical goods.
• Folds in local, state and federal health monies (e.g., Medicaid, Medicare) and incorporates the medical portion of Workers? Comp, auto and liability, eliminating those administrative and adjudication costs.
• Replaces health premium and out-of-pocket expenses with a sliding-scale tax or payroll deduction, at less cost to most individuals and employers.
• Continuous health coverage eliminates future health care costs of malpractice insurance.

Business/Individual Savings

• Health care is not tied to employment, permitting greater employee mobility.
• Businesses, freed from oversight of health coverage, compete more equally in the global marketplace.
• There is significant potential savings of the added costs of goods and services passed on by businesses due to employee health costs (e.g., $1,500 added to the cost of each U.S.-made car).
• Individuals are freed from the threat of medical bankruptcy (an estimated 50% of personal bankruptcies).
• Access to preventive health care avoids resort to higher-cost delayed, crisis ER care, and permits better public health management of potential epidemics.
• Access to substance abuse and mental health care decreases the numbers of those now imprisoned at high cost because they lack access to such care.Utilization of Statewide

Information Technology to Improve Quality of Health Care

• Transparency and accountability of costs and outcomes facilitates provision of quality health care.
• Accurate, secure computerized medical records follow patients, creating a virtual medical home for each.
• Statewide coordination of public health, infrastructure and planning prevents wasteful duplication of equipment, services and administration; and enhances health care quality and safety.

Governance

• Run as a publicly-owned, not-for-profit insurance
• Transparent governance with regional input, accountable to consumers
• Creates uniform, simplified provider credentialing
• Creates statewide pool for provider malpractice coverage

*Selected for evaluation by the Colorado 208 Commission for Health Care Reform. Authors: Rocky White, M.D. & Health Care for All Colorado; Physicians for a National Health Program; Colorado Nurses Association

Info: www.healthcareforallcolorado.org