Posted on 04/30/2019 3:38:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
This week, Senator Bernie Sanders released a new version of his plan for "Medicare for All."
Four of his competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination -- Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker -- quickly signed on as co-sponsors. They all think Medicare for All is their ticket to the nomination, and ultimately the White House.
It's not hard to see why. A recent Reuters survey found that 85 percent of Democrats, and even a slim majority of Republicans, are on board with a single-payer system.
But public support for single-payer isn't as solid as it seems. Medicare for All could doom Democrats in the general election -- and even fracture the Democratic coalition in 2020 and beyond.
Medicare for All is popular until people get a whiff of the details. Seventy-one percent of Americans say they'd support the concept if it meant guaranteeing health insurance for all Americans, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
But if they're told Medicare for All would require people to pay more in taxes, support drops to 37 percent.
Those tax increases would be larger than any in recent memory. Charles Blahous, a scholar at the Mercatus Center, analyzed Senator Sanders's 2017 Medicare for All bill and found that it would increase federal spending by almost $33 trillion over a decade. This year's version promises coverage of home- and community-based long-term care. So it'll be even more expensive.
Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has expressed skepticism about Medicare for All's feasibility. "Thirty trillion dollars. Now, how do you pay for that?" she asked in a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
Sanders has some ideas: a new 4 percent individual income tax, a new 7.5 percent payroll tax, a new 70 percent marginal income tax on the wealthy, and a 77 percent estate tax.
Voters also recoil once they're informed Medicare for All would make it "unlawful for a private health insurer to sell" coverage duplicating what the federal government provides.
Sanders's plan declares just about every health benefit -- from hospital and doctor visits to dental, vision, and hearing care -- the sole province of the federal government. In other words, Medicare for All would render private coverage effectively illegal.
More than half of all Americans currently have private coverage; the vast majority like it. Seven in 10 Americans with employer-sponsored health plans are satisfied with them. Only 13 percent of people think the government should abolish private insurance and expand the likes of Medicare and Medicaid to all citizens, according to a recent Hill-HarrisX poll.
Even key members of the Democratic coalition, like organized labor, are primed to rebel against single-payer.
Look at New York, where state legislators are considering a bill that would establish a statewide single-payer system. Like Medicare for All, the New York Health Act would ban private insurance and enroll every New Yorker in a single government-run plan.
Union leaders are fighting the plan behind the scenes. They realize single-payer would eliminate the generous health plans they negotiate from employers on behalf of their members. Those plans are among the biggest draws of union membership -- and are often more generous than the coverage workers would receive under single-payer.
It's tough to envision union leaders, much less rank-and-file members, lending their support to a candidate who wants to abolish these plans. Without the support of organized labor, the Democratic presidentialnominee has no chance in 2020.
Or consider a constituency Democrats picked up during last fall's midterm elections -- educated suburban women. These women aren't necessarily committed progressives. Sixty of the 123 wealthiest and most-educated cities and counties with competitive House races went for the Democrats last year, according to a USA TODAY analysis. Only 39 did in 2016.
These moderates will surely think twice about voting Democrat in 2020 if they face the prospect of losing their current coverage and a sizeable portionof their disposal income. According to one estimate from Emory Universityprofessor Kenneth Thorpe, more than seven in 10 workers with private insurance would spend more under Medicare for All than they currently do on health insurance.
Politicians normally win elections by promising to make life better for voters. It's tough to see how Democrats can reclaim the White House while campaigning on a plan that would abolish private health insurance and more than double taxes.
Shotgun Joe calls it a 'choice'. Comedy Central stuff right there.
Democrats run ads that Republicans want to eliminate Obamacare.
But Democrats want to eliminate Obamacare as well and replace it with Medicare for all.
For those wanting to understand the failure path for medicare for all, it’s fairly simple.
You would just enroll everyone, and establish certain costs for procedures. That cost level would be examined by hospitals and clinics, with most then concerned over profits.
You would draw a 25-mile circle around your home, and note all the hospitals and clinics in existence, providing bulk general processes on day one. Within three years, most would regulate themselves to a lesser menu choice of medical processes.
You might have had cancer treatment options on day one but in lesser urbanized areas, those would shut down, and you’d find yourself driving two to four hours to a standard provider. A lot of the clinics would just go to a simple list of treatments, and care options. The chief blame is that the government got in the middle of the profit side, and there’s no reason to operate non-profitable hospitals or clinics. You could still get simple basic care, but those people with problems beyond that, would expect a two to four hour drive for care.
So after a decade of this, you’d find that twenty-five mile circle showing limited options, and getting appointments for specialized care to be an extremely long process. Course, the positive of this....everything decreased in terms of cost to the consumer. But you got less care, with less money.
Yeah what a choice. Thanks but no thanks. He can shove it up his derriere.
Medicare “for seniors” requires participants to pay into the system for 45-50 years to qualify, then continue to pay premiums at a subsidized rate. Medicare “for all” requires nothing to participate.
Medicare “for seniors” will not take in sufficient payroll taxes to cover costs in 7-8 years. Medicare “for all” will bankrupt the system immediately.
Medicare “for seniors” has fixed reimbursement rates for healthcare so many providers limit access, or don’t offer care. Medicare “for all” would federalize reimbursement rates forcing doctors and providers into a take-it-or-leave-it scenario.
Medicare “for all” effectively kills American healthcare and individual Liberty.
It wont fracture anything, all of them are for it.
My guess is all the money going towards private health care premiums would then instead go to payroll taxes. I'd like to see a cost analysis of that and IF there is a shortfall in revenue.
with medicare for all and the green new deal, the collective democrats are making slaves of the American workers. Taken all together what is proposed is a new plantation where Americans are enslaved to the government
Using California and New York as models, there is no freedom.
freedom is the price for living on the plantation
Why would the Republicans want to come up an answer to those two things? They will SUPPORT anything that has those two features.
Then single payer wins.
They don't come right out and say it, but when you look at the ludicrous expectations people have for their health insurance, it's obvious that only a single-payer system would ever work for them.
There is one concept that the right and left agree: Repeal and Replace ObamaCare. No one wants to embrace that dumpster fire any more. The right wants free market solutions with some limited subsidizing, but the left demands social medicine which is a dead bang loser. You really think those Union firefighters Joe loves so much will agree to dumping their government paid Cadillac health plans? That is a big reason why rank and file firefighters are not on board with Slow-Joe.
My guess if single payer happened all of the thousands upon thousands of private bureaucrats that operate the current private HC system will become government DHS employees.
It would make the unions less powerful. LOL
Does anyone have a list of government programs that have been run efficiently and are free of fraud, waste, and abuse?
There are 185+ million Americans with private (employer) health insurance. The disruption and cost of single-payer cannot be calculated.
Which is why Obamacare was designed to cause the current system to experience a sudden, catastrophic failure. Leaving resisters no choice but to scramble aboard single payer.
Extrapolating that thought, during the transition, the American healthcare system will literally fall apart.
The transition from private bureaucrats to government bureaucrats will be literal chaos from which health care will never recover
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