{"id":1476255,"date":"2022-05-16T07:46:16","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T11:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1476255"},"modified":"2022-05-16T07:46:24","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T11:46:24","slug":"senate-hearing-highlights-how-single-payer-will-ration-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/senate-hearing-highlights-how-single-payer-will-ration-health-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Hearing Highlights How Single-Payer Will Ration Health Care"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsenate-hearing-highlights-how-single-payer-will-ration-health-care%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1476255&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/43393327230_9b7f88c555_k.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>One might think that, given our polarized times, a topic like single-payer health care would yield to partisan disputes. Think again.<\/p>\n<p>At a recent Senate Budget Committee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.budget.senate.gov\/hearings\/medicare-for-all-protecting-health-saving-lives-saving-money?mc_cid=729f7a13d2&#038;mc_eid=2eb5d0dae0\">hearing<\/a> on the concept proposed by the committee\u2019s chairman, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, witnesses from the left, right, and center all agreed: Single-payer would lead to unmet demand for care. <\/p>\n<p>They disagreed on the nature and import of this conclusion, but the testimony showed a surprising amount of consensus about \u201cfree\u201d health care creating a level of demand for care that doctors and hospitals could not meet all patient requests.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Massive Demand for \u2018Free\u2019 Care<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Coming from the center, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.budget.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/Phillip%20Swagel%20-%20Witness%20Testimony%20-%20US%20Senate%20Budget%20Committee.pdf\">summarized<\/a> its prior analysis of five hypothetical single-payer systems. CBO concluded that in all five cases,<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>The increase in demand for personal health care would exceed the increase in supply, resulting in greater unmet demand than the amount under current law\u2026.The increase in unmet demand would correspond to increased congestion in the health care system, including delays and foregone care.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This testimony summarized a persistent theme in CBO\u2019s work. Its December 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/system\/files\/2020-12\/56811-Single-Payer.pdf\">analysis<\/a> of the five hypothetical single-payer proposals used the word \u201ccongestion\u201d to describe single-payer\u2019s impact on the health-care system no fewer than 28 separate times. Some might find \u201ccongestion\u201d an overly polite euphemism for waiting lists and rationed care.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, CBO\u2019s frequent use of the term explains why the budget office <a href=\"https:\/\/www.budget.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/Phillip%20Swagel%20-%20Witness%20Testimony%20-%20US%20Senate%20Budget%20Committee.pdf\">admitted<\/a> it has not conducted a formal analysis of Sanders\u2019 legislation. As the ranking member and then chairman of the Budget Committee, Sanders could have used his seniority to ask for\u2014and receive\u2014a full \u201cscore\u201d of his bill years ago. The fact that he has not done so speaks volumes, and suggests Sanders does not want the budget office to quantify exactly how long patients might have to wait for care under his approach.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Hundreds of Billions in Unmet Care Needs<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>From the right, Mercatus Center scholar Chuck Blahous spent part of his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.budget.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/Charles%20Blahous%20-%20Witness%20Testimony%20-%20US%20Senate%20Budget%20Committee.pdf\">testimony<\/a> dissecting how CBO\u2019s work provided some estimates of potential unmet demand within the health-care system. In the CBO scenario that most closely resembled the single-payer system Blahous modeled in 2018, Blahous noted CBO\u2019s conclusion that \u201c$254 billion of this new demand for health care would simply go unmet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another hypothetical example CBO examined\u2014one that Sanders said during the hearing most closely resembled the parameters of his bill\u2014featured even more unmet demand for care. In this example, which would see the federal government providing low reimbursements to doctors and hospitals, while making cost-sharing (e.g., co-payments, deductibles, etc.) virtually non-existent for patients, Blahous highlighted how \u201cCBO found that the majority of additional demand ($319 billion out of $591 billion) would go unmet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the accuracy of CBO\u2019s estimates depends in no small part on the accuracy of its assumptions. Blahous raised the possibility that a single-payer system could achieve as much in the way of administrative savings as the budget office believes. And his position has a logic about it; after all, how often has more government involvement reduced bureaucracy?<\/p>\n<p>Blahous found that, if half of nurses\u2019 potential administrative reductions went unrealized\u2014that is, if single-payer reduced their paperwork burden by only 40 percent, instead of the 80 percent CBO claims\u2014then \u201cover 97% of the additional physician and hospital services sought under [single payer] wouldn\u2019t be delivered.\u201d In other words, practically all of the additional demand for \u201cfree\u201d health care would go unmet.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Rationing a Feature, Not a Bug?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>One of the witnesses supporting single-payer implicitly agreed with the gist of Blahous\u2019 analysis. Harvard Medical School professor Adam Gaffney <a href=\"https:\/\/www.budget.senate.gov\/download\/adam-gaffney-testimony\">criticized<\/a> the CBO model, because \u201cit errs in contextualizing constrained increases in use as unmet demand rather than salubrious reductions in the large amounts of unnecessary and even harmful care that are currently delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Translation: Yes, you may have to wait months for a knee operation, or a heart transplant\u2014but you\u2019re reducing \u201cunnecessary\u201d care in the process!<\/p>\n<p>Sarcasm aside, Gaffney and people like him say they can eliminate the wasteful spending\u2014and <em>only<\/em> the wasteful spending\u2014within the health-care system. Such a feat seems as likely as pulling out all the green M&#038;Ms (e.g., the \u201cwasteful\u201d care) from a jar, while leaving all pieces of candy with other colors (e.g., the necessary care) completely untouched.<\/p>\n<p>As much as it makes sense to eliminate wasteful care, the idea that any health system, let alone one run by the federal government, can eliminate only wasteful care with no adverse consequences seems fanciful.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Delusions of Grandeur<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Then again, the entire movement for single-payer seems marked by flights of fancy. Another witness at the hearing, Abdul El-Sayed, included the following characterization of single-payer in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.budget.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/Abdul%20El-Sayed%20-%20Witness%20Testimony%20-%20US%20Senate%20Budget%20Committee.pdf\">testimony<\/a>: \u201cA single solution for all our health care problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This kind of statement is as dishonest as it is embarrassing. No one proposal, no matter how big or sweeping, could presume to solve all the problems within the more than $4 trillion health-care sector. I would never presuppose that any single conservative policy proposal could solve all the country\u2019s problems, and not just because I believe that government can\u2019t solve all the country\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n<p>While some may try to deny it, the Senate budget hearing illustrated one of the prime downsides of single payer\u2014waiting lines for, and rationing of, care. I only hope that I never live long enough to see these predictions of the impact of socialized medicine in the United States come to reality.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1645720020\">The Case Against Single Payer<\/a>.&#8221; He is on Twitter: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/chrisjacobshc\">@chrisjacobsHC<\/a>. Previously he was a senior health policy analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a senior policy analyst in The Heritage Foundation\u2019s Center for Health Policy Studies, and a senior policy analyst with the Joint Economic Committee\u2019s Senate Republican staff. During the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, Jacobs was a policy adviser for the House Republican Conference under then-Chairman Mike Pence. In the first two years of the law\u2019s implementation, he was a health policy analyst for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Jacobs got his start on Capitol Hill as an intern for then-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). He holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science and history from American University, where he is a part-time teacher of health policy. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One might think that, given our polarized times, a topic like single-payer health care would yield to partisan disputes. Think again. At a recent Senate Budget Committee hearing on the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1476255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}