The cosmically huge ‘if’ of Medicare for all
The Daily RecordAug 16, 2018
Imagine a world in which the rosy assumptions Sen.
That is what
If everything went perfectly, millions more people would be covered and receive generous benefits over that decade, while the country as a whole would save
Sanders’ bill would move practically all responsibility for spending on Americans’ health-care onto the federal budget. It would offer health-care coverage to everyone with zero co-pays and extend dental, vision and hearing benefits to all. The
Blahous notes that hospitals make up losses on Medicare patients by charging private insurance companies far more. If hospitals and doctors were forced to accept Medicare rates, “perhaps some facilities and physicians would be able to generate heretofore unachieved cost savings that would enable their continued functioning without significant disruptions,” he observes. “However, at least some undoubtedly would not, thereby reducing the supply of services at the same time [the plan] sharply increases healthcare demand.”
An analysis of an earlier version of Sanders’ Medicare-for-all plan from the
Sanders frequently points to European single-payer programs that provide health care to all and spend less per person than the
Predicting wildly low spending levels is just one of the questionable maneuvers required to make Mr. Sanders’s plan look feasible. One must also make very favorable predictions about achievable administrative savings and lower drug costs. And one must accept the notion that not even the super-rich should have to pay a penny for health-care. Sanders’ plan would be more affordable, discourage unnecessary health-care spending and reserve federal resources for other priorities if he demanded co-pays of upper-income people.
One also should not discount another salient fact: Such disruptive reform of the health-care system would require a national consensus to dramatically expand the government that is not foreseeable even under a hypothetical Sanders presidency. There are ways to cover everyone with far less disruption.
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CREDIT: THE