Richard Master marked the beginning of his new initiative, the Business Initiative of Health Policy (BIHP), by representing business leaders at the announcement of Senator Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All Act of 2017. Master, who is the CEO of MCS Industries, the producer of multiple documentaries about the healthcare industry in the US, and a member of Business Leaders Transforming Healthcare, is launching the project focused on changing the conversation around how a single-payer system could positively impact businesses, patients, and the American economy as a whole.
Read the full statement:
“Good Afternoon.
4 years ago, I started an investigation. I wanted to find out why every year at renewal time, my company faces double digit increases in health insurance premiums.
We spend $10 per hour to insure an employee with a family, and we spend $2 million a year to provide insurance to all our employees.
So I took a deep dive into the health care insurance industry in the United States, and I didn’t like what I found. Every citizen in this country, regardless of their political leanings, must know the truth about this industry. It is a totally unnecessary middle-man whose very existence costs business a fortune and adds no value.
I produced a documentary called Fix It that presents the case in plain English. You should watch it. (You should too) If you aren’t mad enough when you finish that one, check out the second one I produced called Big Pharma: Market Failure.
Here the story in a nutshell.
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Insurance companies are making backroom deals with drug manufacturers and pocketing the money. Ever heard of a Pharmacy Benefits Manager? Look into it.
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Other industrialized countries get better health results at half the price.
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The way we finance health care keeps wages flat, discourages business from hiring full time employees, and causes discrimination against employees in their 50s and 60s.
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At 17% of our GDP and growing, healthcare costs pose an existential threat to the American economy.
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Warren Buffett was right. Medical costs are the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness.
As a CEO, my job is to find best practices that maximize efficiency. Over the last four years, I have joined groups of equally concerned business people, like the Business Leaders Transforming Health Care group. And I have studied in depth the health care systems of other industrialized nations.
There is not a doubt in my mind that the best way to ensure the competitiveness of American business is a single-payer health care system.
Medicare provides better results at lower prices with more satisfied customers than any other health insurance provider in the country.
Expanding that coverage to every citizen will improve both the health of our citizens and the health of our businesses.
I applaud Senator Sanders and the co-sponsors for introducing this legislation and for embracing this central idea.
Let me be clear. The so-called free-market will never deliver the health care system we need if we are to remain an economic super power.
Our new campaign – the Business Initiative for Health Policy – will educate the public and lawmakers about the economic benefits of a single-payer system.
I encourage every member of Congress to leave their ideology at the door and to work with us to build a Medicare for All system to finance healthcare.”
