“Single-payer Is Best”
March 9, 2011
From SoMdNews.com by Carol Paris, MD.
I support a single-payer financing system as in the Maryland Health Security Act, SB388/HB1035. As a solo private practice psychiatrist in a grossly underserved area, I could devote more time to the care of patients if I didn’t have to devote so much time to the bureaucracy that is the reality of our current system.
The insurance lobbyists would have you believe that their industry is more efficient than a publicly funded program. It is not. They would have you believe they can absorb the fluctuations when the economy takes periodic downturns. Of course they can. They do it by increasing premiums and/or decreasing coverage and/or eliminating their risk entirely by morphing into third-party administrators and leaving all the risk with self-insured businesses while also avoiding regulation by the state.
It is true that, should the legislature decide to create a publicly funded financing system for health care for everyone living in the state, we would likely need an amendment to the Maryland Constitution to prevent dedicated health care funds from being redirected to the general fund during times of budget shortfalls. We have such a bill. It is HB926, the Dedicated State Funds Protection Act.
The time for Band-Aids is passed. We need forward-thinking, courageous legislators like the senators from Wisconsin, who are emboldened by their desire to represent their constituents, and not the profiteering interests of corporations. For my part, I will continue to grow the grassroots movement for single-payer health-care reform in Southern Maryland. If you would like to learn more about it, please contact me at www.mdsinglepayer.org.
Dr. Carol Paris, Leonardtown
http://www.somdnews.com/stories/03092011/entelet161510_32335.shtml
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