Single-Payer Health Care System
- Refers to a health care system in which only one organization collects all health care fees, and pays out all health care costs
- In the current US system, there are several thousand different health care organizations that act as "payers" (referred to as a multi-payer system)
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Single-payer systems reduce administrative costs and simplify health care billing, since all hospitals and other health care providers bill one entity for their services, eliminating the need to hire numerous individuals to:
- fill out different forms for each insurance company
- learn different billing systems, and
- figure out which insurance companies pay for which services or medications
- Current health care reform proposals in the USA do not support a single-payer system