The argument for an all-payer system

One way to tackle the stubborn problem of skyrocketing, variable and opaque healthcare costs is to move to an all-payer system, according to an opinion piece published by The Hill. In the piece, Carolyn Long Engelhard, the director of the Health Policy Program at the University of Virginia School of Medicine's Department of Public Health Sciences, argues that the United States should move to a system in which government, private insurers, businesses and individuals all pay the same price for medical services. Currently only Maryland has some form of a rate-setting system, she writes, though other states have experimented with the concept in the past, and research has indicated that Americans would be receptive to such a program if it reduced healthcare prices. One promising proposal, she says, is the "125 percent solution" championed by Dartmouth researchers, which suggests that the U.S. adopt a pilot program that caps payments at 125 percent of Medicare rates. Article