06 March 2007

NY family docs call for single-payer

The New York State Academy of Family Physicians yesterday called on Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the state Legislature to bring a single-payer healthcare system to New York.

Family physicians told legislators that dealing with multiple insurance plans, with their different rules, forms, and procedures, wastes 20 to 30 percent of health care dollars and leaves 3 million New Yorkers without coverage.

The Academy calls for all payments funneled through a single payer, eliminating multiple rules and procedures, enrollment and eligibility problems.

Dr. Linda Prine, chair of the Academy's Commission on Public Health, told the Albany Business Journal that tinkering won't help. "The current system is not working; we should not take a failed system and make it a bigger failure."

No comments: