Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) thinks Medicare for all will solve all of our healthcare woes. But the truth is that it may be catastrophic.
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Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, can't stop talking about Medicare For All which he says will finally solve all of America's health insurance problems.
In fact, creating a national single-payer plan is a truly terrible idea that will likely bankrupt the country, drive down the rate of health-care innovation, AND not really improve health outcomes.
Established in the late 1960s, Medicare is the nation's health-insurance program for people 65 and over. It is a single-payer system—the government pays participating service providers–and it's also the single biggest driver of the national debt. The taxes levied to pay for the program don't come anywhere close to covering its costs and the number of beneficiaries is expected to grow massively over the coming decade. Payroll taxes and premiums paid by beneficiaries pay for less than half the program's costs, which are expected to double from $700 billion per year to almost $1.4 trillion.
Sanders has proposed a 7.5 percent payroll tax and a new 4 percent tax on income to pay for his plan, but it's not at all clear that such hefty new taxes would come close to covering its costs, which are unknown. This much we know: His home state of Vermont pulled the plug on a less generous universal plan after it became clear that an 11.5 percent payroll tax and a 9 percent income tax wouldn't cover costs.
For all the problems with the U.S. health care system, it sets the pace for innovation and new treatment options in a way that no single-payer system on the globe does. That's because innovators can expect to earn back the cost of developing new treatments in a way that's foreclosed by most single-payer systems, which inevitably come with all sorts of price controls that discourage new products and services *and* rationing that reduces access to the same.
Does having health insurance mean you'll be healthier? That's the implicit promise of Bernie Sanders' Medicare For All program—and Obamacare too. But surprisingly, the evidence for this is thinner than you might think. The two big studies on the link between having insurance and actual health—one conducted by the Rand Corporation and one by the state of Oregon—suggest that merely having insurance doesn't lead to better outcomes. Having insurance can relieve financial and emotional stress, but it's not exactly clear that it will leave you physically better off.
All of which makes the case against expanding Medicare to all. If single-payer couldn't even make it out of Bernie Sanders' home state of Vermont, there's no reason to try it out on all of America.
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@Sjoerd: You seem to know your stuff, so here’s a quiz. 1) What’s the trajectory (in this free market US HC system) of the govt-sponsored portion of all HCE (health care expenditures) since 1960? 2) You say the U.S. health care system is “expensive.” Have you seen any (and if so list them) projections related to Medicaid spending? 3) Have you actually taken a gander @ ACTUAL Medicaid spending since, 1970? 4) What are the opinions of actual U.S. doctors regarding Medicaid & its price controls? I eagerly await.
5) Rather, an observation: If I spend a lot more on cars compared to my neighbors, does that necessarily mean I have an “expensive” system?
@Patternicity: See my query to SJOERD, U.S. health care is not free market, hasn’t been for a long time.
John Andrew right. Even if we ignore the large sectors of health care that were nationalized by FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. Obamacare finished the complete government take over of health care. We aren’t stuck with the kind of single payer system that still gives Bernie Sanders wet dreams. Something modeled after the example of Aryan Nations. And their Nations model of socialized Healthcare. So we may not have a Health Care system built on that same model of national socialism, but our current system forces people to buy their health care through government-run Healthcare exchanges and forces its citizens to buy health insurance through the government exchanges or pay a steep fine to the government for the privilege of not having health insurance through the government. How exactly is that a free market?
@Funky Euphemism: That’s what I’ve been trying to tell as many folks as possible. As you know, they have this misconception that U.S. health care is a free market. That’s entirely false.
I saw Bernie was opposing Medicaid-for-All back in 1987 because of “astronomical costs.” One can square those “astronomical costs” for single-payer today.
Often, govt projections related to health care spending are off by a few hundred %. The 1967 projection of Medicaid spending by 1990 was off by >800%. The per enrollee costs for Medicaid under ObamaCare were way off. Medicaid operates as a price control regime, yet its cost increases (even *prior to* ObamaCare) are staggering.
So, whatever they say single-payer will cost, double that at least & you may have an accurate projection.
Why did you sneak a shilling for big Pharma?
Innovation is illegal in the current system
Supporting innovation != shilling for special benefits.
Hmm. Not a fan of Sanders but Canada Medicare seems to function just fine.
David Sillars – UK public are more dissatisfied than ever with NHS, poll shows
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/26/uk-public-are-more-dissatisfied-than-ever-with-nhs-poll-shows
“52% dissatisfied with single payer in Great Britain. 41% dissatisfied with single payer in Canada.”
And 50% of bankruptcies due to medical bills in the USA.
I’ll take dissatisfied over bankrupt any day.
Actually healthcare is a huge political issue in Canada specifically because of how much their system sucks
Nope, you’re taking both – by bankrupting the country as a whole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ
Just fine might be pushing it. It works but it’s slow is what I gather. It’s about 300% better than what we have now, though.
muh medicare
but muh medicare…
Steal from person A, give to person B, pat yourself on the back.
more like “take from person A to give to person B when they need it, then take from person B to give to person A when they need it.” But it’d be over 300 million As and Bs working in tandem to care for one another. Even what I said is a vast oversimplification.
99% of us here are Person A! Wake TF up! Those in power now steal from all of us. Face it, taxes aren’t going to go away anytime soon. It would just be easier to justify if what we pay into the system was funding things beneficial to life for all Americans. i.e. Education, new bridges, roads, solar power and healthcare.
No that was a society too, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t better way of doing it out there.Which is why we came up with democracy. You’re the kind of dumbass to think not want anything to change and say the king sucks but there’s no better way. Things need to stay as they are. Please ignore france as a democracy, everyone knows that democracy stuff doesn’t work, despite the fact it’s doing wonderfully.
@StateExempt: Socialism, ideas so great they’re mandatory
Bankrupt the country? We got it here in Australia and we’re doing fine. I don’t see why the wealthiest and “greatest nation on earth” couldn’t also do it.
Why does your country suck so much?
Alucard you completely missed my entire point. First, I was saying that 90% is what we pay NOW, but what we would ALL have to pay to cover the medical expenses. And also, “a lot more working class people”? Come on bruh, this is why other other countries need to stop sticking thier noses in what THEY think is best for us. And the Iraqi War decimated Al Qaeda and overthrew Saddam Hussein.
And how am I acting entitled? I work for for a fucking living, I understand what is means to work only for yourself and not have to rely on anyone to give you a bed and shelter on a silver platter. Lastly, I referred to dope as any drug or poor decisions in general. You have know right to leech onto my finances because you couldnt make smarter life decisions, and here in the United States of America, you are free to deal with the consequences of the decisions that you are free to make, WITH THE EXCEPTION for those less fortunate of the outcome that was out of thier own control.
Hans: It does not become true just because you feel that way.
Alucard or at least use the bombs you already have first (post 1945 not a single nuke has been used, so decades of completely wasted things).
Meh, nukes are best as deterrents. They make good scarecrows.
some how it works for most developed countries.
Chavez was explicitly part of the socialist party of Venezuela. More importantly, you’re missing the point; for close to 20 years Venezuela has been moving in the socialist direction under Chavez and now Maduro. That is what’s been happening with the goal of more and more control. Furthermore, that “70%” is less telling than you might think. Since the Venezuelan government can and will seize companies when it wants to and for any reason, the private property is pretty much government property in all but name.
Okay, just because they are pushing towards socialism doesn’t mean the country is socialist. And socialism isn’t just government owning stuff. The government can own as much private property as it wants, but doesn’t make it socialist. Also, there is still capital accumulation in Venezuela. I’m playing devil’s advocate in case you were wondering. I don’t actually support breadlines.
But it’s on the path to socialism with the intent to become fully socialist. More importantly, socialism isn’t the government owning property, it’s the government owning the means of production, that is to say businesses.
Thru rationing and no innovation….is how it “works”
Economics says “WRONG!”
(premiums + deductibles + co-pays + the stuff your insurance company just doesn’t feel like paying for) is SUBSTANTIALLY more than the taxes needed to cover single payer. Have any of you dumbfuck Republicans ever actually had to go to the hospital? You’re being swindled by the talking points of salesmen and you’re too naive to realize it. If you’re so committed to our broken system, why not start a charity case that funnels money directly into their profit margin? FFS…
So fucking true
Total US healthcare expenditures: $3.4 trillion/yr or 10k/person
Estimated BernieCare single payer: $0.9 billion/yr current govt. spending + $3.2 trillion/yr additional after including drastic cuts to medical R&D (Few/No new antibiotics for you), medical infrastructure (good luck getting a new clinic) and we’ll see the same “death panels” the European baby Charlie Gard faced when his parents offered 1.3 million pounds to fund additional healthcare and were told their baby should “die with dignitiy”. Also keep in mind this will add about $15 trillion in debt over the next 10 years as well, which mean an additional $200 billion/yr will go towards interest.
