Health-care expert: Single-payer system is a solution in search of a problem

Health-care expert Ceci Connolly on Wednesday compared implementing a single-payer system in the U.S. to a “solution in search of a problem.”

“I’m trying to understand what problem that is going to solve,” Connolly, president and CEO of the Alliance of Community Health Plans, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball on “What America’s Thinking.”

“People who are uninsured,” Ball responded.

“Okay, but then we don’t need to change the insurance coverage for everybody else in the country. Why don’t we focus on who is uninsured and what do they need, and how we can help get them coverage,” Connolly responded.

The Alliance of Community Health Plans is a trade group that represents hospital networks and health insurance companies.

Support for a single-payer health-care system has gained traction in the wake of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) proposed “Medicare for all” bill.

Various potential Democratic 2020 presidential candidates have thrown their support behind the proposal, including Sens. Kamala Harris (Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.).

However, various health-care interests have banded together to form the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, to form a defense against Sanders’s plan.

The group includes BlueCross BlueShield, the American Medical Association, and the Federation of American Hospitals.

— Julia Manchester