Economist Robert Samuelson has a superb piece in Newsweek dispelling some of the common myths perpetuated by single-payer health-care supporters.
Here are a few particularly noteworthy excerpts.
On administrative overhead:
One is that our mixed private-public insurance system drives up costs through high administrative overhead. Claim forms create a paperwork morass; marketing expenses add to the burden. True, overhead costs in the United States are more than double the level in other countries. But the effect is modest, because all administrative costs account for a mere 7 percent of total health costs. Even halving administrative costs would offset only about six months of the annual growth in health spending of 6 to 7 percent.
On the supposed superiority of Universal health care systems:
What really drives health spending, the study finds, is that Americans receive more costly medical services than other peoples do, and pay more for them. On a population-adjusted basis, the number of CT scans in 2005 was 72 percent higher in the United States than in Germany; U.S. reimbursement rates were four times higher. Knee replacements were 90 percent more frequent than in the average wealthy country and are growing rapidly. In 2005, there were 750,000 knee and hip replacements, up 70 percent in five years, reports the journal Health Affairs.
On American values and free-market healthcare:
We have a health-care system that reflects our national values. It's highly individualistic, entrepreneurial and suspicious of centralized supervision. Despite gripes about limits imposed by private insurers and Medicare, there are few effective controls on doctors' and patients' choices. That's what most Americans want. Patients understandably desire the most advanced surgeries, diagnostic tests and drugs. Doctors want the freedom to prescribe and recommend.
