buffalo Loc: Texas

The US could insure 30 million more Americans and virtually eliminate out-of-pocket health care expenses while saving $2 trillion in the process, according to a new report about Medicare for All released by the libertarian Mercatus Center.

In the report, Charles Blahous attempts to roughly score Bernie Sanders’s most recent Medicare-for-All bill and reaches the somewhat surprising (for Mercatus) conclusion that, if the bill were enacted, the new costs it creates would be more than offset by the new savings it generates through administrative efficiencies and reductions in unit prices.

The report’s methods are pretty straightforward. Blahous starts with current projections about how much the country will spend on health care between 2022 and 2031. From there, he adds the costs associated with higher utilization of medical services and then subtracts the savings from lower administrative costs, lower reimbursements for medical services, and lower drug prices. After this bit of arithmetic, Blahous finds that health expenditures would be lower for every year during the first decade of implementation. The net change across the whole ten-year period is a savings of $2.054 trillion.

When talking about Medicare for All, it is important to distinguish between two concepts: national health expenditures and federal health expenditures. National health expenditures refer to all health spending from any source whether made by private employers, state Medicaid programs, or the federal government. It is national health expenditures that, according to the report, will decline by $2.054 trillion.

Federal health expenditures refer to health spending from the federal government in particular. Since the federal government takes on nearly all health spending under Medicare for All, federal health expenditures will necessarily go up a lot, $32.6 trillion over the ten-year period according to Blahous. But this is more of an accounting thing than anything else: rather than paying premiums, deductibles, and co-pays for health care, people will instead pay a tax that is, on average, a bit less than they currently pay into the health care system and, for those on lower incomes, a lot less.

At first glance, it is strange that the Mercatus Center, which is libertarian in its orientation and heavily funded by the libertarian Koch family, would publish a report this positive about Medicare for All. The claim that “even the Koch organizations say it will save money while covering everyone” provides a useful bit of rhetoric for proponents of the policy.

http://jacobinmag.com/2018/07/medicare-for-all-mercatus-center-report

Lonewolf

I saw a report once that said France had the best healthcare in the world and paid 3 billion less than the US.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Coos Bay Tom Loc: coos bay oregon

The idea of medicare for all is slowly gaining ground. The fight against it will continue till the bitter end but we will be better off as a country with it.. It is the same with social security.

buffalo Loc: Texas

In 2016 France spent $4600 per capita and everyone is covered for their health CARE. The US in 2016 spent $9892 per capita with private, for profit health INSURANCE corporations extracting $600 BILLION or roughly $500 per person in profits that went to NO ONE"S health CARE while 30 MILLION remain uninsured.

It is ashamed that we don't eliminate profit extracting private health INSURANCE corporations, save 95% of households money and provide health care for man, woman and child US citizen.

It would NOT be free. As the article stated, "rather than paying premiums, deductibles, and co-pays for health care, people will instead pay a tax that is, on average, a bit less than they currently pay into the health care system and, for those on lower incomes, a lot less."

buffalo Loc: Texas

Our elderly are already covered with Medicare. That whats Medicare taxes are for. They may need to be increased but eliminating private for profit health INSURANCE premiums, deductibles and co-pays would still save 95% of house hold money.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

You know me. I have a tough time believing any huge undertaking by our government is one, cost prohibitive and two, ends up anywhere near govt. projections. France, often looked at as the perfect success story has a population around 65 million. We have 5x that. I think these comparisons are disingenuous at best.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2018/07/09/choking-on-the-cost-of-medicare-for-all/#70adc17656f3

buffalo Loc: Texas

As Pipes stated in the article, "In reality, health care doesn't magically become free; people just pay for it outside the doctor's office, in the form of higher taxes."

What Pipes, and the rest of the anti-Medicare for All crowd, forgets to mention is that people will no longer have to pay extortionist high premiums to private, for profit health INSURANCE corporations with rip-off deductibles and co-pays.

She also forgets to point out that the "scary" $32 TRILLION over 10 years price tag for Sander's proposal actually saves $303 BILLION on national health CARE expenditures. The media also conveniently omits that fact.

JFlorio, you and the rest of your anti-Medicare for All crowd seem to forget the fact that the federal government already funds 64% of US health CARE costs (the elderly, disabled, veterans and poor) while the private, for profit health INSURERS extract $600 BILLION from the US health CARE system and that money pays for no ones health CARE. By eliminating ridiculously high premiums to private, for profit health INSURANCE corporations and increasing the Medicare taxes combining those funds with the Veterans and Medicare budgets would easily pay for a Medicare for All system and still save 95% of US households money.

How can the private, for profit health INSURANCE corporations afford to spend billions on advertising, pay CEO and executive salaries in the 1002 of MILLIONS, and still make huge profits? How? Because they only want to insure healthy people or get huge government subsidies for insuring those with pre-existing conditions and the poor that cannot afford their ridiculously high premiums.

As the article by Bruenig states, "But even if you take the report’s headline figures at face value, the picture it paints is that of an enormous bargain. We get to insure every single person in the country, virtually eliminate cost-sharing, and save everyone from the hell of constantly changing health insurance all while saving money. You would have to be a fool to pass that offer up."

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Maybe. You might also have to be a fool to believe with the exorbitant costs of medical school that we would have enough qualified doctors willing to work for a government salary. I see no way there are not doctor shortages and or long waiting times. Of course what we have now sucks so either reform what we have now, drastically, or medicare for all.

vernon

I started paying medicare at its inception (1965 I think).I have paid into it ever since,I pay 400 A quarter and my wife also pays 400 a quarter and that is until death.Now I assume that the 15% that are on medicare do the same.Now you say that when you put the other 85% on medicare that haven't been paying anything are not going to cost us a bundle.I say it will bust medicare and just wind up stabbing the seniors the back and ruining their coverage.You Talk about adding 30 million,well what about the other 300 million.
you just want pie in the sky and you don't have any idea about what it will cost.Trump is doing something about these sot of problems now by his instituting the jobs program and teaching people how to take care of them selves.
You don't realize that these billionaires are not interested in anything but them selves.They want one world government with themselves at the upper end of the ladder.
You should realize after aca how expensive that was and how many lies they told to get it the govt can't handle anything that size.

buffalo Loc: Texas

J, I know you know that my brother is a medical doctor and has been for 30 years. He says that with the corporatization of medicine that there will be a shortage of doctors in the next decade. Doctors are now having to play the corporate political bulls**t instead of practicing medicine. This is especially true in hospitals but also else where. Even here at our corporate owned local hospitals doctors are leaving because non-medical administrative personnel are demanding doctors to follow corporate protocol.

Only 1% of doctors do not participate in Medicare and Medicaid and 42% of those are psychiatrists. Go figure...

The way the system was before and even the system after the ACA is unsustainable.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

It's working great in Venuzuela, Russia, and Cuba.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

It's working great in Venuzuela, Russia, and Cuba.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

1. Where did you hear it.
2. America has better care than France
3. France has 1*6 as many people as America, and America pays over 3 Trillion. France is covering 1*6 the people for almost the same price.
4. Do you feel silly yet?

Lonewolf