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Nicholas Anton
By NICHOLAS H. ANTON
Dr. Nicholas H. Anton practiced internal medicine in Santa Rosa for 34 years, retiring in 2009.
Occupy Wall Street emerged as a grass-roots campaign against excessive corporate wealth and political power. Having been bailed out by the U.S. government, large banks are making record profits and paying huge bonuses while lobbying for less regulation of the activities largely responsible for our country’s financial collapse.
Embedded in this corporate culture is the health care industry, composed of insurers, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers. Their lobbying efforts and extensive financial resources — spending $1.4 billion on the recent health care reform debate — resulted in a watered-down bill.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. It preserves the major contributor to high-cost health care — the private insurance industry — while leaving 23 million uninsured and failing to address the skyrocketing cost of the U.S. health care system.
Of every health care dollar spent in the private sector, 25-30 cents goes for administration, profit and marketing. Compare this to Medicare, which spends 3 cents. The average CEO salary of the 10 largest insurance companies is $11.7 million per year.
A single-payer system, patterned after Medicare and with additional benefits, would provide health care for everyone while creating a system allowing patients access to any physician or hospital of their choice. In addition, such a system would lower costs and improve the quality of health care. Gridlock at the national level currently makes such sweeping reform impossible. Senate Bill 810, sponsored by state Sen. Mark Leno, would establish a single-payer system in California. This concept has been passed twice by the Legislature, only to be vetoed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Canadian Medicare started in one province, Saskatchewan, on Jan. 1, 1947, before being adopted by all Canadian provinces in 1964.
SB 810 would cover inpatient and outpatient medical care, OB and pediatric care, mental health services, emergency services, adult day care, substance abuse treatment, prescription drug coverage, vision care, dental care, skilled nursing services, chiropractic care and durable medical equipment, all with no co-pays or deductibles. This publicly financed and privately delivered system would provide high-quality health care to all Californians regardless of income, employment or health status.
Too good to be true? Emphatically, no.
In 2005, the Lewin Group, (an independent health care consulting firm, determined that such health care reform would save California $343.6 billion over 10 years. In the first year alone, $20 billion in savings from reduced administrative costs and $5.2 billion using negotiated bulk purchases for pharmaceuticals and durable medical equipment would result in a net $8 billion savings … this even after insuring 6 million Californians currently without health insurance.
Imagine a health care system demonstrating real American freedom to choose your doctor and hospital while creating competition based on quality. Imagine a system where Californians care for one another and where health care would become a necessary public service, like police and fire protection. Individuals would be relieved of the prospect of unforeseen health care expenses; large and small businesses as well as state and local governments would no longer have to face rising health care costs of 6 percent to 9 percent annually; employment in the health care sector would grow dramatically to care for the newly insured; physicians and hospitals would be able to reduce much of the administrative overhead required now to deal with the more than 6,000 health plans offered in California.
For more information on SB 810, go to http://pnhpcalifornia.org.
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Is there anything this government and their Useful Idiots DON’T want control over?
Nowhere in his piece does DR.Nick talk about the government’s role in driving up costs or the fact that rationing is a primary component of keeping costs under control in a closed Socialized system.
It’s not a mystery why Canadian gov’t officials fly to Florida for heart surgery.
Has it occurred to anyone that an $850 billion defense budget, and a military that couldn’t defend us against 9/11, and foreign policy that puts us in the middle of every war on the planet, and the lowest taxes in 50 years may just have something to do with this loser country’s inability to provide basic services.
Financial institutions may be “paying back their bailouts with interest,” but they are still engaging in the same risky behavior for their own profit.
Employer-provided health care is one of the biggest drags on job creation.
You folks should all live in China, where you can show up on the hospital steps bleeding to death and they wouldn’t let you in without cash up front.
I trust this is what all the fiscal conservatives will do when they inevitably have a health problem.
The solution to a problem that seems impossible to solve is not a solution at all.
How in the world did our parents , back in the days before WW2 ever get along without health insurance.
right after WW2, when I was making 65 cents an hour, a haircut was $1 and a trip to the Doctor was $3,paid in cash, or put on your tab.
when I moved to Santa Rosa, in 1966, went to the
doctor it was $7 and the office did all of the billing and testing.
Some how or another we have been convinced that we NEED medical insurance, and now find that it costs us more than we can afford, not I, but those who buy health insurance today.
Why do you spent $500-$1,000 to insure your self and family against getting sick?
Like everything else in the world, if there is a source that will pay more money for the service, the vendor will charge more.
And doctors are the same as vendors in this regard.
Save your money, put the extra payment towards your home loan, get that off your back, and , perhaps, if you need to have big expenses bills your equity can be used to cover it.
“A single-payer system, patterned after Medicare and with additional benefits, would provide health care for everyone while creating a system allowing patients access to any physician or hospital of their choice. In addition, such a system would lower costs and improve the quality of health care.”
Really, quality and access are two different issues and no where have I seen proof that gov’t run medicare or medi-caid programs are providing what I would term “high quality” care and often, the access is also very limited, as many doctor’s won’t accept these patients. So, is gov’t also going to get into the business of locating, hiring and paying doctor’s directly to accpet all patients??
