The Path to Single-Payer: Making the Transition

Change is always a challenge. Fortunately, this change is easier than you think.

One of the main concerns expressed by leaders and healthcare consumers alike – how can we possibly make the transition from our current healthcare system to a single-payer Medicare for All system? It seems so big. The good news – it’s easier than you think.

Here are the items we have to tackle:

• Pass a bill legislating a single-payer system in both the California Senate and Assembly.
• Create a financing plan that will redirect needed monies into the Healthy CA Trust Fund.
• Transfer everyone who isn’t already on Medicare/MediCal from their current plans.
• Implement new enrollment for the uninsured, including newborns and new California residents.
• Retrain insurance industry employees and guarantee salary replacement to ensure a fully just transition for anyone displaced.

Why the transition doesn’t have to be painful:

• Utilize existing infrastructure. The current Medicare infrastructure already exists – transition is merely scaling up, not creating something new. Don’t forget the original Medicare system was put into place in less than one year, and that was before the large computer networks we have now, and that was for the entire country!
• Redirect financing. 70% of the financing needed for Medicare for All is already earmarked and just needs to be redirected.
• Adapt existing enrollment methods.
  • Many people get their insurance through their employer, and employers already switch plans and insurance carriers, almost annually – a transition process is already in place within the business sector.
  • Others have their insurance through the Affordable Care Act – the transition process for these consumers could utilize the same process used to sign up for ACA coverage.
  • Newborns will automatically be eligible to receive a Healthy CA guaranteed insurance card through the hospital where they are born or through their pediatrician.
  • Anyone else would be enrolled simply through a doctor’s office, public clinic or hospital upon their next visit.
• Use existing pricing data. Currently, pricing for most exam visits, tests, and procedures is already based on existing Medicare rates, and fair pharmaceutical pricing can be negotiated with formulas that average prices paid by other countries who have been paying lower prices for decades. 

Yes, it will be a challenge to switch over to a Medicare for All system; change is always a challenge. Fortunately, there are already many things in place to make this transition so much easier than the pundits make it sound.