Switzerland Private Insurance Model: $73 billion or 6700k/ person depending on source. Switzerland has private-sector universal healthcare coverage, with everyone buying healthcare from nearly 100 compteting insurers. Only 20% of citizens receive any form of subsidies or govt. paid insurance, which is based on income. Govt. spends about 2.7% worth it’s GDP on healthcare as a result, much better than the US.
It sounds more like you’re being swindled into a bogus solution, when other nations have already figured out how to provide efficient healthcare coverage without doubling our hefty national debt. Why take on a system that’s proven to degrade healthcare quality when privatization and sensible regulation in Switzerland have been proved to work better?
I’m sure lots of Republicans have experienced single payer through the Veteran’s Administration and promptly decided they didn’t like it.
StateExempt Almost any vet will tell you it’s garbage and used as a last resort.
All lies!..47 trillion compared with 32 trillion for medicare for all. You do the math.
Dagooch23
Citation
innovation speed and quality? You mean like how medicines aren’t developed in hospitals but by scientists in laboratory settings who have been doing what they do anyway? I fail to understand your question, Thanatos. What was the point of it?
Zomgtforly yeah, it’s almost like people who develop medication get paid separately from the ones who distribute it. Funny that.
This some propaganda bullshit, you could easily pay for all health costs and public colleges by just reducing our defense spending, raising the corporate tax rate and closing the tax loopholes and reigning in off shore tax havens.
First of all, defense spending has been plummeting since the early 70s. That’s how we got into this mess. The budget was once spent on defense machines and technology, which the middle class built. This sort of includes NASA and DOT. After Vietnam we decided to create more poor people with welfare, and to abandon the middle class.
Regarding corporate taxation, our rates are some of the highest in the world. If you make profits overseas, our government pretends its 1950, and that those profits were illegitimately earned by shifting operations offshore; therefore, you should be taxed again, if you want to invest foreign profits in the US labor market.
This sort of liberal idiocy is killing our country. You have no idea what crimes have been perpetrated against the US public by the New Deal and the Great Society.
And these costs will fall on someone, even if the rich and the government do dodge the bullet.
@Steve: I actually have the data on this bro. And before I begin, I’m not saying there isn’t fat at the Pentagon that can be cut. There’s lots of it.
Since the FY1962-81 base period, the Pentagon base budget + OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) as a % of all federal spending has seriously declined.
Medicare & Social Security alone, blow the defense budget out of the water (pun intended). In a few years, each of those by themselves (Social Security already does by itself) will be well-beyond all defense spending.
so-called Means-tested entitlements (e.g. Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, LIHEAP, etc. ) since FY1962-81 have grown several times faster than the federal budget en masse & it’s closing in on defense spending.
SO-called Mandatory Spending (which comprises all entitlement spending & lot of other items) is roughly 2/3 of the entire budget now, it was <1/2 in 1962-81.
SO-called Discretionary spending (which the Pentagon is a portion of) is, you guessed it, ~1/3 of the entire federal budget.
I guess I'm saying you are a bit mistaken.
Upvoted because of all the commies coming in here and defending their philosopher king, however, this video failed in driving the point home like it could have. You can’t debunk something as unintuitive as a healthcare scheme in 2 mins.
Especially not by arguing just ‘it’d be expensive’ and ‘you don’t really need health insurance anyway’.
Haha I did the exact same thing with the same thought process
Every argument you just posed, all have been proven false.
sheep friends Show us then Libtard
[citation needed]
sheep friends every argument you just posted is assertion.
sheep friends Yes his evidence is wrong, but his point is true. It would only help those who are already healthy and only have minor issues. Those of us who have health conditions would get the bare minimum of medications because it’s reliant on cost cutting. That’s not to say that health insurance companies help, but the solution isn’t to replace it with government run insurance, it’s to get rid of health insurance altogether. #boycottinsurance
” it’s been proven to help with financial stress, and emotional stress but no evidence it makes you healthier”…….wtf?
sheep friends
Isn’t less stress good for your health though?
It ain’t gonna stop you from getting cancer or diabetes.
Well this vid triggered some bernie bros.
Not really. The arguments are pretty weak. If this is the best reason can do we’ll get single payer within the next decade. Try harder guys.
Thanatos Hahaha, wow bro you totally got those guys lolol. So clever. That’ll show them. Zing!
@Robert: I actually have the data on this bro. And before I begin, I’m not saying there isn’t fat at the Pentagon that can be cut. There’s lots of it.
