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| While we support health care reform, we do not support the current Congressional plans to create a government-run health plan. Simply put, the creation of a government-run health plan will lead to a single-payer, government-controlled health care system similar to Canada or Great Britain. |
| Proponents claim such a plan would “compete” with private insurers. We know, however, that the government never competes on an even playing field. |
| The current government-run plans being considered would pay your hospitals and doctors at rates close to those rates Medicare pays. In other words, the government-run plan would be artificially setting low reimbursement rates for hospitals and doctors. |
| The government-run health plan’s ability to artificially set low rates, however, does nothing to reduce the actual costs faced by hospitals or doctors. These costs keep going up. |
| Today, because Medicare’s rates are artificially low, hospitals and doctors shift those costs to private health insurers and your health insurance premiums are more expensive as a result. This cost shifting will only be made worse with the creation of a government-run health plan and will ultimately lead to a single-payer system. Here's why. |
| Due to this artificially low rating-setting advantage, the initial price of a government-run health plan will be lower than private health plans. One recent study indicates that as a result of this advantage, nearly 70% of those who currently have private insurance – 119 million people – would move into the government plan immediately. |
| The loss of 70% of the insurance market would cripple private health insurance. Additionally, hospitals and doctors would still seek to shift costs to the remaining people with private health insurance making it even more unaffordable. It would not take long until the government-run health plan would be the only option for Americans. |
| For many Washington politicians, eliminating private health insurance is exactly what they are seeking by introducing a government health plan. In April, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D – Illinois), a Deputy Chief Whip in the House of Representatives, told supporters she heard a health insurance executive argue that a government health plan “option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to a single-payer system.” She added, “My single-payer friends, he was right.” |
| Advocates of a government health plan say, “If you like your current plan, you can keep it.” This is simply not true because your current health plan will probably not exist for long. As The Wall Street Journal notes, “A public option is the beginning of the end of private health insurance.”1 |
| Furthermore, artificially low reimbursement rates could reduce the number of hospitals and doctors available to you and your family. Dr. Denis A. Cortese, CEO of the Mayo Clinic, said lower reimbursements could mean doctors stop seeing patients in the government-run health plan or “your best providers will go out of business.”2 |
| The creation of a government-run health plan will likely end American health care as we know it. Ultimately, it could lead to a single-payer, government-controlled health care system, which in other countries has meant rationing, delays, and denials of care. |
| In 2005, the Canadian Supreme Court struck down a Quebec law banning private health insurance because “patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care.”3 |
| Great Britain’s National Health Service Web site boasts, “The average wait for treatment for patients admitted to hospital is now just 8.6 weeks.”4 Imagine you or your family member having to wait 8.6 weeks for treatment once you’ve been admitted to the hospital – and considering that good! |
| Worst of all, the Congressional Budget Office indicates the current House of Representatives plan, which includes the creation of a government-run health plan, will cost taxpayers over $1 trillion over the next decade and leave 17 million uninsured by 2019. |
| Let’s work together for bipartisan health care reforms that work to slow the growth of health care costs, improve the quality of care, and increase the number of Americans who are insured. |
| We can do better. |
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