No more networks, no more tinkering: Maine needs fundamental health care system change
If Northern Light drops out of Anthem’s coverage network it will be patients who suffer. People who have Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance and get care at Northern Lights will pay more or will need to seek care elsewhere. This is a replay of a very similar situation between Anthem and MaineHealth about three years ago.
How do we find ourselves at this moment where the biggest insurer and one of the biggest hospital systems in the state have the power to disrupt healthcare for thousands of Mainers?
Why do we have healthcare networks at all?
Because healthcare networks are one way that insurers can limit the amount of money they pay out, to maximize profits. As for-profit corporations, this is what they are chartered to do. It is a failure of public policy that permits profit-driven companies to control so much of the healthcare system. The United States is the only developed country in the world to do so. It is time to rethink our priorities and our values. It’s time to declare our decades-long experiment with market-driven, for-profit healthcare a failure.
This is why Maine AllCare and our many volunteers urge that we fundamentally change the rules of the game so that patients get high-quality care they can afford, physicians can focus on practicing medicine, and our state is not burdened by uncontrolled healthcare costs.
We at Maine AllCare advocate a universal program—everybody in, nobody out—for the whole state that would eliminate this kind of negotiation that puts Anthem’s customers at risk. Everyone would be in the program, with no deductibles and no networks. We would all pay fees according to our incomes and receive care when we need it—the way other developed countries do with their humane and popular country-wide healthcare systems.
In a universal healthcare system there would be no need for insurance companies and networks. All providers would be in the program and the state could implement meaningful cost controls.
Studies done right here in Maine show that by controlling costs and getting rid of waste and excess profits a healthcare system could cover all of us for about what we are currently spending on health care in Maine. This should be a wake-up call for policy makers. They need to hear from all of us: We want a universal healthcare system in Maine and the time is now for fundamental change.