Since the FY1962-81 base period, the Pentagon base budget + OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) as a % of all federal spending has seriously declined.
Medicare & Social Security alone, blow the defense budget out of the water (pun intended). In a few years, each of those by themselves (Social Security already does by itself) will be well-beyond all defense spending.
so-called Means-tested entitlements (e.g. Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, LIHEAP, etc. ) since FY1962-81 have grown several times faster than the federal budget en masse & it’s closing in on defense spending.
SO-called Mandatory Spending (which comprises all entitlement spending & lot of other items) is roughly 2/3 of the entire budget now, it was <1/2 in 1962-81.
SO-called Discretionary spending (which the Pentagon is a portion of) is, you guessed it, ~1/3 of the entire federal budget.
I guess I'm saying you are a bit mistaken. I reposted this a few times because some of Bernie's autistics are repeating talking points about defense spending & finding enough money for pie-in-the-sky Medicaid-for-all.
Good luck Robert!
unsub
Zack Nemo ha white guilt paul
Bye Felicia
So long, comrade
Sorry but this was a gigantic strawman. It’s pretending to be concerned with “bankrupting the country” but isn’t addressing military spending at all, and it’s pretending to debunk the very idea of single payer, but doesn’t reference all the advanced nations that have implemented and thrived with it.
+WootFacePalm I don’t disagree. We can address more than one thing at a time can’t we? My point stand, tho. If you’re taking a principled stand against bankrupting the country you can’t just do it selectively without being a hypocrite. And the people doing it around this issue don’t seem to think the same about other federally funded ventures.
Andrés Gómez military spending is only around 15% of the budget. Medicare and Medicaid is the vast majority. Medicare and Medicaid should be eliminated completely
Andres Gomez: I myself am an opponent of military interventionism, but not military spending to strengthen our arsenal. The reason most libertarians and right wingers in general are okay with military spending is because of our conception of the role of Government. The government’s only role should be to provide defense against antagonists of our natural rights (negative rights). The left wing has magnified government’s role in providing positive rights aka entitlements. It is reasonable to demand that we first get rid of any form of redistribution related policy and then talk about military. Contrary to popular belief far more right wing voters prefer military non-interventionism.
You pay so much for medical care because of your system. It does not have to be like that, but this is what you get for going full on commercial. When pasients are no longer that, but instead dollar bills of course it will cost you. You could get more for less.
Kim Steffen Johnsen you’re a fucking moron. How is our system full on commercial when we have Medicare and Medicaid??
just why do so many leftists/progs think single payer is such a grand idea? VT tried it, it failed. California wanted to try it but even the Statists in CA could not wish away the math of THAT idea and shelved the project.
You know the numbers are ugly if California Dems are scared of it.
Charles Temm obamacare is an individual mandate system which was originally a right wing idea. The Heritage Foundation use to write policy papers about it. It’s the system Mitt Romney implemented in Massachusetts. Richard Nixon, Newt Gingrich, and Bob Dole all believed in it back in the day because it was the right wing counter to the left wing idea of Medicare for all. Educate yourself
It was also an idea dropped rather quickly by the Heritage Fndtn when the fallacy of a republic based on individual liberty would turn over to the government how and what health care would be mandated. Never mind the unconstitutionality of something like that.
The names you just trotted out for the most part are simply statists anyway, the Repubs have many though it’s not 100% like the Dems. That they think like progs shows how universal statist thought is.
The Repubs are too often simply Dem lite and just b/c some of them support progist ideals does not make those plans smell any better.
Anyway, please educate yourself on the subject matter b4 telling others to do so. ObamaCare violated basic economics which is why it’s in such trouble today and actually has been since inception. CaliCare was worse on an epic scale and the shreds of common sense even some progs have is what caused that state to draw back from the cliff.
I despise California Democrats, but to be fair to them, the price tag was staggering because Medicare/Medicaid would still be intact. In other words, it would have to function nearly autonomously of the already horrific federal spending.
California Dems are corporate shills, they just virtue-signal a lot of lefty noises. They’d never, ever pass single payer unless it went to a popular vote. Californians themselves might pass that sort of thing. Democratic lawmakers, not so much.
Don’t really care if it worked or not….the idea of forcing people to participate should be enough of a deterrent…but its not unfortunately. People are more than willing to hand everything over to the gov’t…..as long as its their guy in office. Seems no one is ok with it if its trump though…hypocrites.