The Mercatus Center published a working paper by Charles Blahous last week on the “Medicare For All” (M4A) bill sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Every Bernie follower in the modern Socialist Democratic Party (SDP) ran to the media microphones to fairly shout: “M4A will save $2 trillion over 10 years! That is proof that single-payer health care coverage in America would work!”
Direct quote from the report:
“It is likely that the actual cost of M4A would be substantially greater than these estimates, which assume significant administrative and drug cost savings under the plan, and also assume that healthcare providers operating under M4A will be reimbursed at rates more than 40 percent lower than those currently paid by private health insurance.”
In other words: “You have to believe in both the Tooth Fairy AND Santa Claus before you can say M4A will not bankrupt America!”
There is no way on God’s green earth that every physician and hospital administrator will sit back idly and willingly accept a 40 percent reduction in payments from all private health insurance plans which cover 180 million Americans today.
Bernie Sanders has never seen a sea of white coat physicians swarming Congress like he would see if M4A came close to passage.
The report also clearly states that federal spending would go UP between $32.6 trillion to $38 trillion over 10 years under M4A. Bernie Sanders and his band of merry socialists could double everyone’s income and payroll taxes and that still wouldn’t be enough to pay for that massive increase.
Does anyone seriously believe that taxpayers would tolerate their taxes being more than doubled, on the distant hope of total health spending may have a snowball’s chance in Hades of going down by 3-4 percent over a decade?
If we are going to think anew about health care in America, let’s think about the “whole ball of wax” in another way.
We are currently spending $3.868 trillion in direct and indirect payments, government and private, on health care in America, roughly 19 percent of GDP.
In 1960, it was 5 percent of GDP.
Why not take all current resources and find a way to divvy it all up according to need and income, and then have everyone buy at least the most basic insurance they need to protect against a medical catastrophe that would wipe out their life’s savings in one week if it happened to them or their family?
What is “insurance” anyway?
You buy home insurance to insure against the loss of your home due to fire. You don’t buy insurance that sends a crew to clean out your gutters every month.
You buy car insurance to insure against the total loss of your car in an accident or by theft. You don’t buy insurance to change your oil every 3,000 miles.
Same with health care. We shouldn’t have to buy insurance to fix every hangnail we get during the course of our lives. We need insurance to pay for the enormous costs of cancer surgery and treatment or long-term nursing care due to a head trauma accident. That should be mandatory; other private plans can be offered for intermediate services and elective procedures.
We currently spend more than enough on health care in America, more per capita than any other country on earth. We could cut the costs of The Whole Ball of Wax of Health Care by half if everyone tomorrow stopped smoking; stopped overdrinking and overeating; walked vigorously 30 minutes every day and lost 15 percent of current body weight.
Which seems to be as likely to happen as Bernie Sanders getting his M4A bill passed. Still, if you want to stick it to the big bad insurance companies or medical profession, get healthy.
You will be glad you did. In many ways.