Why don’t we first pass some serious tort reform (and this is from a lawyer) and then open up the market to all insurance companies, instead of limiting them to certain states. Romney care has been a total failure, and I expect the federal 2010 bill to follow suit, as it’s largely modeled after Romney care, and I don’t think universal healhcare will help alleviate any of these issues, they will just shift the burden to the governmnet and then where will we be when we don’t like the results???
How many Medicare patients did the good doctor have when he practiced? He he take on new Medicare patients? Many physicians will not take Medicare patients because they don’t like the Medicare reimbursement paid to them.
Medicare patients find it difficult to find doctors who will accept Medicare.
If Medicare is such a good model for a single payer system, how many doctors will accept a government regulated payment system? Based on experience, no many or not enough.
Medicare struggles to stay afloat now. Adding single payer with a Medicare model is a pretty sure way to totally sink the California budget and with it the California economy.
“Occupy Wall Street emerged as a grass-roots campaign against excessive corporate wealth and political power. Having been bailed out by the U.S. government, large banks are making record profits and paying huge bonuses…”
Really? How do we know they are a grass roots movement? From what I have seen and heard, this movement is organized by radical “progressive” political operatives, university academics and union leaders. Until recently, I only heard complaints about private industry corruption, not political leaders or policies.
Do the “occupiers” or doctor Anton realize that the banks paid back the bailout money with interest? Do they care that Nancy Pelosi and other members of congress are immune from insider trading laws and have gotten extremely wealthy from the practice?
Where’s the outrage about that?
“Imagine a health care system demonstrating real American freedom to choose your doctor and hospital while creating competition based on quality.”
I wonder why I had such a hard time finding a doctor who would accept Medicare patients when caring for my mother.
Where is the competition between taxpayer funded health care that pays out pennies on the dollar and has government bureaucrats deciding your health needs and the free market where people individually choose their level of care with their family members?
What about the doctors and nurses who need to provide a living for themselves and their families without guaranteed tax dollars?
How has the track record been so far in California for fiscally responsible and financially sustainable government programs?
Does the good doctor suggest, now that he has retired, that other doctors in private practice should accept pennies on the dollar for their services?
“In addition, such a system would lower costs and improve the quality of health care.”
That’s quite a claim- is there any evidence of this? When I asked Carol Estes of Social Security about this claim a couple of years ago, she said that the savings would be made from the crackdowns on waste, fraud and abuse they would eliminate from the system. Why not stop the waste, etc. now, and show us the savings?
Richard Foster, chief actuary for Medicare said that the claim made by Lynn Woolsey and others, that all people would be covered with less cost was absolutely not possible.
All it takes is a little common sense to see that.
“Imagine a system where Californians care for one another and where health care would become a necessary public service, like police and fire protection.’
In other words, the home health care workers, under the umbrella of S.E.I.U.
would have total control over the finances and health care industry and it would able to keep funneling even more of our tax dollars to Democrat Progressive politicians with impunity.
This is just another power grab attempt by the politicians and union leaders, but it is a very dangerous one for the citizens of this Country.
Thanks, but no thanks doc.
California is not known for its financially sound projections, honest politicians or effective implementation of utopian dreams.We’re allready broke.
I’ll stick with the best health care system in the world, and we can work on improving or fixing failing Government run Medicare, Medical, Social Security and the other programs to help the neediest among us.
Wow. Imagine that.
One man has come up with the solution to the entire health care debate.
And just imagine that the one man lives in Sonoma county!
And just imagine that the Press Democrat provides him a stage for his miracle solution that nobody else in the entire country has come up with !
Amazing talent in Sonoma County.
The only viable long-term solution to our “health-care crisis” is capitalism.
Ending all Big Govt. programs(Medicare/ Drugs/Medicaid) removes the major player/payer and resets the market to a point that patients actually pay their bills.
Prices will rise endlessly until Uncle Checkbook gets out of the business of medicine.
The spectre of Obamaramacare threatens to destroy the world’s greatest healthcare system.
Fortunately, SCOTUS has agreed to review this monstrosity.
Its demise will point towards true reform.
Ya, and the tooth fairly lives. The propaganda espoused here is pure fiction. Single payer health care is government health care. The government certainly knows how to manage cost effective everything. Look no further than the state deficit and federal deficit to valid that fact.
Medicare is one of the reasons the federal government budget is 14 trillion dollars in borrowed debt. Medicare costs are out of control because the government has no real idea how to control costs. The feds have mastered the spending concept and making everyone in an entitlement program happy.
California needs another huge entitlement program like the Iranians need a nuclear bomb. Nothing good will come from either bomb.
Is Mr. Anton really pointing to Medicare as the model of efficiency and cost savings? Really?
The same Medicare that has almost a $90 TRILLION unfunded liability? I guess you can make up whatever ridiculously low number you want for “administration, profit and marketing” when you aren’t going to pay for it anyway, but are going to just continue to incur debt to cover it.
Mr. Anton, I don’t quite follow your fact pattern. You throw a bunch of statistics out, but they don’t lead to the logical conclusion that you are advocating.
Oh, and by the way- I’ve lived in Canada for two years- their system ain’t all its cracked up to be. 150% emergency room capacity during flu season (I’d hate to be the guy with a REAL emergency at that time), and 9 month lead time just to see a specialist…. again, grass is always greener, but that doesn’t mean that its a viable solution to our problems.
NO, we need a fundamental shift in the way that health care is DELIVERED- not just the way it’s paid for.
Single Payer isn’t that magic banana…
this guy has his finger on the truth…………..