'Socialize' New York's health system? Hmmm.

(Page 2 of 3)
Back to the Working Families Party’s push for a single-payer system. The WFP is touting a 2013 bill proposed by New York State Sen. Bill Perkins and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, both New York City Democrats, that would do away with private health insurance and create a single-payer system managed by New York state.

“Health care should be a right, not a privilege. Coverage should be driven by the needs of patients, not insurance companies and stockholders,” Gottfried noted in a news release last year. “You and your doctor work to keep you healthy. New York will pay the bill.”

Under the new system, titled New York Health, Perkins said, “no one would have to give up their preferred doctors or other providers. Instead of individuals and employers paying high premiums, deductibles and co-pays, the coverage would be funded through a graduated tax on income, based on ability to pay. New Yorkers would be covered for all medically necessary services, including primary, preventive and specialist care, hospitalizations, mental health, reproductive health, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs.”

Vermont is already moving toward a socialized insurance system, called Green Mountain Care, which was signed into law in 2011 and will take effect in 2017. Vermont’s efforts to create a “Canadian-style,” single-payer insurance plan, which would override the new federal system mandated by the Affordable Care Act of 2010, has received little play in the popular press. On the Brookings Institute website, Darshak Sanghavi, managing director of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform, and Sarah Bleiberg, a research assistant at the center, recently published an assessment of Vermont’s soon-to-be socialized insurance system.

“Vermont has committed to an innovative path, even though much is still up in the air as to what Green Mountain Care will actually look like in 2017,” Sanghavi and Bleiberg wrote. “One thing is clear: The rest of the country will be watching Vermont’s success or failure closely.”

Perhaps.
Page 2 / 3