What's the best health-care plan? Experts disagree

The number of Americans living without health insurance practically demands a change to the nation's medical care system, but experts on a medical panel Tuesday couldn't agree which system to implement

The nationally recognized experts on the health-care system tackled some of the more prominent proposals for revising the health-care system Tuesday night during the Salt Lake County Medical Society's annual dinner. For the most part, they focused their attention on an American Medical Association-backed system that would more fairly allocate the tax burden for federal medical subsidies and a "single-payer" system similar to Canada's universal coverage.

Dr. Jeremy Lazarus, vice speaker for the AMA, said that their system would allow people to choose any insurance coverage they desired and provide every taxpayer with a refundable credit to help pay for that insurance.

One of the biggest benefits would be that lower-income earners would receive a higher refund, which would reduce the current federal subsidy formula benefiting higher-income people.

"We don't think this system is perfect," Lazarus said. "But there is an unfair distribution of the federal subsidy."

The insurance would also be transferrable, which would mean that people who currently go without insurance for a short time while moving or changing jobs would remain insured. Also, it would be designed to reward new innovations, guaranteeing that advances in medicine — which are encouraged by America's capitalist system — do not slow down because of a lack of money.

The problem with the AMA proposal, however, is that it "does not address a lot of the problems" that cause 45 million Americans to live without health insurance, said Dr. Don McCanne, former president of Physicians for a National Health Plan. For instance, if people were given the choice of insurances, many would consider price instead of coverage, which could lead to medical bills that can't be paid.

"Underinsurance is the big explosion today," he said. "Marketing health-care plans will result in the purchase of low-cost plans."

Instead, he suggested a system that gives universal access, which would essentially eliminate the problem of uninsured people. For those who oppose spending tax money on medical care, McCanne said that 60 percent of the medical expenses are already paid by taxes. What needs to be better managed is the amount of money spent on administrative costs at insurance companies.

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