The widely reported topline of the analysis of California's single payer bill released by the state Senate Appropriations Committee is a highly uncertain forecast that the state would need to roughly double its revenue to pay for the benefit. That is, the total cost of care could run to $400 billion per year, offset by up to $200 billion in existing federal funding for Medicaid and Medicare -- if HHS granted basically every waiver sought to transfer that funding from multiple programs. The spending would also replace an estimated $100-150 billion in employer-sponsored insurance. Funding it would require an estimated 15% payroll tax or equivalent revenue.
That level of spending, and cost-shifting from the private to the public sector, could be defensible, in the abstract. But the report, released under the name of committee chair Ricardo Lara and consultant Brendan McCarthy, asserts a host of practical impediments to implementation, including:
1. No cost control: The Healthy California Act imposes no premiums, no deductibles and no copays on enrollees (who include every resident in the state) and mandates no gatekeeping functions -- any enrollee can contract with any accredited provider and get 100% coverage for service. Payment is essentially on a fee-for-service basis:
That level of spending, and cost-shifting from the private to the public sector, could be defensible, in the abstract. But the report, released under the name of committee chair Ricardo Lara and consultant Brendan McCarthy, asserts a host of practical impediments to implementation, including:
1. No cost control: The Healthy California Act imposes no premiums, no deductibles and no copays on enrollees (who include every resident in the state) and mandates no gatekeeping functions -- any enrollee can contract with any accredited provider and get 100% coverage for service. Payment is essentially on a fee-for-service basis:
While the bill would allow for other forms of payment, the basic requirement in the bill that payments be cost-based and requirements in the bill that patients are able to see any willing provider of services would make it difficult for the Board to create capitated payment systems that would work under those constraints.Consequently, and given the participation of every provider in the state, "the analysis assumes a 10% in health care service utilization over fee-for-service Medi-Cal...likely a conservative assumption."
