As Peter Sterling, Catamount Health's outreach director told Seven Days, Vermont's largest weekly paper, "It doesn't solve the big problem, and we know that."
Sterling's words, and the failure of both of these reform efforts, could serve as a warning for healthcare activists as the national debate over a public plan reaches critical mass. Putting all of our muscle and money into a potentially doomed public option something that "doesn't solve the big problem" may yield little benefit in the fight for universal healthcare. Worse, if Congress pushes through a failed public option, neutered by congressional Republicans, it could give the concept of public healthcare an undeserved black eye in the eyes of many Americans.
In fact, a more intriguing consolation prize in Obama's health reform bill could come from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) who has a plan to fund pilot programs for universal healthcare in five states -- one of which would be a single-payer plan. This could prove to be a sterling example of the cost-effectiveness of such a program. If Sanders' home state, Vermont, were to implement state-wide single-payer, it would save the tiny state a sizable $51 million a year, according to a study commissioned by the Vermont Legislature in 2006. Predictably, however, the Senate has not been very open to this idea, moderate as it may be, and voted it down in committee. One can only hope this idea will resurface as the debate rages on.
Since nearly half of healthcare costs go towards corporate profits and administrative waste, two expenses that are virtually eliminated by implementing a single-payer system, in time some kind of not-for-profit government-run system is the only option that will make any fiscal sense. This reality should not be lost in the battle for a doomed-to-fail half measure that may or may not be attached to healthcare reform in the coming months.
Further Reading:
*PNHP Report on Massachusetts Reform Plan
*Vermont Workers' Center: Health Care is a Human Right Report (Features information on Catamount)
*Study commissioned by VT Legislature on economic impacts of a single-payer system
*Hasta la vista single-payer movement? (Article I wrote in 2007 on a hybrid plans vs. single-payer)
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