SB 840 (Kuehl) provides for a single payer universal
health care system that is financed and administered by the state.
It will replace California’s current system of multiple public and
private insurers, which excludes nearly 6.6 million Californians from
health coverage.[1]
The health care system provides all residents with comprehensive health
care regardless of their age, health or employment status. While controlling
health care costs, the state pays for all health care charges for
care provided to residents by private doctors, hospitals, clinics,
pharmacies and other providers that continue to operate as independent
entities.
This health care system is not socialized health
care because the state will not run the health care delivery system.
Instead, it will manage how the system is financed and provide coverage
for all residents based on a single standard of care for everyone.
This publicly financed health care system replaces
most current government funded health programs and hundreds of private
insurance companies that administer thousands of different policies.
These private insurers waste health care dollars on excessive and
inefficient spending on health care administration instead of providing
needed health care.
The Lewin Group, a premier national health care
and human services consulting firm with more than 35 years providing
analytical services for public, non-profit and private sectors, finds
that several single payer financing models similar to SB 840 reduce
costs significantly enough to provide a basis for single payer universal
health care for all Californians.[2]
[1] The State of Health Insurance in California:
Findings from the 2003
California
Health Interview Survey, Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Center for Health
Policy Research,
2005,
11-12.
[2]
Cost
and Coverage Analysis of Nine Proposals to Expand Health Coverage in California, Final Report,
Falls
Church, VA: The Lewin Group, 2002, vi-vii.
John
F Shields and Randall A Haught, The Health Care for All Californians
Act: Cost and Economic Impacts Analysis, Executive Summary,
Falls Church, VA: The Lewin Group, 2005, ii-iii.
