What Is the Cost of Medicare for All?

Would you want the same quality of service you receive at the post office or the DMV when you receive medical services? This video from Job Creators Network details precisely how "Medicare for All" would lead to health services that are just like every other government service: tedious, inefficient and disorganized.

This video is part of a collaborative business and economics project with Job Creators Network and Information Station. To learn more, visit .

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Script:

Have you ever waited in line for hours at the state-run DMV? Or wanted to pull your hair out at the government-operated Post Office? Well if some members of Congress have it their way, government red tape and lackluster customer service would also extend to health care.

Government run health care has recently been repackaged as Medicare for All and is a big move away from free market competition.

As a result, the quality of service will likely drop and taxes will skyrocket. Many medical professionals have also indicated they won’t participate in a government-run health care system—so you may not be able to keep your existing doctor.

In practice, this could mean waiting hours for much needed medical care or up to a year for surgery—a major problem for time sensitive procedures.

The price tag of Medicare for All is also jaw-dropping.

Instituting the program is estimated to cost over $3 trillion per year. That’s more than the U.S. government spent on the military, healthcare, social security and other entitlement benefits combined in 2015.

Inevitably, that additional financial burden would fall onto the American taxpayer—slowing economic growth and stifling business expansion.

Medicare for All may sound good in a campaign stump speech, but putting the idea into practice is risky and comes down to one question: How do we pay for it?

What Is the Cost of Medicare for All?

87 thoughts on “What Is the Cost of Medicare for All?

    • ​+de357mag5 Yes, since I was 21 my wait time is better because i’m sicker. Are they going to pull in someone with a sprained ankle or the person with kidney failure first? Wait times v No bill… hm thats a easy choice. I’ve been sick since i was 7 years old. i know how the system work here in the states. its broken and its making a profit off of desperate people. disabled people need healthcare like everyone needs water to live. Are you one of those people who think low income disabled people should just die to save a buck? because that’s what it really comes down to is saving for the all mighty dollar. Every argument and all funding issues for research comes down to one thing and one thing only and that is the prioritizing of cold hard cash to buy stuff. We all have our priorities. i’ve never had the chance to prioritize stuff.

    • Socialized Healthcare is much better than a crony capitalist for profit cartel for anyone who can’t afford to cover cancer treatment out of pocket. Where’s the choice for most Americans if their employee just chooses the cheapest plan?

    • +Fernando Romero since when taking away other people’s hardworking money to fund your medical assurance become a right, PAYER FOR IT USING YOUR OWN MONEY!!!

  1. I was told to stop believing in fairy-tales a long time ago
    I guess an entire progressive movement didn’t get the memo

    • +nipnop My bad on the wait as well, no worries. Good back and forth is necessary for understanding.

      1. European Healthcare is not cheaper. Some things they get right, a lot wrong.

      2. Well, all those top 10 things provided links to studies and government data. The rankings system on Healthcare is SUBJECTIVE, and a lot of times based on money spent, instead of quality service provided. Everybody having universal, doesn’t mean it’s better or the best system. Look to Cuba and Venezuela as case study.

      3. The reason of the relevance of that Wall Street Journal Article, is that it exposes Canada’s Government Healthcare as a facade. Here’s another source: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2016-08-03/canadians-increasingly-come-to-us-for-health-care

      Canada’s system is closer to that of Europe, than the US. So we get to see the stark difference in the systems. (By the way, Canada has cheaper drugs since the US Government is bought off by Big Pharma. Another thing to blame government on)
       For minor healthcare services, Europe and Canada are OK. But when it comes to major operations and pre-screenings (preventive care), the US still leads the world. Why? Because we largely have the newest technologies, the newest innovations, and more charitable organizations that provide free care (since we have lower taxes and regulations in general).

      But we can agree to disagree. I just wish people on the Left would understand that the Government that Provides, is the Government that Controls. An example of this is Japan’s ‘fat tax’.

    • +joe smo 1. Source required

      2. Fair enough I just quickly scrolled through it and didnt find anything that supported the point you were making at the time.

