The impacts of our commercial health care industry extend beyond the problems faced by individual patients. Businesses are losing profits and municipalities struggling to balance their budgets as they suffer under the weight of rising employee health care costs. Labor unions are losing the fight to win or preserve comprehensive health coverage for their members, often accepting wage cuts to keep benefits. Those who suffer from chronic illness hit disproportionately hard by the growth of cost sharing (co-payments and deductibles), are red-lined in many states for their pre-existing medical conditions, and struggle to preserve coverage from job to job. Even seniors are not immune to the woes of the private insurance world. The Medicare system is increasingly privatized, in the forms of Medicare ‘Advantage’ prescription drug plans, and inadequate coverage for hospitalization and long-term care, necessitating supplemental (or ‘Medigap’) insurance. Seniors spend on average 14% of their fixed incomes on medical expenses, much higher than the rest of the population. The effects of our costly and inefficient health care system reach into all corners of society. A single-payer system has the potential to relieve this strain by creating a coordinated system that is focused on efficiently and affordably caring for all patients.

Further Resources:

• Labor and Health Care Costs
  
• Businesses and Health Care Costs
  
• Municipalities and Health Care Costs
  
• Health Care Providers
• People with Chronic Diseases