One risk pool needed

Saul Friedman at Newsday has written a great piece on single-payer. He quotes Robert Gumbiner, evidently one of the people behind the managed care movement. Gumbiner writes:

"I am proposing the federal government as the single payer of health care in this country. Only the federal government has the ability to fund one large risk pool through a payroll deduction. As the single payer, the federal government could negotiate hospital and physician payments even more effectively than it does now with Medicare.



"A single pool of funds, collected and administered by the government, would expand Medicare and replace Medicaid, SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program), the VA health-care system, and private health insurance, including the health care aspect of Worker's Compensation. ... Also eliminated would be the tax credit - or subsidy - given to companies for providing health insurance to their employees. In other words, the current, inefficient patchwork of payment systems would disappear, to be replaced by one nationwide program available to every citizen."



Friedman writes he found the piece at the PNHP website.

Friedman invites letters on your ideas on universal care: Saul Friedman, Newsday, 235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville, NY, 11747-4250, or saulfriedman@comcast.net.