Single Payer: Bernie Correct again - HIllary, not so much

[Ferd Berfel]

non-partisan Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP)

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/01/22/debating-medicare-all-system-good-nations-health-say-doctors

Debating 'Medicare for All' System Is Good for Nation's Health, say Doctors

'Single-payer is the only health reform that pays for itself'

The idea of a single-payer healthcare system has entered the presidential debates—and that's a very good thing, a doctors group says, as it is "only equitable, financially responsible and humane cure for our healthcare ills."

In a statement released Friday by the non-partisan Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), its president, Dr. Robert Zarr, calls it "a welcome development," and also refutes a number of myths surrounding such a plan, sometimes referred to as a Medicare-for-all plan, including supposed high costs and lack of public support.

On cost, says Zarr, "Single-payer is the only health reform that pays for itself;" in contrast, "keeping the current private-insurance-based system intact is not [affordable.]"

Enacting a single-payer system would entail "[r]eplacing hundreds of insurers and thousands of different private health plans," and that, in turn, would mean "$400 billion in health spending would be freed up to guarantee coverage to all of the 30 million people who are currently uninsured and to upgrade the coverage of everyone else, including the tens of millions who are underinsured."