Study Suggests Rhode Island Implement Single-Payer Health Care System

A single-payer health care system could cover every Rhode Island resident and cut current administrative costs in half, a Boston University School of Public Health study contends, the Providence Journal reports. The study was funded with a $10,000 grant allocated by the General Assembly and was commissioned by the Coalition for Consumer Justice. Under a single-payer system, one agency -- the government, a separate central authority or a trust fund -- would collect the necessary funds and then pay for health care for every person in the state. According to the study, Rhode Island could set up such a system by redistributing the more than $7.2 billion it currently spends each year on health care. The state spends more than $7,000 per person on health care each year and ranks fourth in the nation in total health care spending, the study says. Alan Sager, the study's lead author and a Boston University professor, said as much as 20% of the state's current health care spending goes toward administrative tasks. The study estimates that the state would need to spend an additional $1 billion to cover people who do not have health insurance or those whose insurance does not cover "all their needed care." Those costs would be "more than offset" by the savings in administrative costs that a one-source system could provide, the study adds. The study also says that more savings could result if the state negotiated discounts on medications with drug companies and if doctors managed care "responsibly." Such a redistribution of the health care system would "require a radical overhaul of financing," the Journal states. "These are not numbers we made up," Sager said, adding, "This is the experience of countries where simplified financing exists and where doctors aren't on the phone negotiating with managed care." Christine Ferguson, a representative of Gov.-elect Donald Carcieri (R), said that the "proposed solution is unlikely to win a following" because people do not "inherently trust the government to do that," the Journal reports (Freyer, Providence Journal, 11/21).