Single-Payer Health Insurance Stops Insurer Waste, Windfall Profits, Saves Consumers Money

The House Oversight Committee issued a report documenting $95 Billion in past and potential health care waste and windfall profits, as well as 15,000 unnecessary deaths that single payer health care and state regulatory improvements could have eliminated.

Use this information when you contact CSPAN at (202) 737-3220 to ask them to cover the upcoming House hearing “Examining the Single Payer Health Care Option” on June 10th.

• Waste from Medicare Part D Switch to Private Insurers: $75 billion. Unlike traditional Medicare, which is run directly by the government, the new Medicare Part D prescription drug program depends on private insurers to provide drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries. A report released by the Committee in October 2007 found that the use of private insurers to deliver Medicare drug coverage is driving up costs and producing only limited savings on drug prices. The report found that taxpayers and Medicare Part D beneficiaries could have saved almost $15 billion in 2007 — and could save more than $75 billion over the next five years — by reducing administrative expenses and drug prices.14
  

• Drug Expenses for Dual Eligible Beneficiaries: $3.7 billion. With the advent of Medicare Part D, individuals who are dual eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid began to receive prescription drugs under the Medicare Part D drug program rather than Medicaid. A report released by the Committee in July 2008 shows that the switch produced a windfall of $3.7 billion dollars to drug manufacturers for the first two years of the Medicare Part D program. 15
  

• Failure to Implement of Hospital Best Practices: $1 billion. The Committee issued a report in September 2008 on hospital-associated infections. Committee investigators analyzed responses from state hospital associations to ascertain which of them have implemented simple proven practices to prevent central-line-associated bloodstream infections, one of the most prevalent causes of hospital-associated infections. Only 14 states have agreed to these best practices. If the remaining states were to adopt the practices, more than 15,000 lives and $1 billion could be saved annually.16

(Footnotes at original document).