Posted on 10/04/2017 6:55:22 AM PDT by gattaca
Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare for All' is Good for None (and Young Bernie Sanders Agrees)
The good news in Sanders’s “Medicare for All” plan is that it has no chance of passing.
Recently, Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled a single-payer healthcare plan called “Medicare for All.” Sanders titled his approach for nationalizing one-sixth of the American economy as “Medicare for All” in order to offer a template for his vision of the U.S. healthcare system. Unfortunately, using Medicare as the template for the nation’s healthcare system is a little like using the production model for the Lada, the “people’s car” of the former Soviet Union, as the blue-print for the U.S. auto industry.
The “Medicare for All” proposal would transition millions of Americans to a Medicare-style system over the course of four short years, all the while promising to expand benefits, eliminate deductibles, and cut costs. If that sounds too good to be true, it is. The assumption that Medicare can be a long-term, sustainable model capable of absorbing quadruple the number of current enrollees is flawed from the start.
Medicare covers approximately 57 million Americans and is projected to cost nearly $700 billion this year. Revenue for the Medicare trust fund is generated via beneficiary premiums, which Sanders wants to eliminate, and general tax revenue, which he wants to increase. According to the 2016 Medicare Trustees Report, the Medicare trust fund faces a “substantial financial shortfall.” In fact, the report forecasts that within 12 years the trust fund will be depleted unless further legislation is enacted. Sanders’s proposal would place a significant burden on an already financially shaky system.
Another aspect of Medicare on which the senator’s plan relies is its provider-fee structure. Medicare reimbursement is significantly lower than the reasonable and customary fees routinely charged by those providing care. Providers make up the difference by shifting costs to non-Medicare patients. By moving all Americans to “Medicare for All,” Sanders’s plan would artificially set provider fees well below market levels. Payments below the cost of doing business would likely result in fewer providers as physicians and hospitals are forced out of business and fewer new providers enter the market. Providers that remain would essentially become government employees. From a patient perspective this would mean longer wait times, less control over healthcare decisions, and lower quality of care. Think of it as the disruption caused by Obamacare but on steroids.
Lastly, the senator’s plan makes the case that eliminating the private healthcare insurance industry and utilizing a Medicare model would mean lower administrative costs resulting in substantial savings. While proponents for single-payer healthcare cite a lower percentage spent on administrative costs, the calculation of these percentages is skewed by significantly higher beneficiary spending. On a per-capita basis, however, Medicare administrative costs are nearly equal to private insurance. This despite a greater number of private insurance providers, variability in their administrative efficiency, and higher marketing and promotion costs.
The good news in Sanders’s “Medicare for All” plan is that it has no chance of passing. The bad news: It now partially fills the vacuum created by a collapsing Obamacare and the absence of market-based reform alternatives. As a healthcare option now or in the future, “Medicare for All” would be good for none.
“single payer would bankrupt the nation.”
Let’s LIGHT THIS CANDLE!
Liberals will be immune to facts like these.
Like “Kenyan-born Obama all-set to run for U.S. Senate”.
And that wasn’t the only one who had Obama born in Kenya - from the book jacket to 2 or three other places.
So, the question is, was he lying then or is he lying now? Because it’s one or the other.
Won’t matter to liberals.
Just like it doesn’t matter to many liberals that Crazy Uncle Bernie jumped on board with Lying Hillary.
Now, surprisingly, that DID wake a few folks up. Not enough, but some finally figured out the DNC, Bernie and Hillary.
That is the goal, right?
Like Obama on gay marriage, Bernie has evolved as what he really wanted with respect to medical care as it became more politically popular.
Too Late, we are bankrupt already.
“single payer would bankrupt the nation.”
Not Ol’Bernie said — Single prayers would/can save the nation !
‘Single-payer would bankrupt the nation’
Of course it would. That’s why the Left wants single-payer. That, and the complete control over all the citizens. In Britain, after paying an extra 15-20% in taxes to cover everybody else’s health care needs, you can still buy private health insurance, if you have the extra money. I doubt that will be the case if the Left gets it’s way. You can only implement a new form of Government, after you have completely destroyed the form of Government in place. They want Socialism/Communism. Period. They will do everything in their power to achieve this goal. The Trump election threw a big wrench into their plans. But that doesn’t mean they will ever give up.
Cloward–Piven.
That’s the point.
Single payer would be worth it if the deductible was low and no co payments and my tax bill was the same as what I a paying for private insurance through my employer. But it won’t....
in 1987 the US debt to GDP ratio was 48%. Today, 2017 it’s 104%. Just like most libterd M Effers, they want to initiate the fastest way to kill America, thus collapse the economy. It goes without saying and most who pay attention understand that when the economic collapse occurs it will be world wide and in conjunction with a global war not like any other.
Well, yes, that’s the whole idea.
Destroy the country, Cloward-Piven.
Weaponized medicine.
It’s not “single payer”, it’s government payer.
[It goes without saying and most who pay attention understand that when the economic collapse occurs it will be world wide and in conjunction with a global war not like any other.]
You are correct on those points.
Some of us believe this will result in the actual revealing of the Antichrist. That revealing will coincide with the confirmation of a 2,520 “covenant of peace” (7 years x 360-day years) that divides Israel. It has been prophesied; it shall occur. This thing requires that Israel be in the land and at least in partial control of Jerusalem. Those things have already come to pass; against all odds. And then there was the TV series by that name.
‘And my tax bill was the same’
Excessive taxes are the only way to pay for Socialized Medicine. And please be informed of this: when the Government is doling out health care, they ARE deciding who will get care and who will not. AND how much care those lucky Leftists will get. Socialized Medicine is NOT a good form of health care, it just plays on the SJWs heartstrings by saying ‘you are cruel if you don’t want single-payer’. And too many buy into that and think ‘oh, I must be a cruel person if I don’t want single-payer’. Happily, many Conservatives know they/we aren’t cruel, we just believe in personal responsibility.
OOPS s/b
[confirmation of a 2,520 days “covenant of peace” ]
“....single payer would bankrupt the nation.”
Delivery of health care, or non-delivery, is not even in the scope of the “single-payer” long-term objective. Bankruptcy of the nation is the prime directive, “By All Means Necessary”.
That vast social experiment, the concept outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, came of age and for many years, fluctuated between both good times and bad, but always recovering its momentum, in the process becoming the most powerful nation in the history of the world.
The United States has to be proven to be a false hope for mankind, and accelerating its downfall is accomplished by overburdening the nation with external and internal debt, to the point the entire country is forfeit through foreclosure, to shadowy entities and unelected tyrants.
May Cloward-Piven rot in hell.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cloward-Piven_strategy
What will bankrupt us is not who pays, but the amount paid.
[Weaponized medicine.]
Just like Obama weaponized everything else he could lay his hands on.
These things pass right over the heads of SJW’s. Just give them some idiot liberal “cause” to cheer for and they’re immune to any real facts.
That is, until reality comes their way.
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