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Democrats’ New Single-Payer Bill Would Destroy Everything Good About Your Health Care

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Some might think that, having embraced socialism and taking away the health coverage of millions of Americans, the Democratic Party couldn’t move further to the left. Think again.

House Democrats introduced their single-payer bill on Wednesday, and claimed that it’s a “significantly different” bill compared to versions introduced in prior Congresses. It definitely meets that definition—because, believe it or not, it’s gotten significantly worse.

A document comparing this year’s version to the single-payer bill introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) last Congress clearly delineates the major changes between them. Below please find a preliminary review of the bad, ugly, and even uglier points of the bill. The only “good” news about the legislation: It doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of passage in the current Congress.

What Remains

Abolition of Medicare—and Most Other Insurance Coverage: As I noted last year, the bill would still eliminate the current Medicare program, by prohibiting Title XVIII of the Social Security Act from paying for any service (Section 901(a)(1)(A)) and liquidating the current Medicare trust funds (Section 701(d)). Likewise, the bill would eliminate the existing insurance coverage of all but the 2.2 million who receive care from the Indian Health Service and the 9.3 million enrolled veterans receiving care from the Veterans Administration.

Taxpayer Funding of Abortion: As before, Section 701(b)(3) of the bill contains provisions prohibiting “any other provision of law…restricting the use of federal funds for any reproductive health service” from applying to the single-payer system. This language would put the single-payer system outside the scope of the Hyde Amendment, thereby permitting taxpayer funding for all abortions.

Lack of Accountability: As with the prior bill, the legislation would give massive amounts of power to bureaucrats within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). For instance, the legislation would establish new regional directors of the single-payer system—none of whom would be subject to Senate confirmation.

However, because the revised bill would give more power to the federal government than the prior version contemplates, it thereby gives more authority to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats. Even as the revised bill increased the federal government’s power, it included virtually no new provisions allowing Congress to oversee or restrain that authority.

What Lawmakers Added

More Spending: Section 204 of the new bill federalizes the provision of long-term supports and services as part of the single-payer benefit package. Prior versions of the bill had retained those services as part of the Medicaid program, implemented by states with matching funds from the federal government.

In addition, the revised bill eliminated language in Section 202(b) of the Sanders legislation, which permitted co-payments for prescription drugs to encourage the use of generics. With the co-payments (capped at an annual maximum of $200 in the Sanders bill from last Congress) eliminated, the bill envisions the federal government providing all health services without cost-sharing. This change, coupled with the federalization of long-term supports and services, will result in increased spending—as more people demand “free” health care.

Faster Elimination of Private Coverage: Rather than envisioning a four-year transition to the single-payer system, the revised bill would eliminate all private health insurance within a two-year period. Over and above the myriad philosophical concerns associated with single-payer health care, this accelerated transition period raises obvious questions about whether the new system could get up and running so quickly. After all, Obamacare had an implementation period of nearly four years—yet healthcare.gov failed miserably during its initial launch phase.

Road to Rationing: For many medical facilities, the revised bill would eliminate fee-for-service payment. Whereas Section 611 of the prior bill instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to replicate the existing Medicare fee schedule to pay all providers, the new bill would implement global budgets for hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, qualified health centers, home health agencies, and dialysis facilities. (Section 612 of the new bill sets up a different fee schedule for independent doctors and other providers.)

In theory, moving away from a fee-for-service method of paying medical providers would eliminate their incentive to perform more procedures—a worthy goal. But in practice, global budgets could also lead to de facto rationing, as hospitals that exceed their budgets might have to stop providing care to patients—just as under-funding within Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has led to chronic hospital overcrowding.

Compensation Caps: Section 611(b)(5) of the new bill would limit “compensation costs for any employee or any contractor or any subcontractor employee of an institutional provider receiving global budgets,” by applying existing pay restrictions on government contractors to hospitals and facilities in the single-payer program. These restrictions might lead some to wonder whether hospitals could truly be considered independent entities, or merely an arm of the state.

Effective Abolition of For-Profit Medicine: Section 614(a) of the revised bill states that “payments to providers…may not take into account…or be used by a provider for” marketing; “the profit or net revenue of the provider, or increasing the profit or net revenue of the provider;” any type of incentive payment—“including any value-based payment;” and political contributions prohibited by government contractors.

But the government system would provide nearly all care to most if not all Americans—patients and doctors can opt out under very limited circumstances (and compared to earlier versions, the revised bill would impose additional restrictions on people who have the temerity to do so). As a result, the bill would effectively abolish for-profit hospitals, medical clinics, and physician practices.

Liberals would argue that eliminating the profit motive will encourage doctors to provide better care, by focusing on patients rather than ways to enrich themselves. But the profit motive also encourages individuals to invest in health care—as opposed to other sectors of the economy—by allowing them to recover a return on their investment.

Effective Elimination of Patents: Section 616(c)(1) of the bill states that “if the manufacturer of a covered pharmaceutical, medical supply, medical technology, or medically necessary assistive equipment refuses to negotiation a reasonable price, the Secretary shall waive or void any government-granted exclusivities with respect to such drug or product,” and shall allow other companies to manufacture the product. By allowing the federal government to march in on a whim and seize a company’s intellectual property, the bill would discourage individuals from investing in such intellectual property in the first place.

“Reasonable” Prices and Rationing: As noted above, Section 616 of the bill requires HHS to determine when the prices of drugs and medical devices are “not reasonable,” by taking into account among other things “the therapeutic value of the drug or product, including cost-effectiveness and comparative effectiveness.” This provision could lead to the federal government denying patients access to drugs deemed too expensive, as occurs currently within Britain’s National Health Service.