Reply #62: Here's the Moyers' URL

[emsimon33]

Please watch Bill Moyers Journal from May 22 on health care reform:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/watch.html

"BILL MOYERS: There aren't any details. But he seems to be advocating a public option that would compete with the private insurance-driven sector, as a way of lowering the cost. What do you think about it? Is that- am I reading his plan correctly?

"DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, most of the cost savings he's talking about are really illusory, I think. And my research group has done most of the research work on administrative costs in health care. And the administrative costs he's talking about saving are a tiny fraction of the potential savings under single-payer. 'Cause hospitals have to keep their bureaucracy, if you're dealing with hundreds of different plans. And doctors have to keep the bureaucracy in our office. You don't actually get the streamlining that you get from having one payer that has one set of rules and can pay lump sum budgets to hospitals. But more than that, we're worried that the public plan actually becomes a dumping ground for the unprofitable patients. As it's happening in Medicare.

"BILL MOYERS: What do you mean? How would that happen?

"DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, the private insurers have all kinds of tricks to avoid sick patients, who are the expensive patients. So, you put your signup office on the second floor of a walkup building. And people who can't navigate stairs are the expensive people."

or read the transcript:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/transcript4....