Could GOP Plan Make Single-Payer Health Insurance More Likely ?

I was one of those people disappointed in the health care reform plan passed by the Democrats. It's not that the plan didn't make things better than they were. It was a definite improvement. I just didn't think it went far enough in reforming our health care system. I believe we need a single-payer health care insurance system, and someday we'll realize that and do it (something like Medicare for everyone).

In the Bloomberg News a few days ago, there was an excellent article by Ezra Klein. Mr. Klein asserted that the current GOP budget plan (the Ryan Plan), which eliminates Medicare and throws the elderly back to purchasing private insurance plans (with a little government help) might actually hurry this nation down the road to passing a real single-payer government insurance plan. It's an interesting idea, and he just might be right. Here is a part of what he had to say:

Republicans have put all their eggs in the competitive-bidding basket. If that doesn’t work to control costs -- and versions of it have failed in the past -- they’re sunk.

Democrats, on the other hand, are promoting a slew of delivery-system reforms in the Affordable Care Act. They’re hoping competitive bidding works, but they’re also trying comparative-effectiveness review, pay-for-quality, accountable- care organizations, electronic health records, penalties for excessive readmissions and medical errors, and a host of other experiments to determine which treatments and processes actually work and how to reward the doctors and hospitals that adopt them.

It’s unlikely that the model in the Republican budget will prove sustainable. That legislation would repeal the Affordable Care Act, cut Medicaid by a third and adopt competitive bidding for Medicare. The likely result? The nation’s uninsured population would soar. In the long run -- and quite possibly in the short run -- that will increase the pressure for a universal system. Because Republicans don’t really have an idea for creating one, Democrats will step into the void.

As a result, Republicans’ long-term interests are probably best served by Democratic success. If the Affordable Care Act is repealed by the next president or rejected by the Supreme Court, Democrats will probably retrench, pursuing a strategy to expand Medicare and Medicaid on the way toward a single-payer system. That approach has, for them, two advantages that will loom quite large after the experience of the Affordable Care Act: It can be passed with 51 votes in the Senate through the budget reconciliation process, and it’s indisputably constitutional.

I urge you to go read Klein's entire article at Bloomberg News.