In addition to representing portions of Seattle in the US Congress, Jim McDermott is an MD, was a practicing psychiatrist, and was stationed in Zaire in 1987-1988 as an employee of the US Foreign Service. The first is a guarantee that patients can choose their own providers without restriction and that decisions made between doctor and patient will not be second-guessed by an insurance company. That's the largest savings of any plan put forward so far. So from an efficiency standpoint and delivering the best quality health care, single-payer is the way to go. I've been struck by the amount of support that exists for the single-payer approach, despite the fact that there has been so little coverage in the media.
People understand it.
You see, I can explain it in about three sentences. Single-payer is a system in which everyone pays a health care premium into a central fund. One agency in each state negotiates how much money will be available for care that year and the specific fee schedules for doctors and hospitals. Patients see their doctors and receive treatment, and doctors are paid by the central agency. That's a single-payer system.