Single Risk Pool Key to Universal Health Care

None by Lara Jones

Health Care Advocacy Group to Outline Cooperative Approach

(KCPW News) More than 400,000 Utahns went without health insurance last year. A single risk pool is the key to providing health care coverage for all, according to a new proposal being put forth by the Utah Health Policy Project:

"The concept is quite simple: we will have everyone in one risk pool," says Dr. Joe Jarvis, president of the Utah Health Policy Project. "We'll have no actuarial games, no pre-existing conditions, none of that, no cherry-picking in the insurance industry because everybody's in the same risk pool."

Tomorrow, the health care advocacy group will release a proposal it calls the Utah Health Cooperative, a collective vision for providing universal health care. Since taxpayer funded programs like Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP already account for 60 percent of the $2 trillion dollars spent on health care in the U.S., Jarvis says it's time to get real about publicly-financed but privately delivered health care for all:

"And if you just do that, on a per capita basis, measure out that 60 percent, that is more per capita than any other nation spends on health care. So we in essence have a publicly-funded health care system with private sector delivery. We have roads and highways that are built with public monies and built by private companies, and we don't call it the socialized highway system.

Jarvis and the Utah Health Policy Project will begin a series of townhall meetings on the Utah Health Cooperative after it is released tomorrow morning at Shriner's Hospital.

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