      While I agree that its subjective, so are all statements of value.

      I dont think the problem in countries like Venezuela is healthcare. I feel like that would be like me pointing towards some African country and being like they don’t got great healthcare.

      I agree with the point that just because everyone has it doesent mean its the best. I think its better because it seems to increase utility.

      3. I agree that the us has more experts for high skill operations but I value that less than the advantages european countries have. I guess it comes down to differences in value?

      From my perspective freedom is a means to an end. I would be on the fascism train in a second if I believed it would work. Healthcare is just one of those where I think it would be beneficial for the government to step in.

    • My guess is that most of the people bashing Medicare for all have no problem with Socialized medicine for the military-veterans, Medicare for older people and social security.

    • Box Top – I do. All healthcare should be privatised. If you trust the state with your health you’re taking a big risk. Profit motive drives up standards in every country and in every sector.

    • I don’t think the free market and profit motive works in health care. At least for not being able to offer health care services efficiently or to most of the people at reasonable prices.

    • +Borussia DoormatI am not so sure that Medicare for all means health care won’t be private. Right now private companies handle Medicare and Obamacare along with health care providers who are in the private sector and not government employees. Although Trump doesn’t have a problem with complete government run health care and hospitals for military-veterans.

    • Box Top – I don’t agree with Trump on healthcare – almost as bad as Obama was. Trump hasn’t cut spending back like any other self-styled CEO would do in a private business.

  2. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has an IQ level of playing hopscotch while drunk on scotch she also has the brain power using a chain to tie the knot

  3. “How do we pay for it?” With ever-increasing debt and interest payments on said debt. But don’t worry, you won’t have to pay the price: that will be a problem for your children.

    • +Evil Bastard Right. Go to a local movie theater. Walk in. At the top of your lungs yell, “BOMB! EVERYONE OUT!” While you’re being arrested you can tell the police that you have every right to do so because the US has unfettered free speech. Good luck with your time in prison.

      I mean, c’mon. Engage your brain a little bit and think about the stuff before you write it. We do not have unfettered free speech. There are places in the rest of the world with as many (and sometimes MORE) rights that you have. Everything you said is plainly, demonstrably false.

      (And since this is the internet and someone will take me seriously: No, don’t do this. It’s illegal. You’ll be arrested. You’ll go to prison. It’s a really bad plan.)

    • It’s not just that there are so many in the u.s,but that we have the best health services in the world. Most cutting edge technology for medical advancement is made here because of our competitive healthcare system. If big hospitals and pharmaceutical companies couldn’t make a load of money in the u.s they wouldn’t spend billions to develop this stuff. This costs alot of money for us and makes alot of money for them,but we get the best services and treatments in the world

    • Well we have a hard time adopting a more expensive healthcare system with worse outcomes instead of the one we have today.

    • Naturally, someone who doesn’t understand how economics works nor has sufficient knowledge of how the US actually is makes this asinine comparison.

    • +madwtube Nope. Also stuff like insulin is skyrocketing and insurance is still so expensive. Most Americans don’t get their money’s worth in terms of what their insurance plans cover.

    • Report: Insulin prices are skyrocketing precisely because we have largely a goverment delivered medical care. Second part of your statement makes NO sense. You are saying AMERICANS don’t get what their insurance covers? How can that be? Then take the insurance company to court if that was true. Which is NOT true but insane statement.

    • +madwtube You have problem with reading comprehension. Court can’t do anything about insurance plans that don’t cover much yet payers pay tons of money for coverage. You can keep fighting to defend private healthcare but it’s not working. On paper you might think insurance companies would be competitive but in actuality they won’t. America’s the only country where health insurance is ridiculously expensive.

  4. As much as I support free market healthcare what America has at the moment is not free market health care, it’s a cooperative monopoly. Health insurers are working together, not competing, to screw customers. Socialising healthcare may be a wrong turn but the current system desperately needs to change.

    • Also it may help if they put limits on how much a hospital can charge for a night’s stay or an ambulance ride. why is an ambulance ride $500+? They bankrupt people who get sick or hurt.

