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\nMedicare for all explained. Medicare for all cost? Single payer. Medical costs in the United States are the highest in the world. Yet, not everyone in the United States is participating. We have 27 million people, nearly one tenth of...\nMedicare for all explained. Medicare for all cost? Single payer. Medical costs in the United States are the highest in the world. Yet, not everyone in the United States is participating. We have 27 million people, nearly one tenth of our population that has NO medical insurance, and thus get very little professional medical care. What is even more disheartening is that for all the money we spend in the USA, we do not have better results. Our life expectancy is lower compared to almost all other advanced countries. But we spend more money per person than anybody else.
Most advanced countries seem to have figured out a way to provide healthcare to nearly all their citizens at much lower cost. And most are using a single payer health system. But just because it works for other countries, does it mean that it would work for us too? I dissect this and answer this complex problem in the video above. next 5 minutes.
Let’s be clear, single-payer healthcare does not mean that it is “free” healthcare, and it is not “socialized medicine” where the federal government owns all medical facilities and employs health care providers. This is not under discussion for the United States in any credible proposal.
The most detailed plan that has been introduced is the plan developed by a team led by Senator Bernie Sanders. It would be a national health care plan that covers everybody, whether you are employed or unemployed, rich or poor, sick or healthy, black or white, one year old or 101 years old, and it would not matter if you had pre-existing conditions because absolutely every citizen would be covered. There would be little to no out-of-pocket costs for medical services by Americans. This plan would eliminate nearly all private insurers, but private plans by insurers would still be offered for people who wanted more coverage. This would mean that Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, employer sponsored plans would be eliminated.
Your medical costs would be covered by a single national agency that oversaw the medical needs of all people in the United States. Realize that the government already pays for about a half of all medical costs for Americans - in the form of Medicare for people over 65, Medicaid for low income families, and Veterans benefits for those who have served their country.
Another fact is that this would NOT be like Medicare, because there would be no out of pocket costs, and because Medicare does charge premiums and deductibles and doesn’t cover vision, dental or hearing. But even though this is not like Medicare, it is still referred to as Medicare-for-all or M4A.
Single Payer Healthcare = “Medicare” for all = M4A
How much would this cost? Well, let’s look at what it costs right now. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates for 2018 is $3.5 Trillion. And this is expected to rise every year. The total cost over 10 years in our current system is projected to be $45 trillion by the dept of health. This is how this cost is currently funded. It is funded roughly 30% by out-of-pocket expenses, 45% by federal and state governments or taxes, 20% by employers.
A recent paper by the Mercatus, a Think Tank that advocates for market-based approaches, estimated in 2018 that a single payer program would shift about $33 trillion over 10 years to the U.S. federal government. This $33 trillion number matches closely with a number estimated by another think tank called the Urban institute which advocates for government funded health care. So the numbers are probably realistic.
Politicians have taken this $33 trillion number and said that this is what a single payer system would cost. But it is not accurate to say that because, this money is not an increase, but rather a shift from individuals and employers to the federal government.
The Mercatus paper actually found that overall total health-care costs would actually go down over 10 years. But we have to be careful with the lower cost projections because $33 trillion may be underestimating the cost. The biggest assumption that Bernie Sanders’ plan has is a $5.5 trillion savings by paying doctors and hospitals at Medicare rates, which is lower than what they currently get paid from insurance companies, but higher than Medicaid rates.
So what’s the bottom line?
Bottom line numbers taking these factors into account is the following over 5 years if the plan were implemented from 2022-2026:
1) If we do nothing, under the current plan, cost will be $5.1 trillion per year
2) Under single payer, assuming it reduces fees, average would be 4.9 trillion per year
3) Under single payer, assuming no fee reductions, and increased demand, the average would be $5.3 trillion per year
#medicareforall
If we take the average between the reduced fee scenario and the no-fee reduction scenario, the number is $5.1 trillion, almost exactly the same as the “do-nothing” option -- Except that 30 million more people would be covered. \n
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\n- 9:02
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\n- Grade
- 12th - Higher Ed
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\n- Source:
\n\nArvin Ash\n\n
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- English
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- Fine Print: Educational Use
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