Amid persisting and growing concerns about health care costs and complexity, Third Way, a centrist think tank, proposes a health care bill of rights intended to guarantee people good health care, yet without succeeding. Third Way’s plan builds on the Affordable Care Act, which relies on costly, restricted and unreliable corporate health insurance. Rather, our government should commit to giving everyone in this country continuity of care from the doctors and hospitals they want to use.
The Third Way team surprisingly seems to equate “life-saving innovations, amazing doctors and nurses, and high standards for care” with corporate health insurance. At the same time, they recognize that “we are paying more and getting less.” The cost of care keeps going up. More than a third of Americans face medical debt. Administrative barriers to care are consuming hundreds of millions of hours of our time each year.
Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program–all Democratic programs–protect people who don’t have job-based coverage. More recently, the No Surprises Act, helps protect people from bills from out-of-network providers that they did not expect. But, people still don’t have a health care bill of rights.
Here’s what’s good in Third Way’s bill of rights.
Cap costs for everyone. Everyone should have a cap on what they pay out of pocket for their health care, including a limit on the premiums they pay relative to their income and the amount they pay for drugs.
End medical debt. The government should forgive people’s medical debt.
Choose doctors. Network restrictions should not keep people from seeing the doctors they want to see. Government should limit the cost of out-of-network care.
End health care deserts. Everyone should have access to the health care they need within reasonable proximity to where they live. For that, we should invest in more health care workers and make becoming a health care provider less financially burdensome for people working in areas where there is a shortage of providers.
Ban junk insurance. Insurance companies should not be allowed to sell people insurance policies that are not comprehensive. Americans should be protected from scam insurance. Third Way, here, suggests that there is a way to make corporate health insurance so clear that people can compare health plans. If you ask me, that’s not possible.
Stop hospital price gouging. Our government should limit the amount hospitals can charge for their services. Today, most hospitals have monopoly pricing power, allowing them to charge what they will and giving patients no ability to control their costs.
Provide a single health record. Everyone should have access to a single health record that captures all the medical care they receive. They should be able to determine who can see their health records.
Here’s what’s questionable in Third Way’s bill of rights.
Streamline medical bills. It’s hard to imagine what this means in a way that is actionable. Third Way wants insurance decisions to be “timely, transparent and supportive of high-quality care.” How does that happen when insurers are running the show and claim most of what they do as proprietary business trade secrets? Americans should not have to deal with medical bills. With Traditional Medicare, providers file the paperwork directly with the government and everything is paid directly. Why shouldn’t everyone have this protection?
Ban all surprise bills. Sure. No one should receive surprise bills of any sort, either because an insurer denies coverage or because the bill is excessive. But, no patient should have to go to arbitration over a health care bill, as Third Way suggests, even if the process is somehow improved. As with Traditional Medicare, patients should not be involved at all in disputes over payments.
Provide a simple Health Dividend Account. Multiple accounts should be eliminated, as Third Way recommends. But a single account is still not going to cover health care costs for many Americans. People should not be burdened with medical bills. If they have Traditional Medicare, their costs are covered. Everyone should be in a system where they do not have to think about the costs.
Medicare for all is the only way to give people affordable coverage with access to the doctors and hospitals they want to see. It regulates prices and would not burden Americans with medical bills. At the same time, it lowers overall health care spending by eliminating hundreds of billions of dollars in administrative costs each year. Even right wing think tanks, like Mercatus, recognize that Medicare for all generates substantial savings. But, for reasons that go unstated, Third Way does not agree.
If Americans believe that Medicare for all is a step too far, at least give everyone the choice of government-administered Traditional Medicare, which leaves out the corporate middleman. Building on the ACA’s corporate health insurance model, as Third Way recommends, only drives up costs and keeps health care unaffordable.
Unfortunately, even with Third Way’s Bill of Rights in place, health insurance will not be easy to understand or compare and insurers will continue to gouge Americans.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- Majority of Americans support a public health insurance option
- Shouldn’t traditional Medicare have an out-of-pocket cap?
- Government agency finds Medicare for all saves money
- Medical debt plagues 100 million Americans
- 2026: Big changes in Medicare Advantage