    • I know how to fix this. But some of you won’t like it, but I don’t really care. It NEEDS to be fixed and done soon because the current system cannot sustain it self for much longer. Here is how we fix it…….

      Our supposed “Free Market” system is not working the way it should.
      We also know that a “Medicare for all” system won’t work either.
      But a combination of the two WOULD WORK. How you ask? By making ALL entities involved in Healthcare something similar to 501(c)(3) corps.

      That’s right, non-profit corporations. There would be several mandates on them which actually wouldn’t make them exactly the same so they would need their own different Govt. number (name).

      These mandates would assure that employees and management of these Corps would be allowed to make large personal profits based on MERIT. Thus, the creative, experimental, and research parts would not suffer but in fact, would be singled out and awarded for those Corps and the employees that continue to push the technological boundaries and High Service for Medicine to continue to evolve.

      These Corps would need to be heavily regulated by a Panel of People, some Govt, some Medical experts and some regular people. If you remove the Corporate Profit Scheme from Healthcare but still allow for massive profits of those willing to work in the field, you will have serious competition for these types of jobs/careers.

      Without the Corporate Profit Scheme, prices on Healthcare Products and Services would drop dramatically. This means we no longer would have “For Profit” Big Pharma, Medical Device Manufacturers, Insurance companies, Hospitals, Clinics, etc. But the individuals that work and manage all of them would still have the ability to make ungodly amounts of money based on how well and good they and their Corps do.

      In turn, the cost to the people for Healthcare would drop to levels that are affordable. The normal Corporate Profits would enter a large pool for those that are struggling to cover their medical costs and would be used instead of Welfare. Granted, these “Profits” that would enter this pool wouldn’t be anything near what they would be today, so, Welfare might still be needed to be used, but at least that amount would be reduced by the “Pool Money” and thus another savings for us the Taxpayers.

      This system would still allow employers to keep and use Healthcare coverage plans as a “Benefit” to lure in the best employees but the costs for all would drop substantially. Tax benefits could also be used and given to those who go to work for one of the Non-Profit Healthcare Companies as well to make sure we continue to move forward as a leader in Medical Technology.

    • The health care system that has existed for decades and right now isn’t as free market as the free marketeers would like us to believe. Many doctors, hospitals and other health care providers basically have a monopoly in many areas of the country and can charge patients or insurance companies very high prices. Many people would not mind paying more in taxes if they actually received needed benefits such as health care services..

  5. Appreciate Prager U videos such as this one, but when you make a statement like “Medicare for All is estimated to cost three trillion dollars per year” (0:51 minutes), please add a reference (either in the narrative or the graphic), for instance, according to Congressional Budget Office, Dec., 2017. Without it, your video simply will not hold weight with those that will simply say “Where’d they get that number, out of the thin blue air? I don’t buy it.” Thanks.

    • You can always do a little research yourself. You know, if you’re going to push for universal government run health care, one would think you would be responsible enough to research these things in advance, so that you could know if your idea would work, how it work, what it would cost, and so on.

      That said, you are not wrong about saying they should reference it.

    • Your full of crap. Medicare ALREADY covers more than 50% of the population and they’re the MOST expensive. They’re the old people. DUH! So you are already paying for the most expensive RIGHT NOW. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

  6. Left wing americans like to point out how well govt run healthcare works in Europe, however they don’t tell you that Europe is an economic mess with less than 1% economic growth, high unemployment for a developed nation, low workforce participation, and ridiculous taxes not only to the rich but on the middle and lower class as well. The purchasing power of America’s middle and lower classes are higher than Europe’s, particularly because there is no VAT tax and the income tax is much lower and in the case of lower income non existant. If you lack proper healthcare in America is because you decided to buy clothes every month, buy a 1000 usd iPhone every year, go out every weekend and throw your money away in vices, etc.
    Furthermore they also fail to point out all the other countries around the world who have govt healthcare and they are a mess, like in all latin America particularly argentina which is were I live.

