There has been considerable publicity about the delays in receiving elective services that are characteristic of other nations, especially the United Kingdom and Canada. At 6% and 9% of their GDP, respectively, they are spending much less than we are as a nation.



With our generous funding and the tremendous capacity of our health care delivery system, the delays would not be a significant limiting factor in the U.S.

In sharp contrast, a single payer system uses the existing private and public sector health care delivery systems, preserving private ownership and employment. The unique feature of a single payer system is that all health care risks are placed in a universal risk pool, covering everyone. The pool is funded in a fair and equitable manner so that everyone pays their fair share in taxes, unlike our current defective system in which some pay far too much while others are not paying their share. The funds are allocated through a publically administered program resulting in optimum use of our health care dollars.

Many contend that government bureaucracies are very wasteful compared with the efficiencies of the private market place. In the health care arena, this has not been true. Our Medicare program, a publicly administered program, operates on an administrative cost of less than 2%. The managed care intermediaries consume 9 to 30% of the health care dollar.

Another argument is that a single payer system, by being universal, would lower the standard of care to a level of mediocrity for everyone, preventing the affluent from exercising her/his option to obtain the highest level of care.

The generous level of funds that we have already dedicated to health care, adding to this a more efficient administration with an exclusive mission of optimum patient care well above the mediocrity that we now have, lays the foundation for a universal health care system in America.

Other than the assurance that everyone would have coverage for health, there is even a greater good that a single payer system would bring to our nation: Making preventative and public health services available to everyone would improve the level of health of this country. Reduction of communicable diseases and reducing the higher costs of untreated chronic diseases helps us all.

Socialism is a dirty word in this country. Universal health care for all has been equated with socialism, and much propaganda has been communicated by the press, by right wing politicians, by medical groups such as the AMA or anyone else who has an agenda to keep the 1500 plus health insurance companies a thriving market with profits that undoubtedly help to pay for their agendas.

Any group with the passion to change the world, one issue at a time, with a loving intent, can do it.