Unprecedented tax increases in the New York Health Act would impose job losses, wage reductions, and higher costs on low-income workers.
May 12, 2021
The principal driver of unaffordable health care is unaffordable prices charged by the providers of health care goods and services such as prescription drugs and hospital care.
New York could make a proactive effort to rein in hospital prices through stronger antitrust enforcement, greater transparency, and by highlighting exploitative pricing practices by health care providers. New York could learn from the private Medicare Advantage program, by capping monopoly providers’ prices at those of Medicare’s. The state could reform the significant flaws in the way it regulates non-group health insurance, for example by eliminating the requirement that carriers offer similar prices to any enrollees, regardless of their age.
Universal coverage is a goal that every New York can embrace. But the best health care systems around the world, like those of Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands, deploy private health insurers to deliver that coverage. New York would do well to learn how.
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