Competition in healthcare markets and patient outcomes

American Healthcare Reform: The benefits of a single-Payer solution

The American healthcare system is unsustainable. It is the most expensive in the world. Despite its costs, American healthcare does not measure up in terms of performance when compared to other industrialized nations. This paper argues that the best healthcare reform policy for the United States does not involve the creation of competition among healthcare providers. Rather, a national healthcare policy should implement a universal-payer system. Creating a single risk pool is the most efficient solution for two reasons. Firstly, a single-payer system will reduce the administrative overhead that currently burdens America's multiple-payer system. Secondly, all demographics in American society will be treated with equally when it comes to healthcare coverage.

The United States currently spends more on healthcare than any other nation in the World. Nevertheless, the U.S. lags behind other nations in terms of the quality of its healthcare delivery (Davis, Schoen, Shea & Haran, 2008). In response to this situation, there have been a number of policy recommendations intended to reform American healthcare so that it delivers higher quality products and so that it is sustainable. I response to the necessity of creating a more effective healthcare system, the most reasonable solution appears to be single-payer. A single-payer system will create a more egalitarian system, in which all members of the population receive comparable treatment. Additionally, a single-payer system will decrease the costs of administrative overhead.

According to economist Paul Feldstein, one the arguments put forth in defense of a single-payer option is that the system would both cover every member of the American population, "One benefit is that everybody would have health insurance. Proponents of a single-payer system point to the millions of people in the United States without health insurance and they believe a single-payer system would quickly provide universal coverage. (Buerhaus, 2010)" Furthermore, all members of the population would treated the same under a single-payer system, as opposed to the current state-of-affairs, in which some members of society have access to treatments that are not available:

However, most proponents want to go further than that and want to achieve equity -- everybody has the same coverage. They expect that a single-payer system will assure that everybody is treated alike regardless of income or socio-demographic characteristics. Proponents also assert that a single-payer system would be less expensive and note that Canada spends a smaller percent of its gross national product on health care than the U.S. They also believe that the U.S. system has vast administrative costs which a single-payer system would eliminate (Buerhaus, 2010).

In opposition to this argument, critics of single-payer point out that under such a plan there would be limited funds available. Therefore, some forms of treatment would not be provided or delayed to the public. Nevertheless, under the current regime, some members of the public are restricted from certain types of treatment due to their private health insurers and the various restrictions that private insurers implement in order to defray costs, not to mention the segment of the population that does not have any access to health insurance. Therefore, it is not a matter of single-payer simply not providing as much healthcare to the public. Rather, it is a matter of how the healthcare is distributed throughout the population. If one values egalitarianism in society -- in opposition to a society in which determinants of life and death are based upon wealth stratifications -- then he or she would not object to some of the limitations imposed by the institutionalization of a single-payer plan.