Health care funding is a subject that can make your head hurt. It demands looking at charts and grasping impossibly large numbers. College students have to do that all day long, which may be why none of them seemed to be in evidence at the discussion in a corner of IPFW's Helmke Library led by Andrew Downs, assistant professor of political science, one evening earlier this month.
The primarily middle-aged audience, having acquired the patience and wisdom that comes through years of doctor's visits, sat attentively through the taping as Downs led a discussion of health care's future, centering on whether the United States would benefit from moving to a single-payer health care system. (The discussion airs tonight and Monday on CollegeTV and Wednesday night on WBOI-FM.) The three panelists – IPFW health economics specialist Zafar Nazarov and Drs. Peter Hanley and Jonathan Walker – reviewed the current American system, looked at other countries' approach to health care and outlined some of the arguments for change.
But the health care debate today waits for no man, woman or panel.
The following day, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders formally unveiled his Medicare-for-all proposal, with progressive Democratic senators at his back and Republicans instantly complaining about the potential cost. Meanwhile, a Senate committee's effort to make some bipartisan fixes to the Affordable Care Act was unraveling and yet another repeal-and-replace proposal was quietly gathering steam. Last Wednesday, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was feeling confident enough about the bill proposed by Sens. Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham to announce his intention to schedule a vote this week.
But whether Obamacare is replaced, repaired or left in limbo, the single-payer debate is likely to remain a part of the health care conversation.
“The politics of healthcare are still going to be pretty intense when we get to 2018 and even in 2020, even if legislation is passed,” Brian Tabor, president of the Indiana Hospital Association, said in an interview Wednesday.
A concept widely in use
The single-payer concept guarantees health coverage for everyone, either through government funding or compulsory purchase of insurance. Most Western nations use some variation of that model, Nazarov explained. Great Britain, Canada, Australia and most Scandinavian countries use a model named for British economist William Beveridge in which the government runs hospitals and supplies health insurance for all.
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