The federal budget passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by Donald Trump a year ago in July cut more than $1 trillion to Medicaid and Medicare over the next decade. These largest cuts to healthcare programs in U.S. history won’t take effect until after this November’s midterm election, but have already accelerated hospital closures in rural and impoverished areas across the U.S.
When the GOP-controlled Congress refused to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies at the end of last year, average ACA monthly premiums jumped by 58 percent to over 114 percent, forcing about 3 million people to drop their health insurance coverage. Recent polls find that a significant majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the U.S. healthcare system and highly concerned about rising costs.
Addressing this crisis in U.S. healthcare, Physicians for a National Health Program joined a broad coalition of public policy groups and unions in June, urging policymakers, labor leaders, and grassroots organizers to unite behind Medicare for All legislation. Medicare for All would establish a tax-funded, single-payer health care system that guarantees universal coverage for all U.S. residents, replacing private insurance and eliminating out-of-pocket costs. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Physicians for a National Health Program President Dr. Diljeet Singh, who discusses increasing dissatisfaction with America’s healthcare system and growing support for Medicare for All, a system similar to what every other industrialized nation in the world has had for decades.
DR. DILJEET SINGH: Everybody in America has earned access between taxes, between being born into our system, between working in this country. We all have earned healthcare and we’ve earned healthcare that’s high quality, that’s easily accessible, that gives us all the things we need to be healthier, to never get sick, all the preventive care things we need. But then if something horrible like ovarian cancer hapens, you should have access to all the best medications and best surgical care and best treatment that’s out there.
SCOTT HARRIS: I think there’s a broad agreement on that in the country, although people with profit-making health insurance companies decidedly disagree and they have a lot of power. They contribute enormous amounts of money in our politics in election time. Dr. Singh, on a more hopeful entry point to this discussion, tell us about Physicians for National Health Program’s objective of establishing a single-payer health insurance system in the United States. And without going into all the incredible amount of complex details, how would it work for the average person?
DR. DILJEET SINGH: The way it would work would be just like you have, whether it’s a Social Security card or whatever, you could get healthcare anywhere by being here. You would not have copays, you would not have deductibles, there would not be any medical debt. You would have access to all the medications that are approved for whatever treatment. That would be it. It would be the same as right now when you turn 65, you automatically get Medicare. You’re born, you’re in America, you automatically have access to healthcare.
And a lot of people worry like, what on earth are we going to pay for that? I mean, not only do we not have a universal system, but even comparing ourselves to the most expensive universal systems out there, we spend twice as much per person. So we’re spending twice as much per person and still not covering everyone. If we imagine that right now somewhere between 30 and 45 cents of every single healthcare dollar is wasted on something that is not healthcare, what would it be wasted on?
Well, a big part of it is profit for those middlemen, those insurance companies, those pharmacy benefit managers, those people who stand between us and our healthcare. And then there’s the administration that comes from, well, if it’s Blue Cross Blue Shield, this is what we do. And if it’s United, this is what we do. And well, and I’m not in my home state, so what does it mean when I’m here in Michigan instead of Washington D.C., et cetera? So we’d eliminate all that waste. And it’s very clear the Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan organizations have done their research. We have the money in our system right now to not only cover everybody, but give everybody vision care. How do we decide eyes aren’t part of basic healthcare? To give everybody dental, how do we decide our … or mental? All of those things could easily be covered using the amount of money right now that’s in our healthcare system, but that’s instead going to profit for organizations who make that money by denying us the healthcare that we should have access to.
SCOTT HARRIS: This year in particular, I’ve heard a lot of discussion from voters as they’re being interviewed. There’s some polling data that maybe you could talk about, but it seems that there’s more open disgust and anger about the failure of our healthcare system than I’ve heard in quite some time. And you’re hearing more Democratic congressional candidates in particular acknowledging the serious crisis in the US healthcare system and the need for new policies. From where you sit, are you hearing from your PNHP member physicians that there is a surge of support for policies like Medicare for All this year?
DR. DILJEET SINGH: I’ll tell you, Scott, I have two perspectives on that. I can talk about physicians, but first I’m going to talk about patients. I’m a gynecologic oncologist. I take care of women with ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, endometrial cancer. It is a rare encounter that I have with a patient that they don’t have some financial or cost-related issue. Maybe they couldn’t fill their nausea medicine. Maybe they didn’t get their CAT scan on time. Maybe they skipped their last visit with me because they still have to pay off a certain amount to the clinic. Literally, it is the rare patient that doesn’t bring up this issue with me that the cost of healthcare is something that they worry about or they’re trying to balance the cost of their ovarian cancer care against their husband’s diabetes care or their kids’ asthma care. All of that, people are just done.
People are done. We in America have earned access to easy to get to high-quality trustworthy healthcare. I think that every single person running for office is having to confront this issue. And the thing that we have to be good about and that we are believers at Physicians for National Health Plan is we just have to help people understand we don’t need insurance companies. They don’t bring any value added. So I think there is, and I think this is our best chance ever. I think we’ve had the most people understanding and pushing back on going into debt and understanding that the rest of the world has something we don’t.
For more information, visit Physicians for a National Health Program at pnhp.org
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Dr. Diljeet Singh (17:01) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. To subscribe to our podcasts, email newsletters, our Trump authoritarian playbook Substack or social media, subscribe here.
Subscribe to our Weekly Summary
