As a State Rep in NM and a nearly life long entrepreneur in the healthcare space, I have gone from supporting managed care systems to realizing they don't work. From being adamantly opposed to more government involvement in healthcare to fully supporting a national single payer system like Medicare For All.
Why? Because there is no free market in healthcare therefore government must get involved.
When it is your loved one dying you want all resources put to finding a solution. When you are sick, you are not going to compare prices and go shopping-you want answers and a cure NOW. There is no functioning market place.
A single payer system that I would support does not mean a government takeover. It does not mean all providers work for the government and all hospitals are run by it. It means health care finances are managed through the government and the private sector can focus on providing healthcare, not on managing (and denying) claims.
Let's face it, private insurance companies offer little value-added. Let's remove billions of dollars from profit and put it into the delivery of services. And let’s make medicare for all optional, not mandatory.
We have the most expensive healthcare in the world. We have the 31st best outcome in the world. We are not getting value for our money and we have the power to change it.
There is a patchwork of insurance in America with employer-based healthcare leading the way. This makes no sense and is a by-product of a wage freeze during WWII. Companies are in business to make money by focusing on their area of expertise, not administer insurance plans. Plus, when most insurance is employer-based, it makes employees less mobile and more “stuck”. And being stuck is the worst feeling in the world for an employee. Medicare for all would remove insurance from your job and allow you to move when you want, where you want and unstuck.
The other piece of the equation beyond finance, is that of prioritizing wellness and personal responsibility. Our system is pretty good at emergency medicine and surgical intervention. We excel at R and D that produces a pill that you take hoping it will make you better. We are horrible at keeping people healthy, active, fit and productive.
If all healthcare is available to all people all of the time, it will bankrupt our country. If we have a single payer system, then policy-makers will have to look at the budget and decide what procedures, what drugs and what care we cover and what we don’t. But that already happens today. There will always be scarcity and we will either ration care based on who has the money or based on a rational process of what the nation can afford.
A corollary to this approach is that we have to have a public mandate to participate. One of the main reasons for high cost is that we still have millions of people uncovered, but when they need care, they get it by rolling into the emergency care where the care is the most expensive possible care. Since we as a nation or not going to turn away people who have an acute medial problem, everyone must participate in a public or private option of health insurance.
The best way to stretch that public resource? Use less healthcare by staying healthy. Be happier by staying healthy. Integrate incentives into the system to be healthy. Assuming you can take a pill to fix what is wrong in many ways what is at the root of high costs of healthcare in the U.S.
Bob Perls, Chairman, Forward Party of New Mexico
Former NM State Representative
Disclaimer: this opinion is that of the author, not of the Forward Party of New Mexico. The Forward Party is dedicated to educating the public about many public policy options to reform our system of governing and deliver better services at a lower price. We do not have a fixed platform, but our leaders and candidates have much in common and that is a desire to work together, listen well and solve wicked complex problems that neither major party is effectively addressing.
