New Report Finds Vermont Could Save As Much As $1.8 Billion By 2020 From Shifting To Single Payer

[ProSense]

New Report Finds Vermont Could Save As Much As $1.8 Billion By 2020 From Shifting To Single Payer

By Zaid Jilani

Yesterday, the Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office and the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration released a new report estimating the savings the state could experience if it successfully enacts the single payer system it began designing earlier this year.

Using both a low and high estimate, the report concludes that the state would save between $553 million to $1.8 billion by the year 2020 by shifting to a single payer health care system and enacting other reforms along with it. The following chart from the report shows that these savings come from reductions in payer and provider administration, investments, clinical reforms, and fraud reduction:

<...>

In May, Gov. Peter Shumlin (D-VT) signed a groundbreaking law that seeks to implement a single payer system. But to enact the system, the state needs a waiver from the Affordable Care Act health reform law. Currently, the federal government will start handing out state waivers in 2017 — three years after Vermont wants to implement its system. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) has introduced an amendment that would move the waiver date up to 2014. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Scott Brown (R-MA) have introduced a companion bill in the Senate. President Obama has endorsed the idea of moving the waiver date forward.

Wouldn't a vote on this amendment be a better use of Congress' time than reaffirming the country's motto?

[valerief]

1. But how would rich people get richer? That's the most important thing in the world, after all. nt

[AtomicKitten]

2. Negotiating for drug prices would also save a wad.

[denverbill]

3. Exactly why they didn't score single payor during the HCR debates.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Interesting. John Gambling (Jr.) had someone from the VT business community

on his show on WOR (NYC) this morning, claiming that the single payer would cost the state billions of dollars. John was really concerned . . . .

[LiberalFighter]

5. Who was the person from the business community?

And what industry was he a part?

[ClassWarrior]

6. The cow manure industry, presumably.

NGU.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. I should have that information tomorrow morning.

Please give me a little time.

[midnight]

8. Howard Dean supports the move as a money saver.....

"Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who unsuccessfully sought to institute a single-payer system in 1994, praised the effort.

"It makes a lot of sense, and it'll save them a ton of money," he said in an interview.

Some Democrats advocated for a national single-payer plan when Congress was debating the federal health overhaul that passed in March, but that plan was never considered politically viable because of widespread opposition and concerns about cost. Even efforts to offer a public option insurance plan that would compete against private insurers for consumers' business failed after conservative Democratic senators refused to support it. Instead, the health law opted for tighter regulation of existing private plans, with a mandate that almost every American purchase health insurance."


"There's a lot of smart things the governor's doing," Dean said. "The smartest thing of all is that he's … saying, 'We're not going to come up with a funding mechanism until we change the payment system.'http://www.npr.org/2011/02/11/133657928/vermont-gov-proposes-single-payer-health-plan