Medicare for All: What Could Possibly Go Wrong ?

Daily Dose of Reason ^ | July 20, 2019 | Michael J. Hurd

[huckfillary]

Medicare for All”. Who can argue with that? No more struggles with medical care. No more worries about cost or insurance. You simply go to the doctor … and it’s free.

Why SHOULD you have to worry about money?

There are so many fallacies here. One you will hear little about in the coming presidential campaign: the rights of doctors. Also the rights of nurses, and all the allied health care professionals.

Kamala Harris — the last I checked — was the new front runner for the Democratic Party, at least according to the media. A few weeks back, Harris said we simply have to get rid of private health insurance. Her comrades say the same thing. HOW we will do that remains unclear. Will she issue an edict on 1/21/21, demanding that health insurance companies be immediately disbanded? Will the government simply nationalize private insurance companies, invading their offices and seizing their assets, as in a banana republic?

But there’s another factor, regardless of how private insurance is handled. Will doctors be permitted to contract with patients on a private basis? Will hospitals be able to do the same? What if doctors and/or patients don’t want to deal with the government? Or will the federal government MANDATE that all doctors must receive their payment through the government, following all the government’s rules and procedures?

That’s the key. Because once you violate the rights of doctors to make mutually agreeable deals with patients, then you violate the rights of patients at the same time.

Perhaps you’re callous and stupid enough not to care about the doctors. “I’m entitled to my medical care. It’s my right. I couldn’t care less about the people providing it”. Through their evasiveness and non-thinking, I’m guessing that’s about where half the American population is, appallingly. I would place all serious leftist Democrats in this category, because that’s the reasoning they imply when they scream, “Medicare for all”.

But even if we forget the doctors and their rights, as if they were inanimate objects, what about yourself? What does it mean for YOU if you want to take an offer negotiated by a particular hospital or health care provider? What if your life depended on it? What if you don’t have AOC’s, Bernie Sanders’ or Elizabeth Warren’s connections, and you need surgery NOW? You and a hospital negotiate a loan. But the federal government says you must wait your turn, perhaps many months as in Canada or Britain, where they have Medicare for all. What then?

Imagine if the government passed a law saying nobody can home school. Or nobody can go to a private school. EVERYBODY must go to a government-run, government-run school. Would you call it Communism then? And if you would, is Communism what you want for your body, mind and overall well-being? Are you willing to stake your life on the word of politicians who routinely lie every moment of their public lives?

Do you SERIOUSLY think accountable people considered worthy and competent by the likes of our politicians will ensure you live the long, healthy life to which you feel you’re entitled?

If you ARE that stupid, then I suppose you deserve what you get.

I sincerely hope people don’t fall for it when they’re served up the idea of “Medicare for all” in the coming year. So much is at stake here. Our lives literally depend on it.

[2001convSVT]

Medicare for All = medical care for none!

[stylin19a]

what are the bad points ?

[4Liberty]

[utax]

“No, the same as all government employees have. The 1983 agreement Reagan and Tip O’Neill worked out to save SS and Medicare for 75 years made all new hire government employees pay into SS. They were already paying into Medicare. I say that advisedly having worked for the federal government for 36 years.”

And we both know that CONgressional pensions under FERS are more generous than for peasant FERS personnel (after all, some animals are more special than others).

[Jim Noble]

The good points:

1) Remove the mostly bad influence that “private” (actually, extensively regulated and in bed with all politicians) insurance conglomerates have on the care you get, who gives it, when, and how they give it.

2) End surprise billing and make more people able to get care when they need it.

The bad points:

1) Eliminate price signaling to deploy resources where they are needed (except traditional Medicare has almost completely wrecked price signals anyway).

2) Diverts resources to favored groups (drug addicts and illegal aliens especially), except, again EMTALA and the legal system have basically done this already.

I’ve been working as a doctor for 45 years, the “reformers” have already wrecked the system, to the extent that the damage remains invisible it’s a tribute to the current workforce but as the millennials come on line that will become obvious to everyone.

Hope that helps.

[stylin19a]

thanks for that from your perspective.

FWIW
- medicare for all...who will hospitals cost-shift to ?

history tells us that initial cost estimates for any project ( where gov. is involved ? Obamacare ?) are:
- too low WAGs.
- only a starting point at best.

A startling look at what Vermont (population 625k ) eventually did after they approved single-payer.
- they estimated that their “single-payer” starting point was at least as much as their entire yearly state budget.(was 4 billion then, now 6 billion for FY 2021 - of which includes increases in payments for medicaid & other welfare programs).
Roll that over an additional 350 million people - minus those already on Medicare.
Who pays ?

I have Ins. via my wife. It's a high deductible plan with an HRA attached.
I still use VA, purely for cost,(co-pays only regardless of insurance) yet my wife's insurance still has to pay the bill.

If I had to pay the co-pays for the services I have been given by the VA, had the service been outside of the VA, with only my wife's insurance ? I'd have to go back to work.

Can “Medicare for all” be able to keep and add to those giving medical care ?

I probably wont be around for the final decision...

[Jim Noble]

medicare for all...who will hospitals cost-shift to ?

Within a few years, if not from the start, hospitals will have to be nationalized. They operate as semi-public utilities already (except for the small for-profit sector), but since the early 1990s they have formed a de facto alliance with the insurance industry to keep overcharging for what they do.

[stylin19a]

seems Obamacare tried to lay the foundation for that by banning Medicare from new Dr. owned hospitals.

thanks again...

[Jim Noble]

This all started long, long before “Obamacare”.

To seize control, they had to destroy the influence of the doctors. Lawyers, bureaucrats, and ESPECIALLY congress things HATEHATEHATE the fact that doctors have been more trusted than they are.

In the destruction of doctor’s influence, the hospitals were happy to collaborate, thinking the monster would eat them last.

This may turn out not to have been correct.

Every time in my career I have had some plan or other explained to me that cuts doctors out, I have simply replied, quoting Han Solo, speaking to Luke: “But who’s gonna fly it, kid? You?