Question

MACROECONOMICS PAPER ASSIGNMENT

The Physicians for a National Health Program

and Single Pay National Health Care Insurance

Due April 12

One of our country’s most significant fiscal policy issues is rising health care costs. The Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) is a non-profit organization of 20,000 physicians, medical students, and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance (or Medicare For All) as a means of reforming health care in the United States. It is currently the health care position of Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

For this paper assignment, each student will review the PNHP website (as well as other sources contained in Blackboard) and write a TYPED paper of no more than 300 words with respect to the following:

- What is single payer health care?

- What does PNHP consider the most serious health care spending problem? Why?

- What are PNHP’s biggest problems with Obamacare, which was another way of dealing with health care reform?

- How will single pay health care be paid for?

- Do you agree with PNHP’s positions? If so, why? If not, why not?

Prior to writing your paper, watch the Crash Course Economics video “The Economics of Heath Care” and read the “Health Care Primer” found in the Blackboard folder. As part of your paper, cite at least one outside article or book and reference it at the end (name, author, date, web link). Grading will be based on your knowledge of PNHP’s position, addressing each of the above questions (using the primer and video as a reference), and the thoughtfulness in arguing your position. The paper can be submitted via email attachment or through Blackboard – no hard copies.

Answer 1

Sol:

Part 1. Single-payer national health insurance, also known as “Medicare for all,” is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health care financing, but the delivery of care remains largely in private hands. Under a single-payer system, all residents of the U.S. would be covered for all medically necessary services, including doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs.

The program would be funded by combining our current, considerable sources of public funding (such as Medicare and Medicaid) with modest new taxes based on ability to pay. Over $500 billion in administrative savings would be realized by replacing today’s inefficient, profit-oriented, multiple insurance payers with a single streamlined, nonprofit, public payer.

Premiums would disappear, and 95 percent of all households would save money. Patients would no longer face financial barriers to care such as co-pays and deductibles, and would regain free choice of doctor and hospital. Doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

The Medicare for All Act of 2019, H.R. 1384, based on PNHP’s AJPH-published Physicians’ Proposal, would establish an American single-payer health insurance system.

Part 2. The mostserious problem with medical spending is that it feeds into the already severe harms caused by growing income inequality. The most important fact about the income distribution in the United States is that it is becoming increasingly unequal: Real incomes have soared at the very high end, risen modestly in the next few deciles, and been stagnant or falling at the bottom.

Rising medical costs combined with stagnant incomes for a large share of the population mean that more people will need help paying for medical care. A family at the median income level, whose income is relatively constant, has had no easy way to pay the roughly $10,000 rise in the cost of a family health insurance policy between 1999 and 2017.

At the same time that needs are increasing, however, government resources are being cut. Governments at all levels are loath to raise taxes, and some are even cutting them. Total government revenue as a share of GDP has been relatively constant for several decades and is projected to fall with enactment of the federal tax bill in December 2017.

This combination of increased need for help and fewer resources to spend inevitably creates problems. Three problems are particularly apparent.

Part 3. The PNHP's biggest problems with Obamacare are:

1. Premiums are skyrocketing.

2. Deductibles are also increasing.

3. There are a lack of insurance options under Obamacare.

4. The co-ops are failing.

5. Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion is a burden for states.

6. Obamacare is resulting in higher wait times at the emergency room.

7. Obamacare is also resulting in a shortage of primary doctors.

8. The number of Americans without insurance is set to skyrocket.

9. Obamacare is worsening America’s debt problem.

10. Obamacare’s Independent Advisory Board (IPAB), more popularly known as the “death panels,” is still on the books.

11. The Obama administration is illegally using funds to hide Obamacare’s losses.

Part 4: Single-payer health insurance is financed by taxes that is managed and run by one entity, such as a government, providing essential health care to all citizens. It is referred to as single-payer because it is the one entity (the government) that pays the costs (a "single-payer"). It is financed by taxes so that individuals and citizens of the country do not pay extra costs when seeking out essential care. Each country might manage this system differently as evidenced by the different examples seen in countries that already have single-payer health systems.