Tag Archives: Single payer health care

Faith Organizations Support Single Payer

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The current health care system does not make life easy for lots of people and organizations.

Churches, for example.

The current issue of The Lutheran discusses the prospects for matching new pastors with congregations.   They do not specifically mention health care. They should.   The Lutherans are not unique.  They face the same challenges as other Protestant churches.

Congregations face declining worship attendance and, with that, declining offerings in the collection plate.  Senior pastors who saw their retirement savings seriously diminished during the recent recession, are staying on the job longer, reducing the number of vacancies.

Graduating seminarians, on the other hand, are graduating with larger debts.  They want and need more in a market of shrinking opportunites.

What does this have to do with health care?

How can a congregation save money?  Hire a minister who is married to a spouse with health insurance for the family.

Is that fair?

No.  Emphatically, no.

It limits the candidate pool for churches and it limits the opportunities for aspiring ministers.

Eleven faith organizations have endorsed a single payer solution to the health care crisis.  Most all offer theological reasons for their positions.  But churches should not shrink from their economic motives.

After all, they are in the exact same position as many small businesses and other non-profits.  Only 49% of private sector employees get their health care coverage from their employees.  Another 20%, of private sector employees get their coverage from their spouse.

The inability of too many employers to offer both competitive benefits and competitive salaries limits their candidate pool and restricts the opportunities of people who might otherwise be willing to work for those employers.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America should join with the other eleven faith organizations to support single payer.  It is not just the right thing to do theologically.  It is not just a social justice issue.  It is an economic issue that they share along with many other smaller organizations fighting for survival.

Photo credit     Truus, Bob & Jan, too

Activist Judge Strikes Down Health Reform

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Judge Roger Vinson, ruling for the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida, struck down the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (PPACA) as unconstitutional

He didn’t just strike down the individual mandate, he struck down the entire law.  He struck down the provision that allows young adults to stay on their parents’ health plan.  He struck down the provision that abolishes lifetime maximums.  He struck down the provision that allows sick people to buy health insurance.

From Judge Vinson’s ruling:

If, however, the statute is viewed as a carefully-balanced and clockwork-like statutory arrangement comprised of pieces that all work toward one primary legislative goal, and if that goal would be undermined if a central part of the legislation is found to be unconstitutional, then severability is not appropriate. As will be seen, the facts of this case lean heavily toward a finding that the Act is properly viewed as the latter, and not the former.

It has been the contention of the law’s supporters that the individual mandate is the lynchpin of the entire law.  Provisions regarding expansion of coverage to those with pre-exisitng medical conditions are not economically feasible in private competitive markets if the cost is not shared among both sick and health individuals.

The judge conceded  the centrality of the individual mandate and ruled that, therefore, the entire law must be struck down.

The Musket Mandate of 1792 and Health Care

The flaw in the law

The individual mandate is not the flaw in the law.  The flaw is the idea that the individual should be required to bear the full cost of insurance. Continue reading →

Not a Sermon, Just a Thought

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Do you notice anything in common in these two graphs?

In both, one country towers over the others.  Since these numbers represent costs, that is not a particularly good thing.

“But one is health care costs and the other is pension costs”, you say.

“And it is not even the same country”, you add, perhaps noticing that in the second graph, the United States is the low cost country.

The first graph displays information that has become a staple of discourse in the health care debate.  The United States has the most expensive health care in the world.  President Obama said it. Max Baucus said it.  Even Republicans concede the point, albeit with their own spin.

This particular version was based on a report to Congress by the Congressional Research Service.

The second graph came from a data presented by Jan P. Hartford, Director, CEM Benchmarking Inc. (CEM), a Canadian firm that offers administrative benchmarking to pension funds around the world.  The presentation was delivered at the 56th Annual Employee Benefits Conference of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

I offer these two graphs and suggest one common feature of both tall towers, the United States in health care and Australia in pension administration.  They both take a free market approach to their plans in contrast to the rest of their peers who take a single payer approach.

Yes, here in the United States we rarely have the choice of more than one pension plan.  Employers don’t do that, and employees cannot put their pension contributions anywhere else.  But according to Ms Hartford, in Australia employees have a choice of plans and that means that plans must add marketing costs over and above those typical in other countries.

So what is the common theme in these two awkward towers?  Marketing and “competition”.  What is the common theme among their lower priced peers?  Single payer.

As a commercial for a large local church puts it:  not a sermon, just a thought.

Two Gatherings! Two Directions!

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This past week two gatherings addressed health care reform.

Liberty bell in Philadelphia

Liberty Bell in Philadelphia

The International Federation of Employee Benefit Plan (IFEBP) hosted its Annual Conference in Honolulu, HI.  Approximately 5,000 representatives from employer sponsored benefit plans and from benefit trust funds, as well as the professionals and vendors that serve them gathered to hear speakers address the changing world of health and pension benefits.

A major topic of discussion was the short and longer term implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).  What do employee benefit plans need to do this month or this year?  What will the ACA mean for the longer term viability of employer sponsored health care?

The other gathering was much smaller. About 135 activists, most of them unpaid, met for the Healthcare-NOW! Strategy Conference in Philadelphia to discuss how to organize and build for another, very different, future for health care – single payer.

Anxiety about the future

The wonderful Hawaiian weather could not mask the anxiety felt by many plan sponsors over the future of employer sponsored health care.  Speakers tried to compare the ACA with ERISA, the landmark 70’s law that reshaped the landscape for pension plans adding stability and some legal protections to employer pension plans.  Yet thirty five years ago pension plan sponsors were very nervous about ERISA.

Continue reading →

Support for Single Payer in MA and VT

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Some recent bright spots did shine through among the depressing election results this past week.

In Massachusetts, voters and docs expressed support for a single payer solution to the continuing health care crisis.

Fall in New England

Fall in New England

Massachusetts is the state that gave us the Connector – the model for the Affordable Care Act that is now the target of the anti-incumbent horde that is invading Washington DC.

I have noted here before that the Massachusetts model might have been an acceptable state model given the restrictions that federal law imposes on the ability of states to be truly innovative with health care reform.

An individual mandate might even work in a state with a high level of income and a low rate of uninsured. Continue reading →