    • +The_Blazer Actually I can’t go for a walk in my local town without seeing at least 10 homeless people, and I know the cost of living is very high where I live, my views are reinforced by personal experience, not just internet videos.

    • +The_Blazer a 60k USD in Denmark would be taxed at around 50% that’s near the top marginal tax rate , while also with the money left you would have to pay a national VAT tax on all purchases of 25%. In USA a 60k USD salary is taxed at 22% nowhere near the top marginal tax rate and there is no national VAT tax, some states do have and it is usually around 6% and some states have non at all.
      The total effective federal tax rate(includes all federal taxes and deductions) by income quintile is for the lowest income quintile of just 1.5%, the second quintile 7.2%, the highest quintile pays 24.7% and the famous top 1% pays 29%.
      Europe doesn’t have a progressive tax system, it is actually almost flat. Usa does have quite a progressive tax rate.

      I don’t ignore but we are talking Europe right? I could say the same thing to you don’t cherry pick germany. I could compare also the best states in the USA vs germany or Denmark and the usa would come on top.

      Economic growth is a very real thing, it is the growth in total value of goods an services produced by a nation, and if you do it per capita it shows how much on avg it citizen produces, and by knowing how much a country produces you know how much it can consume, and USA has more economic growth than the EU since 2008.

      The EU is a good place to live thanks to the economic growth it had since the end of ww2, and since 2008 that growth has almost stagnated. If it were to continue for 20-30 years, you will be dwarfed by the USA and China, and actually envy their quality of life.

  7. As a born and raised Canadian, I can tell you first hand our “free” healthcare system has been broken for decades.

    Break an arm? Sit in emergency for 12+ hours in agony, because there’s 2 doctors & 3 nurses dealing with floods of patients.

    Need a time-sensitive surgery? Well, better hope you have a time machine to slow down the world – you might die before surgery, or suffer from lifetime health problems & issues from the wait.

    Our system may be free, but the quality & speed of it is like frozen molasses.

    • +Owen If the US can spend trillions on two pointless wars, it has no excuse not to look after its own people. Ending up in debt because of healthcare is not needed in a properly funded socialised healthcare system. Look at Denmark and North Europe. Reality completely contradicts what you are saying.

    • So sitting in an emergency room for 12 hours is worse then potentially going bankrupt if you cannot afford the treatment? and this ignores that breaking your arm is generally a minor thing compared to others unless it is really bad. If you have a heart attack in Canada you will be bumped up to the front of the line to get care.

  8. I used to respect Prager U but this video has changed that. Given that the content of the video does not answer the question given in the title I assume this acts as American propaganda. A.K.A complete clickbait. All the information given were completed stereotypes and generalizations. The duration of the video is not even over 2 minutes long and fails to give even a single real world example.
    Given how actual examples form other countries such as Australia have proved about 95% of the statements wrong in this video.

    I have to warn everyone unlucky enough to have strayed to this video to leave a dislike and hence leave the video. It will only disappoint or infuriate you.
    The same goes for this very comment

    • The video has nothing.
      Medicare for all doesn’t mean government provided medical. Over half the country is on it now. The providers are still private. Just the funding. Medicare does not need to turn a profit for shareholders so it’s cheaper and more efficient.
      There are several layers of profit on medical right now. So the USA has the most expensive and worst medical in the modern world.

  9. Germany, scandinavian States, Austria, Switzerland. These countries and many more already have free healthcare for all, its not that hard. Thousands of dollars for e.g. a few stitches is not ok.

    • +Freethinkers Politics/discussion how does the population of a country make a difference exactly? I mean really, you guys have the highest gdp in the world and you say you cant afford it, meanwhile spending more money on the military than the rest of the world combined

    • +Edi Pires do you know how many taxes EUer pay ? of course you will say let rich pay, but then rich will go to other place and take your job away. it is always easy to ask others to pay

    • WU HAN like I said, the EU is a union of sovereign states, each member has his own tax system, the EU doesn’t impose a fixed number

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